Kids at Work

I love this age where they think manual labor is fun!

Kaitlyn's 5th Birthday Party

I'm not quite sure how 5 years have passed since my sweet little Kaitlyn entered this world. But here we are--proud parents of a 5-year-old! She was SO excited about this birthday. Being 5 is a big deal to a small child. It marks the transition from a "little" kid to a "big" kid who is now old enough to go to "big" school. Sigh. And being 5 has brought on a thirst for more independence too. I've lost count of the times that she's started a sentence like this lately: "Now that I'm 5, can I ____?" 

Several months ago, she decided that she wanted a Rapunzel/Tangled party. So we invited a few girls over for her party on Saturday. Mom and Jim came up early to start the festivities.

Opening her Rapunzel doll

A princess doll house

I didn't want to go overboard on this party (money-wise or time-wise), but I couldn't resist a few ideas that I stole from the internet.  In the movie, Rapunzel spends quite a bit of time painting, so the party favors were water colors, Rapunzel pictures to paint and some stickers and tattoos.

Party favors--water colors and Rapunzel pictures to paint

And when I saw this on Pinterest, I knew I had to do this. In honor of Rapunzel's hair, I made a 15-foot braid out of yarn! The whole thing cost less than $3 and Kaitlyn enjoyed helping me make it. I hot-glued some cheap flowers to barrettes and clipped them to the braid for decoration. Each girl got to take home one of these flower clips too. 
 

The only other decoration I made was the flag banner that is hanging on the wall. In the movie, there are flags hanging all over the kingdom with the sun emblem on it. I used some old purple file folders to cut out the triangles. Then I cut out a sun shape and stenciled the sun onto the flags using leftover paint. I used yarn left over from the braid to string the flags together into a banner. So it was basically a free (and cute!) decoration! Hooray!

And here are the obligatory cake and paper goods picture. I have to say that Kroger makes a yummy cake! :)

 

Since it was a girl-only (+ Ethan) party, I knew I could get away with some crafty activities. So the girls happily colored Rapunzel pictures...

...and made necklaces and bracelets with beads...

 

 

...and painted a mural on the wall. This last activity was a bit risky because it involved real paint in close proximity to my furniture. But I trusted Crayola's slogan of "Washability you can trust." I armed each kid with a smock, put a drop cloth down, and hoped for the best! I think they had a blast! And there were only a few minor mishaps that all easily cleaned up with water. Go Crayola!!

 

The birthday girl blowing out her candles.

 

The opening of the presents. Kaitlyn had lots of "helpers" for this part!

 

Kaitlyn and Mommy

Happy Birthday, my precious little girl! I can't wait to see what this year holds for you!

Spring Program and Easter

In March, the kids had their spring program. I love their annual Christmas program, but I really love the spring program because it's longer and you get to see the individual classes perform (Christmas is just one big group on stage). Since Ethan's class was the youngest, they went first. They did the cutest little song called "Turn Around" that had lots of hand motions. They all looked so little compared with all the big kids in the other classes! Ethan surprised us all by being quite the ham on stage. Unlike his sister at this age, he enthusiastically did every single hand motion and sang the songs with gusto. No stage fright whatsoever in him!

Pretending to "go to sleep"

Kaitlyn's come a long way in her stage performance. I wouldn't say that she was completely comfortable on stage like Ethan was, but she did all the hand motions and sang...and she didn't look miserable! The teachers had really played up the fact that her class was the oldest class and so it was their responsibility to set a good example for the younger classes by fully participating in the program. It worked! She sang her heart out for the first time in three years of preschool programs!

 

After each class did their individual performance, they all came up on the stage to sing several songs as a group. Ethan cracked us up the whole time. Apparently, they had told everyone to sing loud, so he did was he was told--literally! In several songs, I could hear his voice over all the others. I think he was the only one in the 2 year old class that sang in the group ensemble. Like I said, there wasn't a bit of stage fright in this boy!

This is the only year where both of them will be in a program together at Otter Creek. Although Kaitlyn will be at OC next year for kindergarten, I think they stay pretty separated from the preschool activities. So here's the two siblings posing together for their joint program.

And then there were the Easter celebrations...

Both kids had Easter egg parties and hunts at their schools. I have lots more pictures, but they all have other kids in them (and I don't want to post pics of classmates on blogs), so you'll just have to come to my house and flip through my photo albums if you want to see all the party pictures :) Although their parties were on the same day, I was very thankful that they were scheduled for different times so that I could go to both.

Ethan going after some eggs

Kaitlyn's egg hunt

Sunday morning brought Easter baskets, Easter church services and Easter lunch with Jeff's parents, my mom and Jim. And then in the afternoon, we had another egg hunt at church. This egg hunt lasted about 60 seconds.  Both kids were in the 3-4 year old hunt, so I was fortunate to be able to watch both kids.

And they're off!

Ethan and Kaitlyn hunting eggs

Kaitlyn and her BFF Hannah.

Ethan finding an egg

Ethan's Birthday Party

On Tuesday, Ethan turns 3! I'm still not quite sure how my sweet little baby has morphed into a 3-year-old so quickly :( We had a birthday party for him yesterday with some family members. He requested a dinosaur theme (big surprise there!). I found a dinosaur birthday shirt at the consignment sale last week, and he couldn't wait to put in on.

And no dinosaur outfit is complete without some dinosaur feet!

We had a dinosaur cake and lots of dino decorations. He's amassing quite a collection of dinosaur toys!

For lunch, we had meat for carnivores, plant food for herbivores, and some dinosaur bones (pretzel sticks). The kids had fun decorating the signs with dinosaur stamps.

Here's the birthday boy blowing out the candles...

...and licking the icing off of one of the plastic dinosaurs on the cake.

He really wanted to eat the volcano, which was an icing-covered cupcake on top of the main cake.

And he quickly devoured the entire volcano.

Then came present-opening time. Kaitlyn "helped" him open most of the presents, and I think she was as excited about his gifts as he was. It was like Christmas all over again!

As I said, his "real" birthday is on Tuesday, so I'm going to savor his two-ness for just a couple of more days. I'm making dinosaur cupcakes for him to take to his preschool class on Tuesday, and we have some small family things planned to make his "real" birthday special too. More pictures to come later in the week!

Once Upon a Time...

...there was a beautiful princess named Kaitlyn and a handsome prince named Ethan. They decided to get married. So Princess Kaitlyn put on her finest princess attire, and Prince Ethan donned his favorite pajamas, crown and cape. He looked adoringly at her as they began to walk down the aisle from the bathroom to the kitchen.

They had a solemn ceremony officiated by Father Jeff where they pledged to love each other, be nice to each other and share their toys forever. Bunny Rabbit served as the official witness.

They sealed the deal with a sweet kiss.

And they lived happily ever after. The End.