4th Birthday Party

April is an insane month for us this year! I have plans on almost every weekend. I've been so busy that I haven't even wrapped the rest of CJ's presents. She turns 4 tomorrow so I need to get crackin'!

This last weekend was Chloe Jo's 4th birthday party!

Friday morning, we went to our usual preschool class and had fun exploring the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. This was one of my favorite books to read to my preschoolers when I taught for a couple of years way back in 2002 and 2003. Chloe Jo was excited to wear her birthday outfit for the first time!

I had her wear white leggings under her skirt since she has a hard time keeping her panties hidden when she is sitting cross-legged. And, um, what is up with the hand on the hip?

Saturday morning was full of party prep. I love planning parties and doing things like this for others. It's kind of my love language.

G-Jo and Grampy came to help celebrate. Grampy wasn't actually invited to the Princess party, but he didn't want to be left out of a trip to see the grandkids! G-Jo wanted to take Chloe Jo to McD's for breakfast but she refused to go. She thought she would miss the party if she left. HA!

Chloe Jo was so excited about the decorations. I tried not to go crazy. Most of the decorations were from past parties so it was a fairly inexpensive party. It is all worth it to see the joy on CJ's face.

We decided on a Princess Tea Party Theme. We invited 5 little girls (the only little girls we know her age that are from around here) and 3 were able to come. I purposely kept the party small so it wouldn't be crazy.

The tea set I used to decorate the table was new. I packed it up for Chloe Jo to have at a later date. I am wanting to put a shelf in her room for it at some point.

I hung 4 clusters of tulle pom poms. These were reused from previous parties.

I absolutely loved the invitations we sent out! My blog friend (I don't actually know her in real life), April, designed them for us. She did a fantastic job! Check out her blog here and her Etsy shop here.

Chloe Jo's favorite part of the decorations was the balloons across the dining room opening.

The ribbon topiaries are another reused party decoration.

I ordered these tea cup place cards from Oriental Trading.

This banner was a last minute project and I'm so glad I made it. We are going to leave it up for the rest of April.

Fun party gifts. I love the pony wrapping paper!

The first thing the little princesses did when then came in was pick out a skirt to wear. They wore them for the party and then took them home. I bought them on the after Halloween clearance for $.75 each. Can't beat that!

Chloe Jo's skirt was a light pink to go with her shirt. She was ready for her party the second she woke up Saturday morning!

Once the girls started getting here, I had the table set up with foam crowns, letters and princess shapes. They also took their crowns home with them. We had made party favors that were tied up in cups with princesses on them, also, but my sister was the photographer and I forgot to ask her to take a picture of them. I also completely forgot to hang the birthday wreath I made on the front door! I had hung it on CJ's bedroom door so at least it was somewhat visible. I'm such a goob!

 Alyssa (she is from our Friday preschool class)

Cousin Brianna

Birthday Girl

Ashlyn (she is a fellow preacher's kid from the area)

Decorating their crowns

After we finished our crowns, we played Princess Bingo. I found the Bingo game at The Dollar Tree. It came with markers, but the buttons were much more fun.

Once Bingo was over, it was cake time! I always make our birthday cakes and this was the first year Chloe Jo picked her own cake pan out. She was thrilled!

We sang Happy Birthday and then she *very timidly* blew on the cake...sorta. Her blow was lame-o. I ended up blowing the candles out. Silly girl! Maybe next year she will blow her own candles out for the first time.

I let the girls drink out of my glass punch cups and they thought that was fantastic!

The inside of the cake was white with pink and purple marbling.

Time for presents!

I love small parties because Chloe Jo didn't get an overabundance of presents. The girls that were able to come knew CJ well so they all were able to bring something that they knew she would like.

After presents, we played one more Princess Cupcake game. This game was for 4 and up so the girls really had to concentrate and I had to change the rules just a little bit so we could play easily.

Best picture of the day. Look at the concentration!

I love having parties, but I love it when they are over, too.

Tomorrow Chloe Jo will open the rest of her presents from us and then we will probably take her for Cherry Berry ice cream after Bible class.

My baby is 4. Tear.

The Problem with Bed Skirts

Does anyone else out there hate bed skirts as much as I do?

Chloe Jo's bed skirt is just a real pain. They never fit quite right so they move around. CJ's always seems to be longer on one side than the other so that I step on it. Her mattress would not stay put. The problem with her bed is that it needs a bed skirt. It has metal rails and the foundation needs to be covered.

I finally got fed up with it and decided to try to fix it.

This happened a few weeks ago and my fix seems to be working very well!

The first thing I did was to go get my staple gun. I stapled the bed skirt in the corners. I started with the corners so that everything else would line up correctly. I made sure to staple through the seam so the staple would have more to go through and it would have less chance of tearing. I made sure to staple into the edge of the foundation so it had the wood to hold it.

 I then stapled every few inches around the rest of the bed skirt.

I then tackled the issue of the mattress moving around every time CJ climbed into her bed or an adult sat on it. I decided to get 2 rolls of no-slip grip and I stapled those onto the foundation. The great thing about this is that it all comes up easily if we decided to change the bed skirt.

Since I did this, CJ's mattress and bed skirt have stayed in place!

I know this method was probably not the "professional" way to fix this problem, but it seems to be working perfectly!

Kiev, Ukraine Journal - 2-18-1997 and 2-19-1997

*Disclaimer: Please remember that I wrote these when I was 14! I could be a snarky brat! I also am typing these journals exactly as I wrote them, bad spelling and all, except I have abbreviated names to protect the innocent or not-so-innocent.

2-18-1997

R and K2 went with us to the bizarre today. Rs mom wanted some stuff and made R hurry. So I went with her while mom and K2 got what they needed. Before that we had gone with R to get registered. We met Victoria (a Ukranian) and she talked to the man to get us regestered. We went to K1 and K2's to pick up K2 and they invited us to have homemade pizza with them. But me, R, and Chelle ended up cooking it after K1 started it. The pizza was ok. I bet it was really good to them though, scince they don't have a pizza place here. After R and I got done shopping in the bizarre I went home with her. I asked her to spend the night. We went to the gastronome and bought cookies for ourselves. They were strawberry filled and German made. They are delicious. We had ourselves a regular party. She brought all of her nail polish over. I used her silver. I really like it and offered to buy it from her. She said no. It is Ukranian made.

2-19-1997

R left at 11:00. She needed to get bread and milk for her mom. I did alot of homework. I started my Algebra and did a ton of English. The english is really easy. I found some books in this apartment of Russian Short Storys. I think I might read some of them. My Algebra is so hard. I do not understand. Chelley just makes me feel dumb when I ask her though. I started "Flowers for Algernon." It is ok. Chelley read it to me last year. I also am almost done with "Romeo & Juliet". I love my english homework. I really like the analogie stuff. We left to go to church at 5:15. It is a really long metro ride so I started on "When we first Met". In church I studied Ephesians with the other Americans. Dad taught the same lessons as he did on Sunday Bible Class so I already know all about it. Never-the-less I learned some more.

*As a side-note, I failed algebra that year. :(

Sick Day

A couple of weeks ago, my poor girl decided to have a few sick days. I hate sick days and it seems we have had more than our share since we moved to Oklahoma. I think every time we move to a new area of the country, our bodies have to readjust.

One evening we put Chloe Jo to bed and she was seemingly fine. Around 11 that evening she started crying so I went to her room and found her laying in vomit. She must have just exploded because there was vomit all over her bed, on the floor, and on the walls on both sides of her bed. What made it even worse was that she had a red drink that evening and so it looked like blood. I yelled for backup from Russ. He put her straight into the tub while I stripped the bed and cleaned up the floor and walls. She ended up being sick 2 more times that night and then was sick for 3 days that week.

The worst part of the fiasco was that she covered her beloved puppy in red vomit. Her puppy is grey and white so I didn't think I could get the stains out. When I told her that Puppy couldn't be saved, she bawled so hard that I changed my mind and decided to try to save him.

I ended up running the hottest water I could in a bowl with a scoop of my homemade laundry detergent (recipe can be found by clicking on the "recipes" tab at the top of the page).

Doesn't Puppy look pitiful?

I let him soak all night in his bath and then dumped the whole thing into the washer and added another scoop of the detergent. After running him through a washing cycle and drying him, I got him out of the dryer and couldn't believe my eyes. Puppy was saved! He was completely clean, fluffed and even better than before!

The best part of the situation was that Chloe Jo was so thrilled when I gave him to her.

You can even see how happy she was through the sickness.

Isn't it funny how one special stuffed animal can make a child feel better? I wasn't too sad when I thought Puppy was going in the trash, but after seeing her reaction, I know that he was worth saving!

Easter - Part 2

Last Friday, my brother and his family were in town. It was a rare treat to get to spend time with them during this time of the year. They live in Tennessee so we don't get to see them very often throughout the year. They were on their way home from vacationing at the Grand Canyon for spring break.

I love this picture. Cousins are a special kind of friend!

 Because my brother was in town, my parents came down to see us, too! My brother and his family had to leave Saturday afternoon, but my parents were able to spend Sunday with us!

My parents and their grands (except for 3 who we don't get to see). 

Brianna Elisabeth Jo, Granny Jo, Kaylee, Jordan, Brenson, Grampy and Chloe Jo

My brother and his family. It was nice to spend a little time with them even though it was very short!

Sunday was a packed day! I set out Chloe Jo's Easter basket the night before so she would see it first thing.

Next year, I will know to wait until she is fully awake. The silly thing was so sleepy that she wasn't very excited about it. She did consent to put on the bunny ears for a picture, though.

 Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for a photo session!

Grampy wanted one of just him and his Aleena (Grampy has special nicknames for all of his grandchildren).

Chloe Jo had a *new to her* dress to wear. I thought she looked so big and beautiful!

Family picture! I love this one!

Chloe Jo with two of her very favorite people in the whole world! She loves her G-Jo and Grampy!

Sidebar: April 1st is our one year anniversary of working with the church here! Easter was Russ' first Sunday to completely take over the pulpit duties so it was a big day for us all around!

After worship services, we went with my sister's family and our friends, Ross and Tia, to eat. After lunch we went back to Ross and Tia's house to hunt Easter eggs!

I took several pictures of the three littles and this was the best I got. Tell me, why are the older two (who definitely know better) the ones looking away from the camera and the 1 year old the one who took a great picture? Stinkers!

Besties!

Ross and Tia's yard was perfect for egg hunting. They have tons of bushes that are great for hiding!

I'm sure I will be hiding eggs for Chloe Jo to find for a few weeks now!