Happy Birthday Mom/Grandma K

Today is my mom's birthday. She is most strong, caring, loving, patient, and selfless person I know and I wish her a wonderful year ahead filled with adventure and love. She is my role model for the type of mom I hope to be and I am so happy that we live close now so I can see her so often and she can show me the ropes. 

Last night, we celebrated with a family dinner. Mae went home with my parents for a slumber party. Note my earlier adjective about my mom's selflessness, she offered to take her to school in the morning so I didn't have to make the drive for a day. I was happy that Mae was able to wake up and wish my mom a Happy Birthday. Today my sisters and I took my mom out for lunch. 

I hope my mom had a wonderful day, she deserves the best year ever.  

Mae Monday

Sometimes I write down what the kids say to me on pieces of paper or email myself so that I can remember it. Most of the times, the pieces of papers are lost or the emails deleted. However, I remember this one night many months ago that Mae said something that struck me so utterly sweet. It was so sweet because I know what she said was finite. I know that the moments of her physically needing me will not last forever. It is all so bitter sweet that I want to stay here forever but since I can't I need to soak it up every single night.

One night Mae looked at me while we were laying in bed together and she said, "I can't go to bed without Mommy cuddles."

If you must know we have sorta of changed our bedtime routine. Not seriously changed, we still do bath, then books, then bed. However, about a year ago Mae asked me to lay in bed and cuddle with her after turning off the lights. In the beginning years of Mae's life, I would exit the room after turning off the lights so fast that it was like a lightening bolt. I felt that in the early years, I spent so much time picking up, carrying, cuddling and holding Mae that I didn't think there needed to be anymore cuddling during the day. However, as Mae has gotten older there are definitely less of these moments, although she still is very affectionate. I felt when she asked me to cuddle the first night and the night after and every night since that I too was craving more cuddles. So now after turning off the lights and going to put Whitaker to bed I sneak back in and steal cuddles with Mae. This also happens to be a time when she will share a lot. And if Pearson so happens to come home in time to put the kids to bed, I always go up and cuddle with Mae. Another thing to note, during the cuddles, Mae rubs her leg against mine like a cricket. It is her way of settling herself down.

Just a little ritual in our life that happens every single night. 

Whitaker Wednesday

I have decided to try something a little new in this space. I feel and fear that I am missing so many "little" moments in my kids life because I am always concerned about wanting to write something a little bit more in depth, which has resulted, as of late, of me not writing at all. Believe you me, I have about 100 posts started in my mind of how I am feeling or thinking at a particular time about a particular subject, I just don't have the energy or time to get it done. I also feel that the blog has become a recap of sorts (I can't seem to get ahead) of entire months. As we are aware the little moments are the things that add up to the big ones in life. With that said, I am hoping to start a Whitaker Wednesday and Mae Monday. My goal is to just try to capture a snippet of what was said or something done by the kids that was funny/fun/sad/momentous/noteworthy or just mundane.  It also works that alliteration is working in my favor.

So to start it off was a conversation that Whitaker and I had on Tuesday after dropping Mae off at school and on the way to dropping Whitaker at school.

Whitaker: There will be no screaming.
Me: Mrs. Tranoris [Whit's teacher] has rules? 
Whitaker: I have rules.
Me: Oh that is your rule. 
Whitaker: I am the boss. 

Of course, this made me chuckle because who wouldn't but also made me realize that despite having a warped idea of his role in life and class, he at least knows there are some behaviors in class that are not tolerated. 

First Day of School(s)

Mae and Whitaker have both started preschool. We decided to hold Mae back for one more year, she could have gone to kindergarten based on the Virginia cutoff for kindergarten. But based on the recommendation from her teacher last year and other advice from parents we decided that doing a year of Pre-K would be in her best interest. Who ever said more school was bad? Since she was going to do another year, we decided to keep her at Blessed Sacrament. She loves it and we love it so it seemed like the right decision. (Although after driving her 20 to 25 minutes both ways every day for two weeks I am starting to hate my decision and my car). Mae started the week after Labor Day and the day after turning 5. She wasn't too keen on getting her photo taken so this was the best I could do. 

Not at all happy with me asking to take her picture. 

Despite loving school, here she is clinging to me while waiting to go in. 

Whitaker got into a preschool, Trinity Presbyterian, about 5 minutes from our house. (Side note: I had originally thought that I would send him to the same one as Mae. Although this year would have been fine (even though the times they would have been dismissed were an hour and half apart), I knew that there was no way I wanted to make the drive the next school year). This is also the school that my sister sent my two older nephews to and also the school John is attending. He will go 2 days [Tuesday and Thursday] from 9:30 to 1. Although the first month the school releases them at noon. Whitaker was so excited to start school and had asked to go everyday when Mae started. I had no doubt that on the first day he would breeze into class and not have a care about me. Was I correct? Yep. He walked right in, gave me an obligatory kiss that I asked for and was off to do his own thing. Whitaker is exhausting in the best way possible. He is always on the go, is always curious [getting into things and can't be trusted alone for too long], and has more recently not stopped talking about what he wants to do/where he wants to go/what he needs. So although, I am sad that Whitaker and I aren't going to be each other's side kick all day, I am soooo ready for him to be doing his own thing for those times. I also think that he really needs it. Here are photos from his first day of school. He was a much more willing participant of getting first day photos. Also, John and him walked hand in hand together. How cute is that! 

Photos from Mae's Birthday Party and Birthday

It seems like Mae has been talking about her birthday for the last 3 months. It seems that way because in fact she has. She originally said she wanted a party with all her school friends and a bunch of other kids. Secretly, I was hoping for a very quiet fete with a few friends. I decided to go with it and this year we decided on doing an outdoor movie. I figured a ton of kids OUTSIDE watching a movie would be an easy way to entertain kids. My dad and I made an outdoor movie screen, Pearson got a projector from work, I bought a ton of popcorn, made a bunch of food, and enlisted my mom to make "popcorn" cupcakes. The big day for the party arrived 2 days before her birthday. We got the house and yard prepped and looked at the weather that predicted a 50 percent chance of rain. I prayed to the rain gods for NO rain. AND then it rained about 30 minutes into guests arriving. So what did we do, move everyone inside, which you can imagine what that was like. Also to add insult to injury, I gave everyone the wrong address on the invite so I had about 12 people calling me telling me they were lost. (You can't blame me we have lived in 4 houses in a year and 2 weeks so remembering anything seems to be close to possible these days). Even though, it was a total chaotic mess, Mae had a great time and didn't even seem to care that there was no outdoor movie. 

My mom's amazingly handy baking skills. 

Favors for the guests. We also gave each family a movie. 

I intended for everyone to walk to red carpet when they came in but with giving everyone the wrong directions and the rain it didn't go as according to plan. 

The Edwards Family got to participate. 

So did Cassidy and Vaiden. 

And the Randisi's! 

And Mae, Sophie, and Natalie. 

Mae with all the kids. Did I mention there was an overwhelmingly amount of boys at the party! 

As for Mae's actual birthday, she requested breakfast in bed, which I happily did for her. She was so excited and I think she felt totally pampered, which I wanted. Pearson sadly got on a flight for work a couple of hours into her birthday so he wasn't able to spend the day with her. I ended up taking the kids to the wading pool near Julie's house where we had a great time, then Mae's cousins, my parents, and Aunt Heather came over for afternoon cupcakes and then we went out to dinner. And the special thing was that Grandma C was here to celebrate with her the whole time. 

A sign I had made for the party. Mae's name in lights! 

Presents after breakfast in bed. 

Whit wanting attention. 

Birthday blowout!