Pretend Like Easter Was Yesterday

I realize that it is ridiculously late to post about Easter, but I wanted to share some pictures of my little munsters in their fancy clothes. We don’t do fancy around here too often. But when we do, we do it up right. ; ) Enjoy!

Here are the kiddos' Easter baskets the night before. Judah got a truck in his that was actually a birthday present from a week earlier that we hadn't opened yet. Yes, we are that lame.

Eden and Adaleine both got Peeps, Reese's eggs, socks and new panties. What, isn't that what everyone puts in their Easter baskets?

In addition to their already stellar basket contents, we had gotten each of the girls a Karen Kingsbury book. Since they didn't fit in the baskets, we sent them on a little hunt for them. I didn't get any pictures of the girls with their books ('cause I'm awesome like that), but we got this one for Eden and this one for Adaleine.

 

All dressed up and ready for church!

Enjoying the Easter Egg Hunt at church! They all got waaaay too much candy! :)

Is this kid a stud or what? Right? Right?!

Check out that form! He's a natural!

Hope your Easter was enjoyable and you got to spend it with those you love. It's better if we prolong the celebration, right? Like even for a few weeks after it's over? I thought so, too.

Mommy-Daughter Date

I took Miss Eden out on a mommy-daughter date this afternoon. We don’t do this very often, but today was special and I’m so glad we did.

Mr. Bug has been working a lot lately, which means he’s been travelling a lot. This is hard on all of us in different ways. He hates it because he misses time with the kiddos and with me. Sissy hates it because she is a Daddy’s girl and misses him like crazy when he’s gone. Judah is still kind of oblivious to the whole thing at this point, but he loves talking to Daddy on the phone at bedtime.

I have a hard time during these stretches for a number of reasons. For one, my husband is my best friend (sickeningly cute, I know) and I miss him when he’s not here. Second, we have three little munsters and it’s hard flying solo 24/7. I have NO IDEA how single parents and military spouses do it. By the end of a busy work week I simply have no conversation or energy left to expend and I stare blankly at friend’s faces when they are silly enough to try to talk to me.

Miss Eden is getting to an age, I think, when she is becoming more and more aware of how I’m really feeling. She can sense when I’m near the breaking point; she knows these past couple of weeks have been looooong and exhausting. Since she’s in school all day long, five days a week we don’t get much time together to just…be.

After the fifth or sixth day sans ‘Paternal Parent Figure,’ Eden just started coming into my room and sleeping with me. She would snuggle up to me/my body pillow and soak up the mommy-ness. On about day eight she just sat down and said she wanted some time alone with me.

My sweet Eden. She gets a bad rap sometimes because she’s so strong and seems so sure of herself, while Adaleine is so charming and easygoing. Eden will sometimes stiffen in a hug and her sister will throw her arms around you. When Eden holds back, Adaleine leaps ahead with bouncing ringlets and 1,000-watt smile.

But Eden has a heart that is so soft and sweet and longing for connection and encouragement. She is beginning to be quite the reader and takes so much pride in her new skill. She will read book after book to her little brother, and only gets frustrated some of the time. : )

So when I knew Landon was going to be home this afternoon, I told my Eden that she and I were going on a special afternoon together, just the two of us. She started bouncing up and down—a very common Eden response to good news—and said she couldn’t wait.

We didn’t do anything fancy. We made a special trip to the mall to get cookies at The Cookie Company. When I told her she could choose whatever flavor she wanted for her very own big cookie, you would think she’d never tasted sugar before she was so excited. (And she’s totally tasted sugar before.)

After our cookie excursion we headed over to the craft store to see if we could find any butterfly goodies for her birthday party coming up in a couple of months. She ooh’d and aahh’d over stickers and key chains and held my hand the entire time. She was a little sponge and she was soaking up our time together.

My Eden is coming up on her sixth birthday. Six!! And as much as I know that she’s still a little girl who needs to be treated with care and gentleness, the knowledge is creeping in that she’s entering a whole new phase of life. There’s so much complexity in this little girl that it amazes and terrifies me at the same time. Some days I don’t know how to be a mommy and I can’t imagine what I possibly have to give, but I’m reminded that so much of being a mommy is simply ‘being.’ Sometimes that is all they need from me and I can always dig down for a little more to dole out.

My Eden. My delight.

Party On! Our Planes, Trains & Automobiles Party

First off, let me say that all the pictures I have of Judah’s birthday party suck. I thought I was being all smart by not using the flash and messing up the colors of the pictures. But what I was really doing was taking 327 blurry pictures. Okay, maybe not 327. But a lot of blurry pictures. So that’s my ‘no you’re not going blind these pictures just suck’ disclaimer.

You might remember that the theme we chose for Judah’s birthday party was ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ and I showed you here what some of my ideas were. These were all stolen fromPinterest original ideas.

 

 

For the invitation, I used my sister’s miracle program to put together an uber-cute invite which I then mounted onto black cardstock for more of a handmade feel.

 

 

 

As for the day of the party, we had a couple cousins spend the night with us the night before, so we had to get a couple shots of all the boys in their Batman pajamas. Don’t they look cute?? Then the girls wanted in there, too. Not technically superheroes, but don’t try and tell Eden that. The train was made by my dad and his wife back in November for use at my younger sister’s twins’ birthday party. (Confused yet?) Dad’s been storing it since then and we got some more use out of it!

 

 

Here’s the man himself just before people started showing up. If you know this little guy at all, you already know that this kid can put food away! Consequently, I have exactly zero pictures of him during the party where his mouth isn’t full of food. But I think he kind of looks like he’s got a little cigar in this picture. Just sittin’ in his rocker, smokin’ a cigar. What up?

 

 

 

 

As soon as our guests walked in, they saw our ‘Baggage Claim’ table. These little favors were just cheap-o paper lunch sacks with red, yellow, and green dots glued to the front. Each bag held a toy car, boat, individual-sized M&M package, car tattoos and a little bottle of bubbles. Yes, that traffic cone is the only transportation-related décor on that buffet. And no, I still haven’t done anything about those cords. : )

 

 

I had set up the wall behind the food table early in the week, and as you can tell it’s a pretty blatant copy of what I saw in my inspiration picture. : ) (Also, I realized when I sat down to write up this post that I hadn’t taken a picture of this on the day of the party. So I just waltzed my tookus out to the living room and snapped a picture. The party was two weeks ago and I haven’t taken it down yet. Procrastination pays off! BOOM!)

 

And here is our Goodie Train. I tried a couple of different things to get this to work, starting out by wrapping cardstock around the plastic containers and gluing it on at the top edge. That did not work. At all. Then I had the genius idea to use wrapping paper! I had just picked up this heavyweight wrapping paper at TJ Maxx in the last few weeks and decided it was perfect. Add on the black wheels and signs and you’ve got yourself a snack train! I used an empty Goldfish box for the engine and added some cotton batting for smoke. (Mr. Bug was dumb kind enough to point out that nobody uses steam engines anymore, which earned him a death stare big kiss.)

 

 

 

 

Blurry picture of the 'Animal Car' for animal crackers and the 'Coal Car' for mini Oreos.

More blurry photography, this time the 'Lumber Car' holding pretzel rods and the 'Refrigerated Car' full of fruit and dip.

 

 

A cake stand loaded high with miniature chocolate donuts served as ‘Spare Tires’ next to the super awesome cake that my sister created using this picture as inspiration. She rocks my socks off : ) I’m going to have to do a post someday of all the different cakes she’s done. She’s amazing.

And it tastes good, too!

One last thing I did that I’m really glad I made time for was this picture collage of The Boy. It was so neat to be able to look at all these snippets of him changing from a tiny infant to the little man I know now. Such a beautiful boy!

And there you have it! Judah’s Planes, Trains & Automobiles Birthday Party Extravaganza! I’ve got to say it was really hard for me to get myself to start working on this one but I had so much fun making this day special for my little boy!