Out My Kitchen Window

We were lucky enough to have Madeline and Kaitlyn came over to play with us this morning.

In the middle of tackling a mound of dishes I looked out my kitchen window to see these happy faces.

Jasper was thrilled to have some friends over AND play with some water.

First we hit a Zumba class that the Laurel Hills ward sponsored.

There was a great turn out and the kids loved running around the gym and dancing to the music.

The instructor provided small water bottles and apples, grapes, bananas and cheese sticks. They kids loved it all.

We enjoyed the opportunity to see some of our old friends that were in our ward before it split.

When we came back to our home and the kids played outside in the water.

Of course they had to take a small break for a frozen Go-Gurt and Strawberry fruit bars.

Jasper was really diggin' the fruit bars.

Party Like It's 2009

Yes, Jasper really is two years old. Those were the quickest two years of my life! Since a lot of people will be gone for Labor Day, we decided to celebrate a few days early.

I know there's a lot of scuttlebutt among mom's about how people go overboard with birthday parties, and how little one's don't need a "friend party". We decided to keep things low-key, but to have a fun party for everyone -- because you're only 2 once!

Mike was leery about the fact that I invited so many mom's and their kids. The party was at 8:45 AM, so we had all kids 4 and under. We has 35 kids and 20 plus mom's come - and everything worked out just fine.

I set up a Little Tikes water wonderland out back, complete with pools to slide into, water stations, etc. The kids all ran around doing their own thing and had a great time.

Mike made many batches of his famous waffles and mixed in mini chocolate chips. I've learned that kids will eat anything that contains chocolate chips. I thought that we had way too many waffles, but it turns out that every last square was eaten.

Jasper was fixated on the buffet table and wanted to play with the waffle toppings and make cup after cup of chocolate milk with the Nestle Quick powder. I guess he is used to cooking and baking with me, because he truly did not understand why he was not supposed to be coming up with a concoction of some sort.

After everyone left we let him got for it, and he produced a wonderfully sticky sweet syrup/berry mess! (video at the very end)

Mike took photos of most of the mom's there, and nobody wanted their picture taken because they all felt like they didn't look good.

To which I countered -- To be honest, as a mom, I rarely feel like I look like I want to. But this is our life, and we have to take photos at sometime, or we'll have nothing to look back an remember those fun (but frazzled) days.

We had 3 little picnic tables set up for the kids. I borrowed two from a friend, and we have one of our own that we bought at, where else, Costco. I love these tables because they fold flat, and the kids seem to love having their own special place to sit.

For party favors we had 24 packs of crayons by the door with a little photo of Jasper going down the slide that said "Thanks for coming to my party".

I thought about buying one of those little $20 disposable helium tanks so the kids could all take a balloon home. Plus nothing says P-A-R-T-Y like a million helium balloons. But I passed on the mini helium tank because I knew getting one would cause Mike to revoke my "low-key party" certification...and I promised low-key.

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate Jasper's 2nd Birthday with us!

If you missed this year, we hope to see you for #3 next year.

Wondering Where the Last 2 Years Have Gone...