past due

There's lots of stuff that can be past due.

Library books.

Bills.

Milk.

Oil changes.

Oh, yeah....and babies!



Any day now!

a new peep

No, no baby yet.

I mean we really have a new peep.



The kids have been taking turns staying home sick from school.  For me, that means extra time stuck in the house, as well, since all errands are called off.  So I pulled the sewing machine back out, and this was the first project on the priority list, with Easter right around the corner.



I'll just add, this is not a beginner sewing project.  Lots of pins, tight curves and lip biting as I sewed along.  So JP said, "Does this mean you're not a beginner anymore?"  I should say not.  The pattern is here if you'd like to try.



And with the baby coming so close to Easter, don't be surprised if this little peep makes an appearance with the baby at the hospital.



I thought I'd share about the crib mobile, too.  The hearts were cut out from a suede fabric sample book I picked up in a yard sale long ago and simply sewed together right down the middle.  You can even see some of the paper I peeled off from the book still stuck on some of the hearts.  No need to be perfect, right?  They are tied to an embroidery hoop and require a delicate balance, which I didn't think of before.  I caught the cat batting at it one evening, and it was all off-kilter in the morning.



I couldn't have planned the colors any better.  I think Joaquin actually chose the order several years ago when I sewed them for a valentine's decoration...and we all know he has an amazing talent for color.  (He's color blind.)



And one more little touch I added yesterday...a framed watercolor by Diego.  Joaquin used to make these same kind of paintings when he was little and I always loved them... a page full of random colors...I've saved many of them.



And now that the sewing machine is back out, I guess I'll need to finish up that last crib sheet and changing pad cover.  Unless there's a yellow stuffed peep calling out to be made.

army strong.

I've been reneging on my 'no birthday party'  idea lately.  With a baby due any day, I didn't want Diego's special day to be overshadowed in any way.

It started innocently enough...I asked him if he wanted a birthday party, and he said yes.  We discussed what kind....at first it was batman, and I started pinning away ideas on pinterest.

But somehow, he started talking about tanks.  And we had these HUGE cardboard pieces leftover from our IKEA trip, so I asked, just for fun, 'cause I'm weird like that....do you want me to make you a tank out of cardboard?  "Yes!"

So I started cutting away and was surprised at how well it turned out...and immediately, it looked like a great box for a piñata.  Which naturally led to....how about an army birthday?!  "Yeah!!"  After all,  Diego has always had that boy fascination with guns, things that go kaboom, and any other un-politically correct toy that boys love.

I stopped pinning batman and started pinning army.

INVITATIONS:
There are so many cute invitations out there.  We went with the "I don't know what you've been told...Diego's turning four years old" cadence.  Which got me to singing "We are Bravo company...." from my four week stint in the army.  The kids sushed me any chance they could, and would not allow me to sing it at the party.  Probably for the best.



DECORATIONS
Decorating for this party was so EASY and mostly FREE!  I took Diego up to the recruiter's office and told them we were having an army birthday....might they have anything we could use?  Whoa!  He gave me posters and stickers and water bottles and flags and lanyards....plus I picked up some brochures and used them to decorate the fridge.



We had also happened by the library earlier in the week and stumbled across some great military kids books.  My favorite was Alpha Bravo Charlie, which teaches the military alphabet.  I actually read it to the kids after they were wired up on cake.



I hit Goodwill early on in the planning and guess what I found?  An army shirt, size 4, and at another Goodwill, army pants, size 4.  It was meant to be.



Here's that tank piñata!  The front actually opened up and I was able to stuff it with the goodies and tape it shut.



ACTIVITIES:
Being 9 months pregnant, I did NOT want to focus on food...so instead I planned lots of games to keep the kids occupied.

When the kids arrived, they each got a camouflage strip of fabric to tie around their heads and a dog tag to decorate how they wanted.  The dog tags were a cut up cereal box covered in shiny silver tape...all things I had on hand, of course.  Plus I covered the table with craft paper and set out crayons for them to write a message to Diego.... just to pass a little time.



Here's the grenade launch....throw the stuffed grenades (from Christmas) through the holes to blow up the tank.



And no party is complete without..."Pin the Tail on the....." or in this case, Pin the Medal on the Soldier.  And I love making photo props for parties.   I made the face so it could be lifted up, and each child took their picture as the soldier.



There was an 'obsta-course', Diego's favorite part,  which involved sliding, crawling, tumbling, jumping, leaping over snake pits and shooting.

The 'rescue mission', which I thought would be total flop was the game we played the longest.  Several kids went and hid in the house, and the rest had to locate them, wrap up their injury with toilet paper and bring them back to base.  There a picture of Diego being dragged back to base camp.

The black balloons were land mines.  The kids had to cross the room withOUT stepping on or touching one...with the added fun that I was throwing balloons at them.  After we did that a few times, I had them become mine detonation experts and pop all the balloons.



Green army men.....0.97 cents at Walmart for a bag of 20....and a great game of MIA Soldiers.  While the kids were distracted playing something, some helpful moms hid the army men in the big room.  The kids had to 'leave no man behind' and find them all.





Sharp shooting was the last game.  Juan Pablo sawed 18 marshmallow shooters out of PVC pipe, washed and sanitized them in the dishwasher, and bagged the kit up for each child to put together.  Those things do shoot!  And double as a musical instrument while the kids are waiting their turn.  I decided not to let them shoot each other, since it ended up being an inside party, and instead we taped balloons to doors and let them shoot the balloons.



Some little sneakers ate all the ammo.



And lastly, hand to hand combat...the pinata.  We used a pool noodle to hit it, and I couldn't believe it actually started breaking.  Juan Pablo helped it along after everyone had gotten to hit, and there was a mad dash by the kids.  Everything in there was free from the recruiters, except the bag of smarties I threw in and some .97 cent water grenade balloons from Walmart.  (I don't usually shop at Walmart, but they came through this time!)



Diego loved his cake.  I went with store bought so I wouldn't have to worry about my usual cake flops.  And there were a few easy snacks set out, as well.... goldfish, carrots and chocolate covered strawberries (which were gone as soon as I took off the plastic wrap.)  Most people probably didn't even know they were there!







GOODIE BAGS
The goodie bags were labeled with the kids' military alphabet names...ie Diego was Delta Mike.  All that was in there was extra ammo (marshmallows) and a printout of the military alphabet.  With the piñata goodies and the marshmallow shooters, those kids were army strong!



Diego opened his presents in a whir.  He squealed with delight at most of them....there was one, though, that really bothered him for some reason...a camo make-up kit.  He actually told the mom, "I don't want this."  (The honesty of four year olds.)  It must be his dislike of getting messy...but we'll hold onto it in case he changes his mind.


Watching his anticipation grow as the party came together, and then as friends started to arrive, was so fun.  It was a very happy birthday indeed for this wonderful, first day of spring boy.

krispy kreme

Don't you love it when stores celebrate holidays that they really have no business celebrating?  Some made up excuse to get you in the door to buy something.  Well, it won't work on me (usually.)

Sunday, for daylight savings, Krispy Kreme on Broad Street was giving away one free donut...to anyone.

I thought it would be a fun place to take the kids....they'd never been, and I remembered that you could see how the donuts are made as they make their way down the assembly line.

The kids were fascinated.  And while the ones with all the colorful toppings were staring us in the face, I stuck to my guns and ordered just one glazed donut for each of us.  The guy behind the counter looked surprised at my small order, while I was surprised people were actually buying dozens of donuts when they were giving them away for free!

Plus they had these cute hats for the kids!  And they actually wore them.


(yes, we've got the carseat all ready to go!)

The first bite!  Wow!  Those were delicious donuts.  We all agreed... the. best. ever.



Diego had some very important question here.  I think it was about the one donut that was stuck on the conveyor belt getting burned up.  But, why?



All gone!  Sorry we couldn't save you a bite.



JP missed out on it, too,  but I told him when we got home, "Yeah, a dozen of those would be gone in five minutes around here."

I'm glad the store's on the other side of town.

baby room with color!

I've been wanting to post pictures of our room redo for awhile now.  But I keep waiting until it's "done" and I'm not sure it ever will be, so better now than never!

Unfortunately, I have no before.  But imagine uncoordinated and ugly and that would be our room.  There was one mustard colored wall left over from Diego's 'cowboy' theme baby room, the same green carpet, a metal and wood bed, a rustic overflowing dresser, and who knows what else in there.

These were the initial changes we made:

* buy a king bed...with one more kid adding to the mix, there was never enough room in the bed on any given night.  We wanted a king, plus I wanted it low, so that when I put my feet on the floor to get up, they actually touched the ground.  No dangling!  The bonus was we bought a matching dresser for the bed when we went to IKEA.

*paint the walls neutral...I couldn't decide on what color I liked for the baby...I liked them all.  So I thought if I did neutral, then I could mix and match any color I wanted to.




Our new bed!  We love it.  We splurged on the king pillows from the Original Mattress factory.  They're latex and oh! so worth it.  Notice the red window on the wall...that was a gift from Aunt Maggie to my grandma that I inherited...I just spray painted it red when red seemed to be the main color.  I like where it's hung because there's actually a window on the other side of the bed, and it looks like one's missing there.



The wall hanging is from Bolivia, of course.  I've always loved the colors in it, but had it tucked away with my blanket storage.  It was really too rough to ever use as a blanket, but I love it hung on the wall!  There's also the 'birds on a wire' picture from Target...actually that is the first new thing I bought for the room when we started decorating, even before the bed.

And now for some reason, the horrid green carpet doesn't even bother me as much.  That was the first thing we were going to remove when we bought the house, and almost five years later, it's still there!



Time to change diapers!  This is the first baby who actually gets a changing pad.  I'm pretty sure we just used the bed or floor for the others.  I've been sewing covers for it too, which is addictive like crib sheets.  I made two and still have two more to make.



We went with using the dresser as the changing table...that's one less piece of furniture to buy and get rid of later.  Plus low furniture is my new 'must'.  With the boys constantly climbing on stuff, I'm less worried they'll get hurt with the low furniture.

The wall decal was $10 at Target...I love how the blossoms are blowing off the tree.



These beautiful little bird pictures I copied from the journal JP gave me for my birthday.  They're too pretty not to look at all the time.  I guess I should tack them down on the bottom, too.



The cloth diapers are all ready to go!



And there's my new rocking chair.  After reading the rave reviews on overstock.com, I had to get it...and at a great deal.  I agree it's comfortable to rock in, but the plastic is a little cold so I may be sitting on a blanket until summer.



And a close up.



The crib fits right into the alcove beside the bed.  I couldn't get a full view picture because that side of the room was a mess!



The last thing I was looking for was a dresser for the baby.  She has so many clothes already...hand me downs from a very generous friend who recently had a little girl of her own, things I picked up at consignment, and several from a surprise baby shower JP's soccer team threw us!

But a Target gift card later, and I came home with something much cheaper than a dresser!  This closet organizer.  Again, I love it...although I'm not sure it will always look this neat.  Isabela loves it, too, and now wants one for her up coming birthday.



There are side pockets for little shoes.



I've divided the shelves into sizes....up through six months!



It won't be long now!!

soccer season starts

We've got another soccer player in the family.  And he was ecstatic when daddy brought home his new uniform.



Well, he's really not new to soccer.  I'm sure it's in his blood, plus he's been playing with his brother and dad since...I guess when he could walk.

And he's REAL good.



Not a flower picker.  Although that's what JP called this warm-up exercise.  JP is coaching both Diego and Joaquin this year!  I think it's a little much, but no one asks me.  Besides, Diego is on the U5 (under 5) team, and it's quite like herding cats.  JP got his first taste on Tuesday.



Diego is still only three, but he knows what's going on.  He tries hard and knows he's training.



He's got the moves down, too.



This might just be a proud mama talking, but he could dribble, pass, and score....while most of the other kids were in la-la land, flopping on the ground and other antics.  I had one of those kids, too, so I know what that's like.



His first game's on Saturday...depending on the wet fields and weather.  Can't wait to watch him!