Category: Uncategorized (Page 51 of 201)

We celebrated Josiah’s Birthday this past weekend with a rockin’ Mario Kart Birthday.  He had been anticipating it for a long time–recently talking about it NON. STOP. so I was glad the day finally arrived.

Tim was up and out the door bright and early to pick up Chloe from camp, so Josiah and I (with the er… “help”… of Maddie and Levi) spent the morning getting ready and eagerly awaiting 3:00 to arrive.  As usual I had done quite a bit of Pinteresting and was eager to see how everything actually turned out and looked all completed.  And I can say, I wasn’t disappointed.  I was even able to redeem myself from my Honey Comb Cake Catastrophe from last year.  😉

First the pictures of the food (because that’s my favorite part)!

Oh, and did you notice his AWESOME Mario (M) shirt?  I’m very proud of that too.  I made it from an old red shirt he owned and a bleach pen.  I did learn that the bleach does bleed… a lot.  So, I actually had to fill in most of the M with a red sharpie after I bleached it, but it turned out fine for the party.  I’m not sure the red will last once I wash it, but that’s ok.  He was still thrilled to be able to wear it on for his party.

Now onto the decorations!  I want to give a shout out to Auntie Jen for printing and coloring all the mario kart people on the banner.  🙂  I also made a few other checkerboard flag banners that I didn’t take pictures of, and since this post is already very picture heavy I figure you can just visualize that in your head.

We even colored Rainbow Road up to the front door.  Josiah thought that was really awesome.  I thought it was a good idea until I was on my hands and knees dripping in sweat hoping I didn’t scrape my knuckles painfully on the cement….

The boys enjoyed playing pin the mustache on Mario and donning their own goofy mustaches.  (As a side note: when buying mustaches for a party, do make sure the package says adhesive or sticky in the title.  Apparently I bought just mustaches.  No sticky backs included.  I didn’t even know they made such a thing.  So…. I pulled out the good ol’ double sided tape.  Ha!)

Tim also drew a course for the boys to race around (while getting wet since it was almost 100*) and they took turns running it and being timed.  It was fun, although a couple kids got hurt… ah, the joys of boys and racing.  But no one was seriously injured, so I call that a win.  😉

And last but not least, they did enjoy actually playing Mario Kart.

The party was a smashing success.  I was a little apprehensive that the party would not quite live up to Josiah’s dreams since he had been looking forward to it for so long, but according to him, “it was even better than I had imagined it would be.”  So much so, in fact…. that he cried himself to sleep that night lamenting the fact that it was over.   Ah, the joys of being 6 and overtired and exhausted.

“Maddie how old are you?”

Well, it looks like we’ll need to work on that… 🙂

Chloe has been eagerly anticipating her trip to Big Sandy Camp this year.  She has moved up to a full week of camp and not a partial week (since she’s finally old enough).  I know she’ll have a good time–especially since she gets to go with all of her cousins!  I love the memories that they’re making.

We’re definitely going to miss her and her lovely smile around here this week!

The other day we were invited to a park playdate to see a bunch of Josiah’s preschool friends (who ever could make it that morning).  Josiah has SO much fun seeing his friends again and we were able to visit a park that has recently been totally revamped which was a nice treat!  This park (Lion’s Park) was actually redone in order to be more handicap friendly, so there aren’t any big steps to climb up or high towers or tall slides, but rather more interesting things, like low to the ground musical instruments, slides made out of pipes that spin around and a zip line that you can sit and get buckled into.  As we initially drove up I was disappointed by how it appeared, but after being there for a while I realized how unique and wonderful it really is.  And the bonus was that Madison was safe on virtually everything.

Alisa came over the other day (actually it was her and her Mom, Kumi, and Hunter) for supper.  Tim made his “famous” boneless wings and they brought a Birthday present for Maddie to open.  After eating Tim showed them the new patio he had built and then Josiah wanted to play some Mario Kart with Hunter and I enjoyed talking with Kumi.  I lost track of the girls for a little bit so I went looking for them and found Alisa and Chloe playing piano together in the studio.

It made me smile.

They took turns playing songs for each other and then they spent quite a bit of time playing duets together.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they played for at least 45 minutes together.  It was just so wonderful.  Chloe had such a good time laughing and playing; and Alisa seemed to genuinely enjoy being able to sit down and play again.  They dug out new books in the studio and Alisa played Chloe’s project song* for her and Chloe just soaked it up.  It also inspired Chloe the next day that she went to practice her piano.  🙂

*Chloe is learning to play The Spinning Song this summer as her big project.  I remember playing that as a kid and loving it!

The time has finally come to let the kids divide into a boys room and a girls room.  It has always been the plan to do so, but we were waiting until the summer as well as making sure Levi wouldn’t wake anyone else up in his room.  I knew this would be an exciting switch for the kids, but I didn’t expect just HOW exciting it was going to be for them.

They were basically counting down the hours until we could start the switch.  Which then was really tricky to try and do since we had to do all the moving in between naps (and at this stage of life someone is sleeping almost ALL the time).  So as soon as we had a nap-free window, we would scramble and pull things from one room to the other or try and get clothes swapped or get the bed from the garage back into the house, etc. It took us about two days to get everything sorted out and put back together.

For the most part the switch has been smooth sailing.  Levi is excited to have Josiah in his room so he’ll stand in his crib looking at him for a long time, but he’ll usually settle down and go to sleep just fine.  Josiah is doing exceptionally well.  He is so proud to be in the boys room now that I feel like he could burst with happiness.

Chloe had a little harder time with the transition than we expected–not so much having Maddie in her room, because that’s the same that it has been, but with the actually rearranging of the furniture.  She had built up a grand plan of how she was expecting things to be moved and look and basically none of it happened (due to the size of their room and furniture–there just aren’t a lot of options).  We also though we were going to have her bed lofted, in order to fit the toddler bed underneath, so she would need a new ladder built… but then after looking at the design of the bed and our options it really just made so much more sense to simply transition Maddie directly to the bottom bunk instead of the toddler bed.  Meaning she didn’t get her new ladder either.  So.  There were a lot of tears and frustrations.  But we got through it.  And now she’s totally fine with it.

Then there’s Maddie… we knew this would be a whole new world with Maddie moving out of her crib.  But we were also feeling the crunch of space and it just made the most sense to let her move up.  I intentionally started this process this past Wednesday, so I had all the way until Monday to be able to keep a close eye on her (because I teach on Mondays and Tuesdays in the summer and I need her to stay in her bed while I’m teaching in the afternoon).  The first day was not good.  She was enjoying her new found freedom way too much.  There were warnings and jumping and playing and touching the window blinds and consequences then tears and finally I just ended up laying in the room.  HOWEVER, I’m happy to report that she’s fully transitioned now.  She climbs right into bed and lays down and doesn’t get up until we come to get her.  Yay!  That was a long 5 days, let me tell you.  😉

So, we now have a boys room and a girls room.  And the only switch that will have to happen in another year or two is getting a bunk bed for the boys.  But that is so far in the future right now.

This was a very big week in the Friesen household.  Josiah purchased his very first skateboard (and safety gear: elbow, knee & wrist pads).  We discussed it and it was decided that if he really wanted it, he would have to use his own money and he would have to also purchased the safety gear to go with it.  So he very carefully checked his bank to see if he had enough and lo-and-behold, he had the exact amount.  This is the first big thing he’s ever bought, so it was a big deal.

When if finally arrived (it took a few days) Tim took both kids out and gave them a lesson on how to learn how to ride a skateboard.  And then Tim pulled me aside and grimly warned me that I need to prepared that Josiah is bound to hurt himself sooner or later.  Even with the safety gear.  Plus, Josiah has a bit of trouble with coordination and general clumsiness, so he’s more susceptible anyway.  So, I’ve been warned and he’s been prepped and off we go!

Nothing could damper his spirits as he climbed onto the skateboard for the first time.  He was over the moon.    It’s going to take a while for him to get the hang of it, but it’s good for him to start learning to control his center of balance.  This is shaping up to be a pretty fun summer!