Party time

Slip Slidin' Away

Yesterday we went to Caleb Robinson's birthday party over at George and Catherine's house.  He's turning 7 on Tuesday, and had a 26 foot slip and slide complete with 'bonzai board' for his party.  Here is the birthday boy, all ready to go!

Here are most of the kids.  It was impressive how well everyone waited for their turn...I think Josh and I counted 17 kids there between 4 families...definitely organized chaos, if there is such a thing :)

Here's Kate taking her turn...Josh got a little workout in too!  At least George was getting to take a break from pulling the kids!

Carter had to size up the situation for a little while...

Then he decided to take a turn with the 'big' kids...

Getting a word of encouragement from big sister...so sweet!

There goes little man!  Surprised he didn't fall off...he was barely holding on and way back on the edge of the board!

Kate wanted to do something different for a minute so she and Josh went to jump on the trampoline...Jumping is one of her favorite things to do...She's always bouncing around so this was extra fun for her!

Taking a break to enjoy a cupcake

Post-cupcake...she sure enjoyed the green icing!

Carter was worn out...no nap.  Here he is chilling out with Catherine.

Daddy's girl

Mama's boy (my other boy slept through the WHOLE party...we had to wake him up when it was time to go home!)

Carter did muster up enough energy to take a few swings at the pinata.  What boy would pass up the opportunity to whack something with a stick as hard as he could?  And get candy too!!

Parenting

It seems that everytime I find myself thinking that I might have finally gotten the hang of this whole parenting thing, the Lord will send something my way to let me know there is still much to be learned.  Like the fact that when you take the kids to a flag football game in 80 degree weather, it's a good idea to use sunscreen.  I didn't, and felt like such a bad mommy when my 2 month old came home with lobster face.  Won't make that mistake again!!

Naptime has been one of my biggest challenges since we've moved into our apt. in W. Oak.  With only two bedrooms and 3 children that need to be napping, we've had to get creative.  Kate and Carter have done great sharing their room, and at bedtime, they usually go right to sleep without many problems.  I think it helps that it's dark outside, because naptime is the complete opposite.  Carter cannot seem to get it that it's not time to play, and poor Kate will try so hard to sleep but he's in his crib calling out to her and screaming her name.  Not much sleeping going on, as I'm sure you can imagine!  So we've been letting her nap in our bed.  In order for that to work, Hudson has to be out in the living room with me during naptime, which presents its own challenge when it's time for him to nap since his pack and play is next to our bed.  It's been so interesting to see the ways that each child is different and likes different things, even as babies.  We had gotten all the baby gear when Kate was a baby, and she was definitely a 'bouncy seat' baby.  We used to joke and call it the 'magic' seat because it always did the trick and she loved being in it.  Carter liked the bouncy seat ok and so we sold our swing because it was just taking up space by that point and had been rarely used.  So now we're on baby #3 and guess what...Hudson does not care for the bouncy seat at all!  Go figure.  He just wants to be held all the time!  So just the other day we thought, hmm...wonder if he'd like a swing?  Bingo!  Napping problem solved...