Welcome to Neverland

Our Neverland Birthday Party

Shawn created a treasure hunt complete with a treasure map puzzle. The hunters (known as the fairies and the Lost Boys) had to answer questions about the movie Peter Pan. If they answered correctly, they received another piece of the map. When they fit the piece correctly into the puzzle, it showed them where to go for their next clue. The final piece directed them to a treasure chest - full of swords and fairy wings. Shawn and I conceived the ideas for the games together, but he designed them all. He needs to go into the party planning business!

Jamie helps Simon open presents. It was an unseasonably HOT day for the first of May, and everyone was glad to have a chance to cool off inside.

Another party game was tossing stuffed crocodiles at Captain Hook's pirate ship. The girls all looked so sweet running around with their brightly-colored wings on. (And the boys were warned many times about the foam swords! Perhaps those should have been handed out at the END of the party!)

Simon and Clare blow out the candles on their Neverland cake. (Which was my baby, and came out quite cute, if I may pat myself on the back!)

I bought these t-shirts off eBay for the birthday girl and boy to wear.

Violet

Violet turned 15 months old at the end of April, and I intended to write a post to commemorate that milestone, but it took me three weeks to do so! (And now another week to actually finish it, since Violet will now be 16 months old on Friday. How life is flying by!)

Even though my four children are each only about two years apart, I tend to forgot much about certain stages of their development until I experience it again with the next child. In Violet's case, however, she has been my earliest walker, runner, and climber, so at times, I feel like I am starting all over again with this parent stuff. The child is all over the place, but with almost no common sense (or fear)! Jamie and Simon were both around 15-16 months when they started to take steps and were fairly cautious, and Clare was almost 2 1/2 years old (and extremely cautious). So to see this little scrap of a girl literally running around still amazes me. She looks too tiny to be doing that! And not only running around, but having definite ideas of what she wants to do with her time. Her current favorite pastime is to push the baby doll stroller around (usually with a baby doll in it, but she does not mind if the seat is empty). What she insists on is having some sort of "purse" dangling off her arm while she does so. The purse can range from anything as random as a stuffed animal monkey purse to one of my red Target reusable shopping bags. If that purse falls off her arm, watch out - she is one ticked little girl!

While Violet has been the most advanced of my children when it comes to gross motor skills, she is not a talker like Jamie and Simon were (and still are!). Jamie had about a dozen words at a year old, and I vividly remember at his 18-month appointment, the pediatrician asked me how many words he had. I answered that I stopped writing them down when we reached 100 words, so I wasn't sure. The pediatrician laughed and said that he typically looked for between 12 and 30, so Jamie was doing just fine! Jamie being my first, I had no idea how verbally-advanced he was. Violet has no actual words yet, but she is a babbler, a shrieker, a giggler, and clearly understands everything we say to her (definitely not a quiet child!). She is still very attached to me, but has quite the silly personality once she warms up to other people. Violet is at a delightful age, and we all love watching this little spunky person doing her thing!

Snatches of Conversation, Part 2

I love that I never know what is going to come out of children's mouths! Every day is an adventure.

(Yesterday, after dealing with four grumpy kids the majority of the day, Shawn gave them a talking-to about their behavior and Mother's Day. Then they came up to me one-by-one.)

Simon: Sorry, Mommy. Happy Mother's Day! I love my new dinosaur bucket in my bedroom.
Jamie: I'm sorry, Mom. Happy Mother's Day! I love you. (with a big hug)
Clare: I'm sorry you are mad at me.



(This morning as I am trying to do something with the rat's nest of Clare's morning hair.)

Me: Clare, how about if I do your hair half-up?
Clare: (Now getting upset) I don't want happy hair! I want angry hair!

Snatches of Conversation

(In the car)

Clare: Violet, stop hitting me with your baby doll!

Simon: Just deal with it.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Simon!

Simon celebrated his third birthday yesterday (pics to follow because Blogger and my laptop do not get along). Since his birthday landed on a Saturday this year, we had a big party on his actual birthday (and combined celebrating Clare's birthday, which was a month earlier) with family and friends. One of Clare's favorite characters is Tinkerbell, so we decided a Peter Pan/Tinkerbell/Neverland party was a great theme for the two kiddos. Our backyard was hopping with fairies and pirates!. Simon is the last birthday of the calendar year in our family, so he has been waiting patiently (and sometimes not-so-patiently) for the big day.

Simon has been congested and coughing for a couple weeks now. Since it coincided with the explosion of tree pollen and no one else was affected, we chalked it up to allergies. It could still have been allergies, but it settled in his chest, and come late afternoon, he spiked a high fever. Poor birthday boy! I ended up bringing him over to our Urgent Care clinic last night after the party. There was literally no other patient there while we were there, so Simon, Violet, and I were treated like royalty. Once the nurses and receptionists found out it was Simon's birthday, they hyped it up even more. Since his oxygen stats were a little low, his fever was 103 on Motrin, and his chest sounded raspy, Simon had a birthday chest x-ray, which showed that he now has bronchitis. After 24 hours on his antibiotics and nebulizer treatments, he is fever-free today and feeling so much better. He still has a barky cough, but that could linger another couple of weeks.

So that is why his birthday post is a day late! Simon was still able to enjoy most of the party, and he spent a lot of time today enjoying the plethora of dinosaurs and trucks that have now invaded our house. Happy Birthday to the sweetest 3-year old around!