jimmy's 5th birthday

Jimmy turned 5 this year on All Saint's Day.   As much as I would like to fully celebrate the holy day, it is hard to have the focus be on anything but Jimmy.  If he goes to Catholic school then perhaps he can get to dress up like a Saint on his birthday, but this year he didn't even go to Mass with me since he was at school (he fights going to church enough on Sunday, so on his birthday would probably have been a pretty hard sell).  Some day he will have to learn that Mass is just part of his special day, but I am not ready to push it just yet.  Despite a late Halloween the night before Jimmy woke up bright and early, ready to open his one morning present. Gus wasn't awake yet, but we had to get it in before Dad went to work.

Needless to say, Dad picked this one out
(after too much time and money spent on eBay.)

Forget the requested Frech Toast I had made,  Jimmy was so excited he begged to go to his room and begin it as soon as possible.  

It was pretty hard for Jimmy to say goodbye to his Lego-building to go to school, but I was glad he opted for going since they had prepared a special celebration just for him.  They had all signed a poster for him.  He got a crown, a balloon, and a gift to take home. 

We brought some little cinnamon rolls to share as a treat, and even Gus got to join in the fun.

The class sang "Happy Birthday" in English and Italian and it was all very cute. 

Jimmy felt very special.

After a day of more Lego-building, Jimmy finally finished (without Dad's help) and was very proud.

We also Skyped with Uncle Danny who gave Jimmy this:

Again, Jimmy was pretty thrilled.

That evening he was so excited to have his cousins over for more celebrating...

... and more Legos.

His cousins were excited to give him a set with R2D2 in it.

These two cute little buddies were excited to get building right away.

It also wouldn't be a birthday party without Mimi and Johnny, who gave Jimmy a Lego set to go with his big rocket.

It was a chill evening of hanging out and enjoying baby Dot:

My husband loves making babies smile.

Our "Cake" was some brownies with dinosaur cookies on top.

Another attempt at a family picture:

The cousins one turned out pretty cute, though:

Zach tried to recreate the picture on the wall from when Jimmy was born.

Look at that little baby on the wall.  As cliche as it sounds, I can't believe he is so big now. 

We love you, Jimbo!

ugh

I haven't posted anything is a little while because Blogger is hating me again--Telling me I used all my storage again.  They only give you 1G on Picassa which doesn't seem like much, but I guess it is free.  I haven't used any of my Google Drive storage, but that doesn't seem to make a difference.  I have ranted on this before.  I thought the problem was solved because they were automatically reducing the size of my images to reduce space (I guess I really do go overboard on pictures if I still went over).  Still, none of it fully makes sense to me.  I may start posting from a different account again, but that is a pain.  One thing is for sure: I will not be paying ANYTHING for this blog.  Google you have enough money.  Maybe it is time you started paying me for it (without me having to put dumb advertisements on my sidebars, of course).   My only real hold-up on not just logging in from my other account is that I have about 5 posts half done just waiting to be finished in my old account.  I even deleted old a bunch of pictures and it won't let me upload just one more picture to finish my post for Jimmy's birthday.  I really don't need this during holidays.  Life is busy enough as it is.  I don't know why I feel the need to complain, but perhaps I am just looking for sympathy or empathy or something.  Anyone else run into this problem?  Hope I will be back soon, but don't hold your breath.

star wars halloween

So Jimmy decided a long time ago he wanted to be R2D2, and I thought Gus would make a cute Ewok.  I originally wanted to be Ewok village Princess Leia, but opted for the classic look since my hair isn't really long enough right how to pull off any of her fancy braids.  Nana helped me make yarn breads that we wrapped into buns.  Zach was Darth Vader because I found the helmet at Goodwill for $4 (and it still made noise when I put in new batteries!).  Sadly I got no pictures of him on Halloween because he had a meeting after school (just mean) and didn't get to the house until after dark.  He had to catch up to us Trick-or-Treating.  It was all a whirlwind as usual, but I didn't stress about pictures too much since I knew we would be dressing up again on the weekend for the boys' birthday party.  That one thought in my mind made me much more relaxed than last year.  Still, I wish Halloween was on the weekend every year.

I told my dad he has been channeling Alec Guinness lately, so I managed to convince him to be Obi-Wan Kenobi.... or Baabee-Wan Kenobi as he liked to call him.

Just to confirm my lack of photos this year, I am including these random ones:

The Burches and Speiers did Tangled this year, but I didn't even get a picture of sweet little Kateri as Rapunzel.  Finn was Flynn Ryder.  Jack was a random bar thug.  Audry and Lily were the Stabbington Brothers who they changed into sisters.  I loved Lily as Mother Gothel.  I caught her scaring herself in the mirror once. I am sure those families will post pictures eventually... maybe.  Here is what I did get:

These two girls cracked me up.  I can't believe they wanted to be these tough bad guys.  

I guess they are just happy if they get to be twins

Even Luke got in on the action by dressing like the King (and the not pictured Pete was the mime bar thug for about an hour).  Allie really wins the prize for making Isaiah be the chameleon.  People were impressed when I had Gus dress as the Cheshire Cat at a week old, but I made it before he came out.  She did all this with a brand new baby.  Kudos!

Alright, even with all those cute kids above my favorite costume of the night was definitely Ruby's.

She was Kathy Seldon from Singin' In The Rain.   I love that she wanted to be her and how into character she was.  She was doing the dance for me and practicing jumping out of the cake. Christine can you make one in my size for next year?

Since we made it home with both kids awake, which was quite a surprise, we lit our pumpkins and got a few pictures.  This was probably the last chance we would have had because they were both already moldy and disgusting.  Such is the (short) life of Jack-o-Lanterns in Phoenix.

Another Happy/Crazy Halloween.

gus' 2nd birthday

Gus' best birthday present this year was that Nano was there in the morning when he woke up.

He had been looking forward to it and talking about Nano coming for his birthday for weeks.

Gussy also got his first gummy vitamins on his birthday morning and now says, "I two years old!" every morning when he gets to eat them.

Gus got to open one present in the morning before Dad left for work

Jimmy decided he wanted to get this cash register for Gus (and himself really) after playing with it at a friend's house.  We called every Toys R Us in the Phoenix area and found only one.  We drove about 30 minutes to get it.   At least a trip to Toys R Us is always fun.  Jimmy was so excited to buy it and wrap it and give it to Gus.

Since Jimmy had gotten Hand, Foot, and Mouth the weekend before (AGAIN!!) we were still on watch for Gus (who thankfully never got it).  I was going to take the boys somewhere fun during the day with Nano, but I had to improvise.  I ran up to Target to buy some washable paint and we made it into Fizzy Sidewalk Chalk Paint.  I didn't really follow the recipe because I just wanted to make a small amount of each color, but it worked out well enough after a little experimentation.

The boys and Nano had fun decorating our patio.

A spray bottle of vinegar makes the paint bubble up which the boys thought was super fun.

Cousins had to stay away because of the HFM but Baabee came over in the evening along with Mimi and Johnny.

Jimmy was glad to help Gus open his presents.

Gus was very excited about his Glow-in-the-Dark Dinosaur Train figurines from Mimi and Johnny.

They attacked Nano a little bit.

Then it was time for "cake" (I make brownies because I like them better).

Gus was most excited about the candy corn on top.

We attempted a family picture.  

Even if they don 't look in the right direction, they are still really cute.

Happy Birthday to my sweet and funny little Gussy-Bub.