Charlotte's Birthday Weekend

Charlotte's birthday started off by checking out her many presents on the table. She got to open one that morning, a movie. Boys = jealous.

The cupcakes:

 Charlotte at her party, checking out the water balloons:

 Too shy to blow out her own candles!?

 Later that night, without the added pressure of friends, she did blow out her own:

 Mommy and Charby!

 Meanwhile, in boyland....

 Char's pretty ice cream dress!

 Posin':

 Sunday we went to see a play with gaga, here is Char in all her birthday glory - sunglasses, ice cream dress, necklace, bracelet, and fruit snacks.

 Getting ready for the play to start:

 Riding the merry go round:

 Lovely portrait taken by a boy:

 The rest of the pictures I downloaded (300 of them) all look similar to this one. Owen just snap-snap-snapped away the whole way home. I'll spare you.

Catch up!

Oh man, I can't even remember when this picture is from - sometime after Christmas. I think. Here is Gaga and Papa with all of their grandbabies:

 And then all of us attempting a pose (and missing Rob!):

 Spring is here! Dinner on the deck with BFFS!:

 The kids are super addicted to iPads, iPhones, and everything else electronic:

 Lollipops!

 We went to Bethany Beach for a mini-vacay. It was freezing, but fun:

Laughing in the car

This morning driving to school I laughed out loud twice - once when the newscaster said, "These are three words that NO ONE wants to ever hear: Birth Control Recall!" And then again when the other newscaster said, "If you need more information about your growing belly, go to this link." Ah, I love it when we can insert a little humor into our mundane lives.

No wednesday weigh-in last night because I am switching my weigh-in day to Mondays. It won't be as alliterative, but maybe I can think of a new title. Wuh-Monday Weigh-in. Hm.

I joined a choir called Voce and I am going to combine the fun of singing with my weigh-in day so I don't have to have 2 nights away per week. I am going to miss my leader, Becky, but maybe this new meeting day and time and leader will give me new inspiration to lose that final 17 pounds.

Oh, do I have a blog here?

Sorry, peeps. I forgot about my blog!
Recap time.
- I gained a pound a half at ww! I was pissed!
- It was jersey day at school on Friday and I dressed Charlotte as a white trash jersey girl. Right?

-Yesterday the kids were playing "backpack" (a fun game that consists of filling your backpack with a bunch of shit from the floor/shelves and then forgetting you put it in there a few hours later and throwing a massive temper tantrum because you want whatever it was) and we had to take another white trash picture of Charlotte, which led to each of the boys taking a picture of the other boy. Yay, Saturdays!

- Ran 6 miles today and it was good!

-We had our first "SNOW" day on Friday. Because of the massive rain and flooding, we had no school on Friday. Best day ever!!!

- That about sums it up.

Beach: 75% chaos.

Ah, the beach.....what a relaxing, beautiful, sunshiny way to rest before school starts.....ahhhh, smell the ocean air, feel the gentle breeze, listen to the screaming children. Screaming children?! Where's the sound of the waves crashing on the shore?! Where are the seagull calls and the gentle engine sounds of the advertising planes?!!!! NO WHERE BECAUSE I CAN'T HEAR MYSELF THINK OVER THE SCREAMING, WHINING, CHILDREN!!!!!!

OK, OK, it wasn't that screamy...but there were moments of total insanity at the beach. Here is a picture of Owen's usual location. We would be sitting on the beach, enjoying the moment for 4.6 seconds and he would say, "Can we go watch TV now?"

Beach baby Charlotte. Sand in every orifice and skin fold is a sign of a beach baby, right? Nevermind that she was afraid of the water. The beach we stayed at had these cute little swingsets spread out on the beach - great idea. Char would spend all day swinging if she could. Unfortunately for her, Todd and I would only push her for 30 minutes or so each day. (Mostly Todd).

The beach one night after dinner:

Muscle man Owen:

Building a sand castle. The condo we stayed in is two balconies above Owen's head!

The elusive bathing suit photo.....AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....can you believe that I have lost 50 pounds! (We'll see how much I kept off while eating ice cream and cheese balls at the beach....)

Charlotte, during one of her timeouts for hitting Owen over the head with a shovel:

This is a pucture of Owen acting like "King Grog the Old" during Viking putt-putt. Cracked me up.

The adorable boys at putt-putt. :)

Charlotte, taking a break from putt-putt to sit in a dragon egg, and then demonstrating her putting form. Look out, LPGA!!

Riding a bullfrog. That's what she said.

Family photo-op. I set the camera on one of those swingsets, hit the timer, and BAM! Look how it turned out! I should be a pro.

Henry wasn't a big fan of the camera this weekend. Here he is, giving me the finger:

Pirate Day

We had a really fun playdate today. Our friends came over and we decided to have "Pirate Day"! We got some ideas from other blogs and kind of just went with the theme and had a great time!

We started our day doing pirate mazes (found here) and making pirate hooks, eye patches, and hats (found here and here)

Next, we painted treasure boxes that I found at AC Moore for $1! The kids had a great time painting. While they painted, I called them one by one into the kitchen (sort of) to make their fruit kabob for lunch. We skewered bananas, strawberries, cantelope, watermelon, and grapes to make kabobs. Then we put a little flag with each kid's name on it and popped them in the freezer.

While the fruit froze, we got into and our pirate ship and played. We made a sail and colored the outside.

Then we went outside and had a swordfight with pretzel rods. The rules were simple: If your pretzel rod was broken by another pirate, you had to walk the plank. Well, as you can see by our line, everyone's pretzel rod broke instantaneously. Next time we'll use something stronger! :)

 
 The kids played in the pirate ship while we got lunch ready:

The lunch menu was: fish sticks, french fries, pirate booty, goldfish, and the fruit kabobs we made earlier. For a special lunch dessert we had jello cups with pirate boats. (Found here)

After lunch, we put pirate Charby down for a nap and our friend Madison read us "How I Became a Pirate" by David Shannon and we watched "Hook"!

 Charlotte woke up and we were sitting around the house when DING DONG DING DONG! The doorbell rang! We ran to the door and found a glass container filled with golden chocolates and a treasure map!!!! The hunt was on for the pirate's treasure....

 We followed the map down the street, around some corners, up some hills....

 Till we got to the X! We found the treasure under the bridge!

It was full of jewels, bracelets, and more gold nugget chocolate - yummy!

Here are the pirates posing with their box of treasure. What a great end to a fun pirate day!!!