I can't believe she is 4...

... and sometimes I can't believe that she is only 4.  Before I dive into our celebration I need to mention my favorite A episode this summer.

E-"A just hit me with her purse"

A-"It's not a purse, it's a handbag"

Now back to the important stuff. That's right, we started June off by celebrating our littlest crazy's birthday.  As she reminds me on a regular basis (since one of my nicknames for her is "baby" or "babes") she is no longer a baby.  (I should probably stop kidding myself by thinking my curves are residual pregnancy weight--after about 2 years I was kidding myself---at 4 I'm just delusional--time to get back on the treadmill) But I digress.  We had a "special" birthday dinner on her actual birthday at Dave & Buster's.  Of course, our little friend W joined us.  

 The bigger celebration happened a few days before and included Mr. W.  His birthday was a couple weeks before Miss A's so we decided to throw a combined party.  I'm still working on collecting pictures, but here is what I've got for now.  

It’s time to scream!  It’s time to roar!

           W and A are turning 4!

                   And you are invited with this invitation,

      to a combined birthday celebration!

June is the month.

The 1^st is the date.

The party is at 10am,

So don’t be late.

Come ready for fun to the party place

It’s W’s house - !!!!!! **** Chase.

You would not, could not, want to miss,

A birthday party quite like this!

      You want to come.  So you say?

 Tell us, tell us, right away!

      Send an RSVP to one of our moms.

        Either ******* or ********, both @yahoo.com

We went with a Dr. Seuss theme.  All the games and food were inspired by our favorite stories

 

We had a Cat in the Hat photo booth as well as hat making craft 

 

We planted truffula trees in little Lorax planters and took turns tossing marshmallows at the Bar-ba-loots.   Other games included Ring the Gack (from one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish), Sneetch bowling, bouncing in the Hop on Pop bounce house, and fishing in McElligot's Pool.

 The only reprieve for the HOT HOT morning was our tiny Yertle pool with water balloons and turtle squirters.  Those poor little balloons we gone in the first few minutes of the party.

 Entertainment included storytime and a little puppet show in our Fox in Sock puppet theater

We had a lunch of red fish and blue fish goldfish

Hot dogs (from Sneetches and many others)

Peanutbutter side up sandwiches (from the butter battle)

Mulberry street berries

Cheese from the three cheese trees (from Fox in Socks)

green eggs and ham cookies

Chocolate teddy grahams and grapes (Bar-ba-loot bears and truffula fruit from the Lorax)

a crumb even too small for a mouse (from the Grinch)

 although I forgot to pop the Hop on Popcorn and we had technical difficulties that kept the marshmallow cat hats for getting made.

We washed it all down with pink ink (One fish, Two fish)

 We saved just enough room for birthday cake (which miraculously didn't completely topple in the heat)

 Most of the kids ended up in a massive water fight after eating cake ...did I mention it was HOT... so Mr. W and Miss A broke the pull string pinata I'd made shaped like the cat's big red box.  

It was fun.  It was hot. 

And games...we had a lot.  

Smile across my face

even with kids running all over the place.

With the success, we had aside,

next year the party WILL BE inside.

Our little friend W

So as you look through the recent posts you'll notice a reoccurring little dude.  

 This guy

You'll be seeing more of him as I finish catching up on posts.  

10 billion points to the person who identifies when he made his first appearance in the Melton Pot.  I'll give you a hint, it's after we moved to Houston but before this most recent series of catchup posts.  

He is our neighbor and is in both Miss A's church and school class so he has naturally become her best friend.  We love W.  He is so low key and is the perfect balance to the diva that is Miss A.  It's actually easier to have both of them with me rather than just my precious little angel.  They are hilarious to watch.  He is the youngest of four boys (soon to be 5 boys).  Miss A gives him a good taste of what it is like to hang with a girl.  She even got him a "Liam" doll for his birthday that lives at our house so that he doesn't have to feel weird when Miss A demands that he play Barbies with her.  He is picking up quickly on how to deal with crazy females.  For instance she once accidentally locked herself in the bathroom.  She started crying and saying that she needed her mommy to come and save her.  He was on the outside and said "Why don't you just unlock the door?"  When she got out she was still crying a little and he asked "Why are you crying?"  She responded with "You just wouldn't understand".  His response "Oh...do you want an ice cream sandwich?"  Such a smart boy.  He already knows exactly how to get an irrational female to settle down and forget her drama. 

Parker, Patty, and a Peztacular Party

In early May Miss A and I headed to Albucrazy for a whirlwind weekend for cousin P's baptism and to throw Auntie P a 30th birthday party. The trip is a little bit of a blurr due to the need to go go go to pull everything together complicated by Miss A having a paralyzed tummy that seemed to act up mostly in the middle of the night.  I will say that as tired as I was when I finally got home, we did have a good time.  Thanks to some pics from Auntie J and my mom, I was able to pull together some memory of the trip.  

We were sad Daddy and E weren't able to come with us, but Miss A and I were happy that we were able to be representing our family's support of cousin P's choice to be baptized.  It's fun to think that we will have one of the cousins baptized every year for the next 4 years. 

After the baptism the focus changed to Mission Patty's 30th Peztacular Party.  

 

Miss M dressed up as a classic PEZ girl and played hostess.  

 Decorations were kept pretty simple with some retro PEZ ads and red, yellow and orange balloons.

We served up a menu of savory dishes inspired by the flavors of PEZ:

A grape almond gazpacho

Cola pork tacos

Pineappple chickpea tacos
 

a couple salads, one with pears, dried cherries and lemon poppy seed dressing and a watermelon gorzonzola salad with a little kick.

Roasted brussel sprouts with raspberries
 

Baked brea with apples and cranberries

Strawberries and cream

Raspberry lemonade and virgin mojitos to drink
probably some other things I can't remember right now.
 

We played PEZ Jenga and everyone made their own pez dispenser

 Dessert was a buffet of PEZ flavored ice cream/sorbet with birthday cake.

 We finished the evening off how every party should end...with a pinata

Didn't Auntie J do an amazing job?

It was a crazy weekend, but I'm really glad we were able to take the trip.

Fast forward

When looking over my pictures between March and June it would appear that we didn't do much.  I'm pretty sure I remember being busy so I'd better start scrounging up pictures from people we hung out with.  Until I collect some real pictures, the evidence on my phone shows that we made:

Cakes

Party Props

 Invitations

trips to the park

 

effective use of stickers

 

and fashion statements

had:

a baby shower (not for me)

science camp

 

play dates

and dance parties

 

and finished:

School performances

and Kindergarten

 

... Now back to my pursuit of pictures for everything I didn't capture.

Spring break during summer break and Easter in July

So I finally uploaded/downloaded/dumped/edited/etc the pics from my phone and camera.  The camera has been acting up and my phone doesn't have the best camera so I apologize for my lack of quality photo documentation.  Flipping through the new collection of pics it looks as though I will start my catch up around March.  

The highlights began with Spring Break.  We kick-started the week with our traditional Fry-day Friday celebration.  The break snuck up on us so we didn't make any real plans.  I had lots of dreams of road trips to ABQ (so we didn't break our streak of hanging with the Shepherds over Spring Break) or Dallas to go to Legoland discovery center or Six flags, but when all was said and done the farthest we made it outside of town was a quick trip to Galveston.  It was a tad cold but the kids still had fun digging in the sand, blowing bubbles, flying kites, and feeding the seagulls off the back of the ferry.

 

I felt kind of bad that we didn't really do much over the break so we spent one evening having a "fancy dinner" introducing the kids to fondue.  They loved it just as much as mommy. 

The next highlight of the month was our Easter celebrations.  Miss A was aching to have a little tea party so we invited a few friends over for a little Good Friday breakfast.  

(these good pics were obviously not taken by me...I have Olya Yee to thank for capturing these)

 

We made it "fancy" with little hats for the ladies and ties for the little gentlemen.

 After breakfast, we decorated egg cookies...

...and then prepared for a little egg hunt in the front yard. 

 Miss A had so much fun she could barely contain her love.

 

The next morning we loaded up the bikes and headed out to Brenham to meet some friends for an egg hunt in a beautiful rose garden followed by a nice country bike ride where we enjoyed the bluebonnets in bloom. It was a beautiful day.  I was selfish and didn't let E's need to carry around a bowl in his basket (you don't want more details) to keep us from the festivities.

When we got home we planted some jelly beans which magically sprouted Easter morning.

The rest of the day we turned our thoughts towards the sacrifice of our Savior Jesus Christ which made for an even more perfect day.