Penguin party is no more

My son originally wanted a penguin party for his 7th birthday.  This was probably way I procrastinated on it.  Penguin parties just don't fall together.  They take a little thought.  I had started to think on pintrest, where else. I am not really sure where the whole penguine idea came from in the first place.  He said penguins are winter and his birthday is in winter.  Although we have not had much a winter here.

I looked at cakes.  Thinking I could find a pretty cake and then build a table around it.  I found this perfect one not only was it penguine but it had a snow globe too.  He loves snowglobes.

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This one was adorable and I could do it myself.

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Okay but what do you do at a penguine party?  There is no snow and none in the 50's 60 degree forecast we have was not looking like sledding could be an activity.  I found a super cute print to make.

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But how many things to I want to have with just the 4.  I might do this next winter as an activity with all 5 kids.

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Then there was these snow globes.  He would love them and we have honestly over 100 baby jars sitting on my shelf right now.  But What about when my 2 year old gets a hold of them like he has done with many other of the snow globes and I have a glittery water spot on the floor.  But maybe.  And how much is it going to cost me in inside supplies?

Even then how long will all this last half an hour?  I think penguin party is a darling idea but since we are having a small immediate family party.  It is hard to have things to do for really 3 little boys only.  I started looking at other ideas.  I through a few his way and one he jumped on quick.  He got excited and he has been talking about since.

We have now switched from a penguine party to a fishing birthday.

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No not that type of fishing.  Although we are going cat fishing Wyatt is staying home.  We are heading down to West Virginia to my parents for pizza, fishing and cake.  All three Evan's picks of what he wants to do.  I have seen years of our fishing skills and that is probably why he wants to do pizza first.   Since we are heading out for a day of fishing that is the activity.  Plus always has a good time running around my parents climbing through the woods and shooting guns.  Yes I lets them, yes they are supervised and yes they know how and have for sometime.  Pizza we will stop and get.  Drinks and snacks I will get during this week.  We don't need goody bags for your brothers.  And the cake Evan ordered today.  He wanted a fishing cake of course.  We looked at a few options.

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He like this one for me to make for him.  He wanted a fish coming out.  But I do have a full week set all ready this or any cake would take to much time.  So he designed a cute one it should be perfect.

I got all his gifts ordered and bought this past weekend, he will love them.  It has all come together it will be wonderful.  I am getting as excited as he is.

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In one week

My little boy will be 7!



My sweetest little guy.  He is such a cuddler.  Such an inventor.  So loving.



He plays so many sports.  But has not took to any of them quite yet.  He is more the solitude artist.



He is best friends with his biggest brother.  He is lost without him.  He is my middle son.



He loves his cat.  He takes such good care of her.  He is in a great helpful stage.



Next Sunday we will be celebrating him.  It's his birthday.  Wow 7.

Valentines Party at our place

It a little late coming but we have been busy.  People think that the late Autum is the holiday season but for us it does not stop there.  It pauses in January and then kick into high gear come Febuary and last for 3 months.  I am finding  it very hard to keep up with.  Party planning, party decorating, cake ordering, pictures, school crafts, present shopping, cleaning, and the rest of your normal activites and chores.

One of my sons birthdays is next week.  His school party is next Friday, his birthday party he wants both next Saturday and Sunday.  I have not done anything for them yet.  And it is not like I have forgot I have known about this for coming on 7 years.  But time got away from me and the time I have to do things he is always around.

So that is why I am now writting about celebrating valentines day.  The kids had there parties at school.  They handed out there favors and brought home bags of cards and candy.  Which their little brother and sister quicky dove into.



Yum.  They found toys, lots of angry bird tattoos, and of course candy.



Since Valentines fell on a Tuesday this year we were not able to do that much.  We still had lots of other obligations.  I had work, Dad had work, the boys had school, Faith was sick and had to go to the doctors (after many weekend doctor trips and an ER visit) swimming lessons, and believe it or not school pictures fell of today too.  But I still wanted to make it special.

Since we just bought a new car earlier this month that kinda took the place of Jay and my Valentines gifts.  But I did not want to come home empty handed so I stopped and bought tons of balloons.



Those are just some.  I love that you can get them for $1 each.  Babies love them and we have balloons for everything.  Sometimes just because.

A little local joint opened today.  It is an ice cream lite restaurant with albino deer for the kids.  Weird I know.  But it is so popular and has been around for ever.  I stooped by there to get Jay a special lunch.  His favorite root beer and some crab soup.  Something little, something nice.

Then I got home just in time to throw up a few decorations before the big boys got home.



All Christmas stuff I got on clearance.

The boys honestly did not care.  They through the school treats on the table as you saw in picture 1 and were more interested in playing beyblades.



So my little Smiley made cupcakes with me.



Just simple out of the box cupcakes.  But when they were cooled down the boys were back and interested again.



We had all sorts of sugar toppings to decorate with.  Some went on the cupcakes and some went strait in our mouths.  Each of us made a delicious treat before dinner.


Gregory


Smiley


Evan

I asked what they wanted for dinner and we would make a special dinner too.  Red Spaghetti was there choice.  They love it when I put food coloring into the noodles as they cook.  The boys have turned the noodles all sorts of colors.  I can't usually bring myself to eat them.  But red was kinda.... well camouflaged by the spaghetti sauce.  Still they enjoyed and had fun.



I also had some Valentines Day pictures took of them.  What a job that was!  If you are family you will be getting some prints soon.




I love how bored Smiley is in this one


Smiley 2 1/2


Evan almost 7


Gregory 8 1/2


My little loves!!!

Aunt Karen!!!

Giggle giggle look at me giggle giggle

My not so little niece Danica was to happy to have me take goofy pictures of her playing.













I will take pictures of you any day little one.  I love you so much.

Fastnaucht Day

Happy Fastnaucht Day!  To all my friends living in Dutch country and everywhere else.  What is Fastnaucht Day?  Don't worry if you never heard of it.  It is common out here but I never heard of it till I moved to Pennsylvania either.  Once I found out about it I thought how could I have gone over 20 years without it.

Lets go to wiki to explain it...

A Fasnacht, sometimes spelled Fastnacht or Faschnacht or Fosnot or Fosnaught, is a fatty doughnut treat served traditionally on Fastnacht Day (Shrove Tuesday), the day before Lent starts. Fasnachts were made as a way to empty the pantry of lard, sugar, fat, and butter, which were traditionally fasted from during Lent.^[1][2][3]

Basel, Switzerland conducts an annual fasnacht festival. The Pennsylvania Dutch territory surrounding Lancaster, Pennsylvania, celebrates the custom as well. Most chain supermarkets in the eastern Pennsylvania offer fasnachts, although WalMart offersPączki instead. The pączki is traditionally eaten in Poland on the Thursday prior to Fasnacht Day, although in Polish communities of the US, the tradition is more commonly celebrated on Fasnacht Day. Commonly pączki are round, rather than having straight sides, and they are filled with jelly, or sometimes creme filling.^[1][2][3]

In parts of Maryland, the treats are called Kinklings, and are only sold in bakeries on Shrove Tuesday. The German version is made from a yeast dough, deep fried, and coated or dusted in sugar or cinnamon sugar; they may be plain or filled with fruit jam. Pennsylvania Dutch fasnachts can often be potato doughnuts, and may be uncoated, powdered with table sugar, or dusted with confectioner's sugar.^[1][2] [3]

The term is synonymous with the Carnival season Fasnacht in southern Germany, Switzerland, Alsace and Austria. Although usually written "Fastnacht", there are many local spoken varieties: Fasnacht, Fassenacht, Fasnet etc.^[1][2][3]

The German word Fastnacht translates as Carnival in English.

That sums it up pretty good.  Some of you also celebrate fat Tuesday.  And today will make you fat.  Everywhere you turn around there are fastnauchts.  People hand them out to neighbors, friends, co workers you can't avoid these delicious treats.  I stopped at the market on my way home and picked up a dozen for my family.

First thing my boys yelled as they got home "Happy Fat Tuesday mom do you have any..." they were cut off mid sentence once they saw the yummy treats on the table.  They dove right in.  I got half powder sugar, and half table sugar.  Everyone like different ones and I had one of each.

Ah they were delicious.  And oh so fattening.  Each fastnaucht is around 500 calories.  WOW.  Even though I am pregnant that is a lot of extra calories.  So we headed to the gym.  Picture are never flattering when hold a doughnut.

I love to run so I though I would run it off.  

Well I ran and ran.  I ran 4 miles.  I did not run off the 1000 extra calories I had just inhaled but any is better than none.  

And did you see what those fastnauchts did to me?  All the sudden they made my belly big.  My bump is now here.  My bump might just be fastnauchts.  We will see in a day or two.

Well after gorging and running it time for rest.  Happy Fastnaucht Day!

Class Valentines

Valentines is a fun time to get crafty with the kids.  It is there valentines they are giving to their  friends so why not have them make it.  Last year we made these super cute Valentines for there class and this year we needed something else to make.  I saw many cute ideas on pintrest they are pined on my valentines board if you want to spoil future years surprises. I decided on the bracelets.  I thought they were cute and perfect for school.

For a little over a month I started collecting supplies.  Why that long?  Because I had to order the bracelets.  I looked on ebay and etsy.  Esty I found them but they were a lot more expensive and not in the quantity I needed to supply it for both of my boys classes.  Ebay I found a packet of 50 for less than $20 including shipping (from Peru).  Those were it.  And when they came they looked great.  Lots of boy and girl colors.  I stopped at Michael's and got the rest of the supplies.  I got scrap book paper on clearance for 11 cents a 11x16 page.  Great deal it was the colors I wanted even printed on the back nicely.  I though I scored till I got home and realized my printer can not handle that size.  I would have to write out each circle.  Ugh I wanted to print it up colorful, neatly and pretty.  Oh well, I stopped then a the dollar store and got glitter and fancy pens.

Theses did tend to be a lot of work.  So I threw in Amish Grace grabbed two different size cups started tracing circles and cutting them out.



I was done by the end of the movie.  It is a good movie, means a little more to me than  most just because it is a true story that happened a little over an hour from my house.  I would recommend it.  If you know the real story they left a lot out.  It is okay for your kids to watch with you.  I sent mine out of the room because I did not know how much they would show or tell but it was made for tv and they did a good family job.

Now I had 50 circles two different sizes.



Time to bring in the troops.  First the boys took the larger circles that were pink striped on one side and blush water marked, very pretty, on the other and wrote out each of there classmates names and signed them .



This was different from the idea I saw on pintrest but I wanted it this way for two reasons.  First the boys were suppose to address each valentines envelopes to practice there writing and second it gave them a chance to make it personal and write something to their friends.  Well that did not happen.  They wrote tiny their friends names and from, not even LOVE, but from them.



Oh well.  It is there valentines after all.

While they were writing I started punching holes in the smaller circles.  Two on each to sting the bracelets through.



Now that we had the basic form of the valentines we had to decorate, write and put them together.  To know the space I had to fit the writing in Evan started applying glitter to them.



What a mess.  We got glitter everywhere.  They loved it though that was there favorite part.

The next day when the glitter and glue were completely dry I was able to write on them.  "Our class would KNOT be the same without you!"  How perfect for school.  And I snuck in the love with a small heart before their names.



Next we strung the bracelets through the holes and placed a piece of tape holding the bracelet to the bigger circle.  It held it all together really well.  I wish I had a puncher the fancify the edges of the big circle but sometimes you have to stop and remember these are for lower elementary school kids and they are going to throw them away anyhow.

Ta da done.



We made nice valentines for both there classes.  Personal and something they could keep.



I am just not a box valentine kind of mom.

Gender Reveal

So today I found out what baby will be.  I was not planning on finding out till baby was born but sometimes things don't work out as planned.  I found out with all the others so this time I wanted that surprise but questioned if I would be able to wait.  Plus I wanted a baby girl and if it was not another princess I did not want to be upset.  Don't get me wrong I would love a little boy too.  I have the 3 best ones in the world all ready and a partner closer in age for Smiley was a nice hope.  But I wanted a sister for Faith.  That way each sibling would have at least a brother and a sister.  Plus I gotta admit I love the bows and dresses.

I have seen more ultrasounds with this baby than any other.  A blessing.  But many times I have to go to ultrasounds because they can't find the heartbeat.  Today was the same situation.  As a matter of fact I have never heard the heartbeat of this one I have seen it many times but never heard it.  It was counted for me once very early at 180 something.  Which was normal for the week.  On the high side but normal.  Today after a few cups of morning coffee they again could not the heartbeat.  So ultrasound it is.

Baby was fine just moving all over the place.  We saw the position of baby and the it moved completely, flipped around.  We were watching baby with ultrasound and saw the heartbeat so tried to catch it with the doppler.  She sorta did it was jumping up and down as baby kept moving.  The range was 144-166.  But we could never hold it long enough to hear it or get a god reading.

The doctor slipped sounds like a...

Ugh I did not really want to know.  But she said what I though anyways.  The baby flipped around again and the bottom with legs open was front on screen.  Doctor knew what it was.  I had a hard time.  I think I saw the right parts.  But the doctor smiled.  She knew.  I know what she knows too.

I love the big gender reveal parties.  However I do not have time for one right now.  We are heading into March Madness our birthday season.  So I am trying to plan many parties and quickly running out of time as it is.  But I though I would have a quick blog land one with you.

So what do you think it is?????

The facts:
I have 3 boys number 1, 2 and 3.  Number 4 was a girl.  This is number 5.
My husband has 2 brothers.  I have 1 but people say it is the fathers that count.
The heart beat under 10 weeks was in the 180's.
At 18 weeks it is jumping from 144 to 166
I look bigger all over.  But no bump.  Never lost the weight from last time either.
I was 32 when I conceived in October and will be 33 when I deliver in July.
Gender charts were NOT always right before.
And I saw this new prediction method it makes me laugh but you go by the last babies hairline and Faiths is straight.

Okay this one cracked me up.

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I wish this cake was really here so I could eat it.  I wish you were it so I could share it with you.

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Will it be pink or blue?

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Take a quick peek.

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Lets have a slice of PINK!  Because it is so sweet.

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Yes!  It is another GIRL!!

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Faith will have a sister!  Everyone will have a brother and a sister.  I love these.  Trust me I have been running through the cuteist sister outfits.

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I got my wish and I am happy.

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Now to think of names?