Quinn turns 3!

Quinny turned 3 last week!  Veteran's day holiday on his birthday came in handy - we didn't have to wait for the weekend to celebrate!  His theme was Bubble Guppies, since he loves to watch that cartoon on Netflix, although lately he's more of a Jake and the Neverland Pirates fan- but there was no changing it!  

When he woke up in the morning he said "It's my birthday! Can I open presents now?!"

Playing with some of his birthday gifts :)

Airplane mechanic

After presents we went to IHOP for a birthday breakfast and then to the party store to pick out a balloon.  I pointed out Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, but he had his mind made up to get a Dora the Explorer balloon.  haha

Momma and the birthday boy :)

He really wanted hair stuff in his hair to spike it up.

Birthday pancakes

Quinn and the neighbor-girl, Shilo, eating goldfish crackers and Swedish fish for snack

Julie and Quinn playing with Play Doh.

The cake - Byrekka and I worked hard making the characters out of "color-flow" icing.

Decorations 

Singing Happy Birthday

Blowing out the candles 

Neighbors and Quinn :)

Blowing out the candles!

Unwrapping gifts

Aw, everyone was so nice with gifts :)

He gave Kiera a birthday boy hug :)

After his birthday we really starting hitting on potty training - and he's done amazing!  He gets so excited he wants a high-five and then he dances in a circle singing about how he went potty in the toilet. haha!  Part of the deal was that he could have his own underwear instead of hand-me-downs, so we have Mickey Mouse underwear on their way from Amazon.  

One day when I was turning off "Finding Nemo" I looked at Quinn and said "I'm turning Nemo off, okay?   okay?         okay??" and he looked at me and said "I'm not going to say OKAY."  haha! smart guy....

Ronin has had Mindcraft on the mind, watching endless YouTube videos with hints and secrets on how to play.  He and his friend, Bella, are addicted... So this is the beginning of video games and I'm sure it won't get better... only worse.  So I make him practice reading/writing in between videos so he's doing something productive.

Not much more going on that I can think of!  Thanksgiving is coming, I won't have the boys but at least we'll get to celebrate the weekend after :)

Lots of love,

C

King of the Wild things, Green Ninja, Amy and an Alpaca

Aw, my favorite holiday has passed now.  What have I learned?  That homemade costumes are the cutest!  and that eating all of Quinn's candy that he thought was "icky" gives me nightmares at night - plus some added pounds... :(

Our jack-o-lanterns -- a few rotted before Halloween...

A close-up of the rotting business.

The Tuesday before Halloween Ronin's cub-scout group had a Halloween meeting where the kids could wear their costumes, pet a llama (alpaca) and play games.

Rojo was very soft, but kept making noises... so now I'm afraid of llamas... :(

Ronin and Rojo

This was as close as Quinn would get--- he didn't want to get near it.

Quinn's costume looks like a bunny or a donkey at this point...  Ronin said he looks like Eeyore because he didn't have a tail. haha

mmmm... doughnuts....

Quinn was NOT amused with the mummy-game

AW!  Look, sweet little Boldin fell asleep in my lap at work!

I FINALLY finished Quinn's costume the night before Halloween.  It's the first costume I've ever made from scratch, and I have to say, I was pretty pleased with myself - especially having no pattern to go by  :)

Quinn was super excited to have a tail and a crown finally - so he danced for me.

And Halloween day we got to dress up at work:  

I dressed as Amy Winehouse-- you can't tell the difference, right?!

My friend Connie :)

My office-mate Terri :)

Some of the OPS ladies :)

My friend Deborah -- she was the dummy that stands on the street... looks just like her.

After lunch I volunteered to help Ronin's class make spider-hats.  they weren't allowed to wear costumes, but could wear their pajamas and have crazy hair.  Which is lame - but at least it's something.  It was kind of fun and I got to talk to his teacher a little bit- she is younger than me, which is weird, but she seems very patient and easy-going with the kids.  I heard someone tell Ronin "your mom is pretty cool" and he said "yeah, I know".   ha ha!  

Spider hat!

Ronin's friend Jacob dressed in Spiderman PJ's too.

 Halloween night we went to Kim's house to go trick-or-treating with her son, William, and another neighbor kid.  The boys got POUNDS of candy in just a short time.  Quinn was SO cute - he ran to each house because his legs are shorter than the older boy's.  After every house he'd ask "are we going to go to another house?"

Video of him asking if we are going to another house.

Quinn saying "trick or treat"  - kind of blurry though...

The munchkins

Green Ninja

 

See!  Quinn is Max- King of the Wild Things!

Gang of trick-or-treaters

Over the weekend we went to visit Nana and Papa to wear them and the dogs out.  haha

 Reading books at Nana and Papas house

Ronin's first grade school photo

Quinn's birthday is next week!  He wanted a Bubble Guppy theme... so here's the invite for a few of the neighbor kids and some of my girlfriends:

I have his birthday off so we'll probably make a day of going to Chuck-E-Cheese and get a giant balloon from the party store before friends come over...  The rest of his birthday gifts should be arriving today - spoiled boy!

Lots of love,

C

Pumpkins and Halloween Party

After our Saturday of family pictures got canceled a couple weekends ago, I took the kids to Joes Place farm where they got to pick out pretty much whatever they wanted.  

Their pumpkins :)

Quinny painted one of his and Ronin carved two of his pumpkins-- all by himself! He did a really good job, I was surprised at how well he did!

Intent on painting

Carving...

Pumpkin #1

Pumpkin #2- using the carving pattern

Quinn's finished product

Ronin got a new bike!  After having the chain fall off daily and Ronin having to wait for me to put it back on each time, Nana was nice enough to buy Ronin a new bike!  a much bigger bike too!  Ronin was so excited picking out his bike.  He specifically wanted one that had the back-peddle brakes.  We found a 20" bike that had them and he rode it all over the yard/garden section at Walmart to test it out.  When we got home and I opened the back of the car to get it out he hollered to the neighborhood "HEY EVERYONE! I GOT A NEW BIKE!"  It was so cute!  All the neighbor kids gathered around while we took the tags off and he got his helmet on.

His helmet is actually on BACKWARDS here.

New bike mom! 

Shilo and Ronin made a MineCraft puppet show for me one night

One of the guys at work has been bringing in his puppy, Boldin... who is the CUTEST puppy ever!  A little distracting, but he is the highlight of all us ladies day when we get to cuddle with him :)

Boldin and me :)

Saturday Robert and I went to a friends Halloween party.  Mostly fun, I might have went off on another woman there because she was an idiot.  Robert just shakes his head and laughs. Good man.

"Queen of Hearts" and I hate that mask- it's freaky! 

Us ladies in the car going to the party (that's Julie and Kim)

Poor Robert was the Designated Driver...  and the name-tag was my idea, don't judge.

Kim and Me

This weekend is Halloween!  I still need to make a tail for Quinn's wolf costume.  He is super excited about the idea of trick-or-treating to get candy.  He kept asking me "is it Halloween yet?" no "is tomorrow Halloween?"  haha   And the other day I asked what it would take to get him to go to the bathroom in the toilet, he told me "cupcakes!" so I got mini-cupcakes and he did well that night.  The next day I told Cheyla to just give him a quarter of a cupcake as a reward.  He was pretty pissed off that he wasn't getting a whole cupcake, so he stopped going in the toilet.  When I got home Cheyla told me about it and I asked Quinn about the cupcake situation, and he said "Yeah, I'm NEVER going to the bathroom again".  haha!  Little turkey!  If he can't have a whole cupcake he won't even try.

I had a parent-teacher conference with Ronin's teacher this week.  She said he's always making her laugh, he needs to stay on task, hold his pencil right more of the time... pretty normal stuff.  The funny part is that she said he gets her jokes when the rest of the class doesn't.  Or he'll say things she's thinking - which happens to me all the time!  Smart boy.  She commented on how creative he is, and how detailed his stories are :)   I told her how I used to write about morbid things when I was little, like houses killing people and lots of blood and violence, she said he writes about pretty morbid things too, mostly zombies killing people, but she doesn't see it as a problem and it's kind of a boy thing.  He's more like me than I give him credit some times.  :)    

Ronin and I had a talk about what he's been hearing on the bus or at school and if he has questions.  He said he hears the "f" word a lot from one boy on the bus, so I explained what cuss words are and what words were okay for him to say instead.  I tried to explain what drugs were and that in about 5 or 6 more years he'll probably know people that are doing them, so I lightly touched on what drugs are and when I got to the ones that make you hallucinate, he asked if I put those in his food!  haha!  I said I would never put drugs in his food!  But he told me one time he ate some of my food and then started seeing things that weren't there.  haha!  And the last thing we touched on was "sex" because he's heard the word on his bus a lot and he want's to know what it is and where babies come from!  I kind of postponed that discussion and told him to tell me what he hears from his friends/classmates and we will have the talk later.  Fun stuff.   I promised him I'd be honest with him as long as he always came to me for answers and not his friends.

Quinn's birthday is coming up!!  I have invites ready, I just haven't decided how we are doing it yet!  He doesn't really have any friends his age to invite- most of his friends are Ronin's friends/neighbor kids.  I guess there's nothing wrong with that as long as he gets CAKE!  haha

Lots of love,
C