SuperGirl

Mia's friend Mateus was talking with his mom Claire about superheroes the other day.  He said "I don't like Superman."  "Why not?" asked Claire.  "Well, I do like him, but first I like Spiderman, Batman, and Mia."

Another note on Father's Day

I forgot to mention before what Mia wrote inside Shelby's card with no help from  me.  I handed her the card to sign and she wrote:

"If You cod bee betr that cod nevr hapen.  Love Mia"

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY MIA!!!

Well, Mia has had several birthday celebrations and there are still more to come.  Gaga got into town on thursday night late and so Mia go to wake up with Gaga friday morning.  We let her skip school on friday to hang out with Gaga and we had a little birthday party for her non school friends over here friday morning.  First we went to IHOP for breakfast then Jessica, Ella, Diva, Claire, Mateus and Bianca all came and we had a blast.  Mia got a light saber that would end up breaking later that day, but we got a new one that is totally cool.  Ella and Diva gave her a bendable groovy girl and some coloring activites.  We had the already blogged about watermelon ice cream mold and it was a big hit.  The kids and adults all liked it and it ended up looking great.  Friday night Shelby made us his delicious tomato basil soup with bruschetta and we all stuffed ourselves.  Friday night was a busy cake making night.  We had purchased this mold to make one of those barbie dress shaped cakes and realized that it was missing a very important piece just as I was about to bake the cake at like 11 o'clock at night.  Shelby, being the impressive cake mold engineer that he turned out to be, figured something out so that I could use the mold, but I still had to make a midnight run to the store for something else I had forgotten.  Then the cake took about 3x as long to bake because of the depth of the mold so I was up super late.  Shelby had gone to bed much earlier and asked me to wake him up when the cake was cooled off so that he could decorate it.  When I finally went to bed around 2 am I decided to just get him up in the morning when the kids got up around 6 and he would have plenty time to decorate it in the morning.  

Mia and Gaga at IHOP friday morning

They opened presents in the front yard at her first party

Mia and Diva loved the ice cream mold

The kids all painted heart shaped boxes after ice cream

Tearful goodbye hugs from Ella and Diva

The much talked about Watermelon 

Back view of the Giselle Cake, Gaga did the bow

Saturday.  Mia woke up very excited for her party.  The cake ended up being a group project.  Shelby was using fondant for the first time and when he got frustrated I took over for a while and then Gaga finished it up by doing the bow on the back of the dress.  It ended up looking really great!  Shelby is so good at cakes.  Naomi came over and went with us to Mia's last soccer game where she was allowed to participate in all the drills and they even let her play for a few minutes at the end of the game.  The girls had a really good time and then we raced back home to get dressed for Libby Lu.  Libby Lu was awesome!  Mia, Bella, Naomi and Lila all looked beautiful and were pretty impressed that they got so pampered.  They all got their hair done in an updo, their nails and make up done and then they did a run way show through the store.  After Libby Lu we came back home to have pizza, cake and ice cream and the girls all colored in their Enchanted coloring books while they watched Enchanted.  Around 7 45 Bell and Lila went home, but Naomi stayed the night.  She and Mia played a while longer and then finally crashed out around 9 pm.  

Mia LOVED being pampered at Libby Lu

What is sweeter the cake or the girl?

Naomi, Mia and Bella on the way to Libby Lu

Even all dolled up these girls aren't afraid to be silly!

Lennon was baffled by all the extreme girlieness

Each girl filled a bag with goodies like lotion, shower gel and soap that looked like ice cream

Mia and Bella posing during the runway fashion show

These two look like real pros!

Let's party!

More presents at her second party

The girls coloring their Enchated coloring books 

Eating cake and ice cream after pizza

Sunday.  Because Mia was having a sleepover she and Naomi slept in her room, Gaga slept in with me and Shelby slept in the room with Lennon.  Shelby got up in the morning with the kids and let me and Gaga sleep in.  When I finally woke up around 8 I realized it was father's day and couldn't believe he was so sweet and let me sleep in on Father's Day!  I jumped up and got his gift Mia picked out.  A Boston Red Sox cap and a card with an ape on it.  He loves any card that has an ape on it.  Once I was up, Shelby layed down to take a nap and then we all headed off to Mia's gymnastics show.  She did an awesome job and was very proud of her trophy.  After a long afternoon nap by Lennon we went out to Toys R Us to try to find something cool for the backyard.  We didn't really find anything we wanted, but Gaga did get a slip n slide for Mia and then we went over to Cheesecake Factory for a nice Father's Day dinner.  Lennon was the most miserable he has ever been at a restaurant.  I finally went out and drove him around and brought him back in asleep in his car seat.  He slept through my meal, but then woke up just in time to order dessert.  We decided to get it to go and came home and put Lennon to bed.  Shelby and Mia split a chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake and then Mia went to bed.  Shelby watched golf and then basketball and I went to bed early.  

Mia's fantastic jumping at her show

Mia accepting her trophy at the "olympics"

Dinner at Cheesecake Factory

Thank you Lennon for the brief nap that allowed me to eat in peace

Monday.  Mia woke up and we all sang happy birthday to her again.  We got her a pink jeweled guitar and she was very excited about it.  Shelby is going to start giving her lessons this summer.  She asked me about making that apple walnut french toast, but it was the first time she had mentioned it and you have to start it the night before, so I'll have to do it another day for her.  I wish she had mentioned it before so that I could have made her day more special.  Today she has her kindergarten graduation and then a party in her classroom to celebrate the end of the year.  This morning she said "what a great way to celebrate my birthday!  I get to be on the stage and sing and then have a party at school!"  I made her some eggs and cinnamon toast and she asked for a little bit of the cake icing for one corner of her toast and I actually indulged her.  My how my standards are slipping.  I just love seeing her face light up.  She put on her brand new polka dot dress from Granmommy and her crown from Libby Lu and went off to school.  I can't wait to see her show at 1.  I am picking up Shelby from the train and we are all going to watch her and then take Shelby back to work after school.  I think we have sufficiently celebrated her 6th birthday.  I can't believe it has been 6 years since she came into our lives.  I could not be more in love with that sweet little princess.  She is the best kid I could ever imagine having!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIA!! 

Mia with her teachers assistant Mrs. Ruane

The sign on stage at Mia's end of year performance

Mia snuggling with Daddy and her new guitar this morning.

Post Script:  Now I have spent all day trying to post this.  Mia's show and party were great and she had a good time singing on the stage in the front row.  I've just been sitting here realizing that I have made some type of dessert almost every night now for five nights in a row.  I am so desserted out!  Let me just give you a brief little rundown of the stuff I have made.

Thursday night, I don't think we need to rerun that fiasco.  The watermelon mold

Friday night, I baked the cake for Mia's Enchanted party

Saturday night, I think I had the night off

Sunday night, I baked cookies for Mia's end of school party that was today

Monday night, I just finished baking and decorating cupcakes for Mia's class celebration of her birthday which will be tomorrow since today they were celebrating the end of the year we decided to celebrate her birthday tuesday so that it wasn't lost in the shuffle.  I baked lots of regular cupcakes and two pans of heart shaped cupcakes using the muffin thing Granmommy gave us a couple valentines days ago.  Mia specially requested heart shaped cupcakes.  

I hope I don't have to make another dessert for a long time.  I'm sure after her birthday celebration tomorrow I will have even more to report.  Until then...Good night and good luck!

Mia has her first loose tooth!

As soon as it falls out I will post a picture.  She is very excited and figuring out how to chew without biting down with her loose tooth.  It's her front left tooth.  Probably pretty typical.  More news to come...

Dessert Dilemma

I never imagined making a child's birthday ice cream mold could be such an ordeal.  

"Let's have that watermelon ice cream thing that Gaga used to make for you for my birthday party on Friday!"

"Okay, that sounds great!"  Cut to me at the grocery store up the road from the house searching for sorbet.  Okay, the first thing I need is lime sorbet.  Lime sorbet...  Hmmm...Maybe it's in another aisle?  Where the heck could it be?  Oh well.  Next, vanilla ice cream.  That's easy.  Now for the raspberry sorbet.  Where is it?  What the heck kind of a store doesn't have raspberry sorbet?  Dreyer's?  Breyer's?  Friendly's?...I don't want to pay it, but Ben and Jerry's?  Come on!!!  Where the heck is all the sorbet?  There's watermelon sorbet, but would that taste right?  I mean I know I'm making a watermelon shaped thing, but raspberry and chocolate that's good, I don't know if watermelon and chocolate would work the same together?  Could be good, but maybe not.  Ah!  Is this...YES it is...Lime sorbet.  Let's see the ingredients...High fructose corn syrup...on the label twice!!!  Seriously, twice?  Winn Dixie?  This is a Stop and Shop what is sorbet from Winn Dixie doing in here.  Is Winn Dixie even still around?  Oh well, it's lime, it's green, it will have to do.  I am now intentionally spending money on something that I am going to willingly serve to my daughter and her friends that contains high fructose corn syrup.  Whatever, you can't win em all!  I'll just check out and go to another store to try to find some freakin raspberry sorbet.      

Second store.  It's a Shaws.  Alright, so I've got the lime sorbet, vanilla ice cream and chocolate chips.  Surely this store will have raspberry sorbet.  Okay, now we're talking.  Lot's more sorbet.  Orange, lemon, coconut, yummy!  But where is the raspberry?  Ah, okay, here we go, wait, no that's black raspberry.  Huh, but on the picture it looks red...It's probably red and just tastes like black raspberries.  Here's hoping!  Check out and go home.

At home.  Alrighty, let's get this first layer done.  Lime sorbet gets dumped into the bowl but it's not cooperating.  Half of it is all melty and dripy and the other half is too frozen and I can't get it to spread around at all.  Oh well, I'll put it in the freezer and let it get a little more solid and just work on mixing the raspberry stuff with the chocolate chips.  As I open up the raspberry though I realize that it is indeed actually BLACK raspberry sorbet, totally not red or pink at all.  Not at all like a watermelon.  Great.  Back to the store.

Store three!  Baskin Robbins.  Nothin.

Store FOUR!  A different Stop and Shop.  Maybe this store will have a different selection.  Mixed berry gelato?  Hmmm...  Strawberry sorbet.  Maybe.  Raspberry sorbet with high fructose corn surup.  ARgh!  What do I do???  (By the way...there is actually a premade watermelon ice cream mold sold at this store, I just can't bring myself to buy it.  I just feel too lame not home making my kids birthday dessert.  It just doesn't feel right.  So, instead I am driving all over town using gas that is costing us a million bazillion dollars to find just the right sorbet that apparently does not exist in this crazy state.)  So, whatever.  I'll go with the strawberry.  

Back at home.  The lime comes out of the freezer and it doing much better.  This might actually work out after all.  Okay, lookin good.  Stick that back in the freezer and start working with this strawberry sorbet?  Sorbet right?  What!  This is strawberry ICE CREAM!!!  It's white!!!  NO!  No no no no no!  It's not red at all.  NOt watermelony at all!  Ahhh!!!!!  Dude, seriously, what am I doing?  Now I guess I'll have to go back to the store and get that watermelon sorbet from the first store.  I don't really have any other options besides buying the premade mold, which I guess I will have to buy if the watermelon stuff doesn't work out.  Sheesh!

So, that's where I'm at now.  I am about to go back out to the store to buy the watermelon sorbet.  Then to the airport to pick up my mom, then back to the house to finish making the dessert.  What will we do with all this ice cream now?  I now have in my freezer lime sorbet, vanilla ice cream, black raspberry sorbet and strawberry ice cream.  And I guess if I can't manage to make this very simple children's dessert I will also have a premade store bought watermelon ice cream mold in there tomorrow morning.  Aside from the fortune I've just spent on frozen dessert we aren't even supposed to be eating this kind of junk right now anyway.  Oh, birthdays.  

Lost and Found

Will the owner of the massively explosive temper gene please come to my house and reclaim it as soon as possible.  It has been ravaging Lennon recently and we are all ready for it to leave.  

Party Party Party

Well I never got around to posting anything about the Memorial Day party we went to at Amy's house.  It was a lot of fun.  There were lots of kids and even Lennon had his little friend Bianca to play with.  The older kids spent a good deal of the day collecting little caterpillars and tiny green worms and stuff.  They had a pretty big bowl of them pretty quickly and then the poor things just sat there and boiled in the bowl all afternoon probably wishing they could be burrowing underground.  Unfortunately Lennon got his first bloody nose while there.  It was purely accidental.  In fact he gave it to himself by knocking a plastic toy tub up into his face.  He was pretty startled by it and wouldn't let me clean his face off very well so he ended up just sporting a nice gruesome bloody nose for the rest of the afternoon.  Here are a few pictures...

Jessica on baby duty at the Memorial Day Party at Amy's house

Diva, Mia, Mateus and Ella having some juicy watermelon

Budding love between Lennon and Bianca

This weekend has been super busy.  Friday was supposed to be field day at Mia's school, but it was nasty and raining so they just got to do one relay race in the gym and then go down to the cafeteria for slush and a dj for about 15 minutes.  I think the kindergarteners still had a lot of fun, but it was kind of lame.  Suzanne came and stayed with Lennon at the house so that I could go up to the school and help out.   Lennon has been a little bit sick all week.  He may be getting another tooth, plus he has a nasty cold with a cough and he's just generally been feeling kind of clingy and sad.  I put him down a little bit early for his afternoon nap, around 12 30 and went to lay down myself.  He rarely sleeps longer than one hour so I never dreamed that I would need to set any kind of alarm to be at Mia's school to pick her up at 2 15.  Well lo and behold I woke up at 2 20 and Lennon was still sleeping away.  I had to rush into his room scoop him up and toss him into the car to speed down the street to Mia's school where she was waiting outside the door with her teacher.  Fortunately the school is only about 2 minutes by car and her class is usually a few minutes late in the afternoon anyway, but still it was a very close call.  Then I checked my voice mail and had a message from Suzanne saying she was running late and could I please pick up Naomi from her class so we sped around the corner to find Naomi waiting outside with her teacher.  So it was not a good parenting day for me or Suzanne.  So then I took both girls back to our house and we ended up having a sleepover.  The girls didn't go to sleep until a little after 9 even though they were in bed long before that.  

Saturday morning Mia was up and trying to wake Naomi at 5 22!!!  I went in and told her to go back to sleep for at least an hour.  Lennon actually slept in until 6 45 which was something of a miracle and much appreciated since we had a long day ahead of us.  We first had Mateus' 4th birthday party at 10 am at a playground nearby.  It was Star Wars themed and Mia was very excited to participate in the Jedi training Claire led and then to receive her inflatable light saber.  The cake was delicious, but Mia didn't like it because she is CRAZY!  It basically tasted like a pumpkin roll with chocolate chips in it.  Then we had to leave a little early from there to make it to her next to last soccer game and team pictures.  The game was pretty much a bust.  The kids and pictures were just too disorganized so it was largely a big playdate with her soccer team.  She had a good time rolling down the hill with Giovanni and Isabella.  We cut out of the game a little early to go home and let Mia take a little nap before heading out to Giovanni's 6th birthday party which was at his parents church.  Now this was some kids birthday party!  The cake was HUGE and I said something about it to Giovanni's mom who responded something along the lines of "well if everyone shows up there will be close to 100 people here, so I had to get it that big."  One HUNDRED people!  No joking.  It was awesome.  They are Brazilians and Brazilians like to have fun.  There was air hocky, little bowling sets, foosball, baseball, basketball, darts, you name it.  Pizza, hot dogs, popcorn, juice, cake and all kinds of goodies.  Fortunately for me I didn't have to do much arguing with Mia over her having tons of junk food cause her stomach had been bothering her all morning and she didn't really feel like eating anything.  She had an awesome time and we discovered that Lennon is fascinated by basketballs.  He is just so excited that the Celtics are doing so well I guess!  He had so much fun following after this basketball and picking up way over his head it was hysterical to watch him.  We got home from that party at about 6 and all four of us were completely exhausted.  Shelby and I had cheese and crackers for dinner and put the kids to bed.  We tried watching some Designed to Sell and played a game of skip bo, but we were both in bed and asleep by about 9 PM.  Shelby has this weird stomach thing that I had about a week ago and I think Mia has a touch of it too.  Shelby though is feeling just terrible and can't eat anything.  We've just gotten home from church and Lennon and Shelby and taking naps.  Later this afternoon we are going to a church carnival down the street, St. Joseph's Feast it's called.  We are meeting Naomi's family there about 5.  Mia is super excited.  I'm looking forward to it, and also to the weekend being over.  I'm pretty tired.  Hopefully this next week will be filled with rest and relaxation.  HA!  Well, at least it will be filled with my wonderfully exciting growing children and my mom is coming to town on Thursday!  Yea!  That will give me a little reprieve.  

Mia and Giovanni at his birthday party

Just a small sampling of the people at Giovanni's party

Lennon loving his basketball

Go Celtics!!!

"Watch my Herculean strength!"

Mia eating birthday cake with Bella

Mia in the stands during field day with Bella

Mia eating slush with Angelina after the relay

I got to dance some with Mia in the cafeteria.  She isn't embarrassed of me...yet.

Angelina, Mia and Naomi in the cafeteria

Diva, Mateus, Claire, Mia, Ella and Miranda about to eat cake

On Target

As we were running some errands today we were discussing things that Mia wants for her birthday.  She was listing off various Star Wars related gifts and Barbies and whatnot and then she said, "I bet you are going to get most of this stuff at Target.  Because...almost everything cool is from Target."  She sure knows her stores!  

Lennon's 10 month check up

So, we went to the doctor today for a check up because we hadn't been in a while.  Everything was good and the doctor joked that maybe Lennon was actually maybe about 6 months older than we thought he was because he was walking so well and had so many teeth.  He said maybe he was accidentally switched with another baby a few months ago!  Lennon weighed in at 22 lbs 1/2 oz and he was 28.5 inches long.  So according to the online chart I just consulted he is somewhere around the 60% for weight and somewhere around the 40% for length.  No surprise that he is turing out to be a little short with us as parents.  He is getting happier and happier every day lately.  He is really becoming such a fun, sweet little dude.

Edit

Okay, so it was just pointed out to me that I had a pretty, how should I say, well an awkward typo on the post Progress.  It has now been changed, so if you were confused about what I was talking about please re read Progress and it should now make sense.  

Progress

On Mia:

We were reading one of those American Girls books tonight and the main character, Samantha had an assignment to write and give a speech on progress in America.  She was asking everyone what they thought was best about America and so forth.  Mia asked me to stop reading and said very seriously "I think I know what is the best thing in America."  Then there was a long pause.  I'm not sure if she was pausing for drama or if she wasn't sure yet what she was going to say, but when she finally spoke she said "I think the best thing in America is life and Jesus."  

On Lennon:

Lennon finally stayed in the nursery for the entirety of the church service today.  It was wonderful and I even heard he was having a ball!  Unfortunately I still didn't get to enjoy sitting through a whole sermon because I was downstairs teaching sunday school, but that was cool too.  And Shelby got to enjoy sitting through a whole service which hasn't happened in quite some time.  He is such a little walker too.  He walked through Kohl's today as if he had been walking his whole life.  He also has for sure six teeth and I think he is getting another two up top now also.  It's crazy!  Mia only had one tooth by the time she was one and I think we noticed it budding through the week before her first birthday.  He is practically going to have a full set of teeth by his first birthday at this rate.