Final Dates

This past weekend, I took Elina and Eli on their final dates with me.  Before each new baby comes we like to spend some time with each kid by themselves.  These moments are rare...plus, the kids are starting to like their own activities, so it's fun for them.

Eli chose to go to Dinosaur Quest, which is a dinosaur museum in the Rivercenter Mall.  We went about a year ago and Eli has been asking to go back for awhile now.  He really wanted Elina to join us on our date, but Elina wasn't very interested in going for some reason.  She just wanted to stay home and work on a canvas painting.  Oh well.

Eli and I had such a great time together!  We took our time and looked at all the dinosaurs and explored the museum.  It was nice to be able to wander around together.

Afterwards, we got some yummy ice cream.  It was a perfect ending to a perfect outing!  I really loved spending some one-on-one time with my boy.

The next day Elina and I went on our date.  Surprisingly, she chose Chuck E. Cheese.  She said that she never gets to play games with just me, which is true.  Usually I'm managing Evie or keeping an eye on Eli, so I guess I can understand why she wanted to go there.

I have to admit, we had an awesome time at Chuck E. Cheese.  It was nice to be able to play games with Elina and also to play some of my own games without constantly looking around for a 2 year old.  I even made Elina play the kids' version of DDR with me.  It was my first time playing and it was definitely harder than I thought it would be.  I got some funny footage of Elina though.

Afterwards, we had a nice lunch at Luby's and shared a yummy key lime pie for dessert.

We talked about the new baby coming and about being a big sister.  Apparently, she's concerned about the excessive amount of crying....as am I.  It was nice to have this time to discuss things with Elina one on one.  She said she really loves our dates and I'm kinda sad we didn't have more of them with her.  I think Elina's reaching an age where she needs this alone time.   Eli, on the other hand, still thinks it's fun to have Elina around for the companionship.  I need to remember to spend more time talking to the kids one-on-one so that I can really focus on what they want to say.  Sometimes it's so hard when there are so many other kids trying to say something at the same time.

It was such a fun weekend with the kids.  I love our dates and can't wait for the next ones...in a few months or so.

Bugs and Painting

I signed Elina and Eli up for camps this past week. Elina took Painting and Eli took a class called Young Entomologist Club. The camp ran from Monday through Friday and was from 9-11:30am. This is definitely the last year I ever sign the kids up for morning camps. It was NOT fun getting up in the morning and getting everyone out on time. Lesson learned.

I purposely signed Elina up for a painting class because she doesn't enjoy painting. She thinks drawing with pencil is more accurate, whereas a paintbrush can be less precise. After all, Elina's all about precision. The class studied different artists and mimicked their techniques. The teacher also taught them about blending paint colors and shading techniques. Elina ended up really enjoying the class. She's really into blending her own colors now. Plus, she loves shading things in. She brought home some really amazing pieces.
Here's her Alma Thomas--

Here's her Matisse--

Here's her Seurat--

Here's her Picasso...which is actually her least favorite one because she doesn't like how unrealistic it is. 

Then they drew a panda with sharpie, did the shading with sharpie, then painted over it with liquid watercolors. This is my absolute favorite one!

Eli spent the week learning about bugs and doing "buggy" activities. He made a cute t-shirt, did some arts and crafts, and ended the week with a bug hunt. It's funny because he already knew more about bugs than what they taught in class, but I just wanted to send him to something fun for the week because he misses Elina so much when she's away.

I love how he draws his insects now (picture below).  The top left is a praying mantis, next to it is a caterpillar with a chrysalis hanging off the branch.  Then below the caterpillar is a butterfly, but this time he drew in the proboscis for the mouth.  Love the details!

  What a fun week!!

Last Little Family Vacay

This past weekend we decided to go to Austin for one last hurrah before the arrival of the new baby.  We didn't get much sleep because the kids refused to sleep in, but we managed to have a blast!

Here are a few highlights:

1. Mayfield Park--We went to check out the resident peacocks at this park.  There were SO many just hanging around, up in the trees, squawking loudly.  It was kinda crazy.  The minute we walked through the gate, a peacock squawked and Evie immediately started to bawl.  Wow.

Then she calmed down and we walked around to check out the peacocks and all the lily ponds in the park.  The highlight was watching a male peacock court a female peacock.  He put up all his fancy feathers and whenever she came close to him, the short feathers behind the display would start rattling to make the fan of feathers shake around.  It was amazing to watch.  Although his technique wasn't too impressive to the lady because she soon ran away.  Poor guy.

2. A Little Date--J and V agreed to watch the kids for us one night so that we could have a date of our own.  We went to eat food at our favorite restaurant, Austin Land and Cattle.  The filet mignon was to-die-for!  And if you can believe it, B says that their steak fries are the most perfect fries he's ever had.  Actually, they WERE pretty amazing!  Then we hung out at a bookstore for a while and afterwards, we went to see "The Amazing Spiderman."

3. Sno-Beach--Of course no Austin visit is complete without a trip to Sno-Beach for yummy sno-cones!

4. The Greenbelt--We went back to hike on the Greenbelt to go swimming since B didn't get to go with us last time.  Luckily, it had rained all week, so it wasn't dry...but the water definitely wasn't as high as when we went last time.  But the kids had lots of fun swimming with B.  B even jumped off their little cliff into the water.  Elina really practiced skipping stones with B and she managed to get 3-4 skips in!

5. Deep Eddy--We went to Deep Eddy pool, which is a pool fed by natural springs, for their family movie night.  You get to swim around while watching a movie on a big screen.

Unfortunately, lots of thunder rolled in and everything got canceled.  Boo!  The kids were SO looking forward to watching "Puss in Boots" there.  To make it up to the kids, we made ice cream sundaes at home and watched a movie.  The kids went to bed LATE that night!

6. Baby Shower Brunch--My sisters were nice enough to take me to Jack Allen for a yummy brunch on Sunday.  It was incredibly delicious!  Amazing pancakes and apple pecan strudel!  Yum!!

7. IKEA--While in Austin, we also had to go buy some much-needed furniture.  We got some shelving for the playroom and we got a new bed set for our own bedroom.  We've been sleeping with our mattress and box spring on the floor ever since we moved in, so it's nice to have furniture again.

We had such a wonderful stay in Austin!  It's always so much fun!

Happy 7th Birthday, Elina!

Elina's real birthday was a lot of fun this year.

Of course she woke up to a bedroom floor filled with balloons.  Then she chose blue birthday pancakes for breakfast.  We all sang "Happy Birthday" to her and Evie was so excited that she almost blew out Elina's candle for her.  Evie loves birthdays!

Since it was Elina's birthday, she got to choose the activity for the day...and she wanted to go to Incredible Pizza Company.  So around lunchtime, we (Ah-Gong, Ah-Ma, me, Eli, Elina, and Evie) all headed over to have some fun.  We even got B to join us for a little bit during his lunch break because Elina really wanted to ride the go-karts with him.   We were there for 3 whole hours!!  The kids had a blast...riding go-karts...

  bowling...

playing glow-in-the-dark mini-golf...

and playing tons of games.  Elina's all-time favorite one was a motorcycle racing game.  She was very serious whenever she raced.  
And Ah-Ma really got into the drum game.  It was awesome!
For dinner, we went to Elina's favorite restaurant, Sushihana.  She just loves to eat their udon noodle soup.  Obviously, Elina has upgraded from the mac n cheese at Luby's Cafeteria to Japanese food!

Then we went home for ice cream cake from Cold Stone.  Elina chose the cookie dough cake and it was absolutely delicious!  Seriously.  Even my parents were having seconds, which is unheard of for them.  It just wasn't as sweet as you would think...so yummy!

The sad thing was this conversation--
Me: What did you wish for?
Elina: Nothing.
Me: Why not?
Elina: Because wishes don't really come true, Mommy.

Where does she get this stuff from??  Way too logical for me!  So I asked her what she would wish for if she knew wishes could come true and she smiled and said, "I'd wish to fly!"  Well, if you wish for things like THAT, how will they ever come true??  I just thought it was sad she didn't even want to make a wish this year.  She's only 7!  Aunt A said that if I had gotten her a pet mouse (like she wished for last year), then maybe Elina would still believe.  Ha!

Elina got some great family gifts...bunk beds from Ah-Gong and Ah-Ma, a microscope from Aunt A, a manga drawing book from Eli, and a djembe drum from B's parents.  Elina's 1st grade class played the djembe drums for performances throughout the year at school, so she was extremely excited to have her own!

Eli also gave Elina a singing birthday card with hamsters on it and she said, "Mommy, this is the best birthday card I've ever gotten!"  It was so cute and the kids danced to the song for a few days...then it ran out of batteries.  Oh well.

What an awesome day!

Abracadabra...Alakazam!

For Elina's 7th birthday this year, she asked for a magic-themed party.  I knew she liked magic, but I didn't think she'd want a magic party.  I had my heart set on an easy-peasy pool party at our neighborhood pool across the street.  I was going to rent out the clubhouse and just have everything take place over there...which meant no set-up or clean-up at my house!  But, alas, I couldn't figure out a way to incorporate magic with swimming...magical swimming??  So we decided to have the party at our new house and to hire a magician to come perform for the kids.

It was weird googling "magicians for kids."  Have you seen what some of the magicians out there look like?  Semi-greasy, semi-creepy...I wasn't sure what to make of it all.  Then I stumbled upon Dwayne Stanton.  He didn't look sketchy at all.  He actually seemed really nice, especially because he runs a magic camp, which is inclusive of children with special needs.  When I told Elina I found a magician for her party, she asked, "But why are you going to get a magician?  I'm going to do the tricks."  Isn't that cute?  I didn't want to break it to her that when she does her "shows" for us we can totally see what's going on.  Plus, I didn't want a kid to make her feel badly on her big day.  So I just explained that we would get a magician to do lots of tricks and that she could help him with a few of the tricks.

For the invitation, I made magic hats with bunnies coming out of them.  They actually turned out really cute!

Then my sisters (A and J), J's boyfriend (V, the famed watermelon carver from Eli's 4th birthday party), and B all helped out with decorations and food.

We had a wide selection of magical food--

There were also Lucky Star sandwiches (PB&J sandwiches cut out into heart shapes) and J made another Magic Potion for the kids where she had drops of food coloring on the bottom of cups, put ice cubes on top of the drops (to hide the color), then she poured Sprite into the cups and the clear soda "magically" became a different color.  That was a big hit!

Each kid got a cape and hat when they walked into the house--

We started with the magic show and each kid got to munch on Hocus Pocus Popcorn and magic wand pretzel sticks.  The show was really totally awesome!  He let the kids help out a lot, especially Elina.

Then the grand finale was a levitation trick with Elina...she was so excited about it and it looked SO neat!

While we got the food ready, A showed the kids some magical things with dry ice.  We made Magic Potion with Kool-aid and dry ice.

Then the kids played with foaming soap bubbles (that bubbled out because of dry ice).

Then they blew bubbles onto dry ice steam, which is really neat to watch because the bubbles seem to just stop on top of the smoke.

After eating the food, we played a Magic Bean Tasting Test game with the kids.  Each kid had to figure out 10 jellybean flavors.  It was really funny to read their guesses.  I didn't use anything funky and kids wrote down "veggie" as a flavor. Evie wasn't allowed to guess the flavors, but she decided to take it upon herself to grab her own bag of tasty jellybeans.

We also had a Magic Bean Count contest (actually a ruse for us to get rid of all the jellybeans we had bought at Costco for the party).

Then we had Vanishing Cupcakes, which were just red velvet cupcakes with magic-themed toppers.  I really copped out this year and just made the cupcakes and bought the toppers.  I didn't have the energy to figure out how to make a hat cake with a bunny coming out of it.

We ended the party with gifts.  Elina got some really great stuff...art supplies, calligraphy stuff, mouse toys, arts and crafts, a magic set, and bug stuff.

What a magical birthday party!!