Maylee's 3rd Birthday!

Yes, I know it's my real Birthday but I figure I should post in order and post about Maylee's Birthday Party and actual Birthday first. 

Here she is the sweet party girl right before her friends came over. We had 5 families over for a big shindig. I asked her if she was excited for her friends to come play for her party and she said, "No, I don't want any friends to play just Mommy Daddy Ty and Emma." Welllll she was in for a surprise then because we had a packed house! She liked it anyhow. 

 The entire day previous I worked on decor. I made a Happy Birthday banner a giant snow flake and another snowflake banner that is pointing the other way. Ty and Maylee came down the morning of her party and Ty said "Mom, there aren't many decorations..." arg. Haha

Matt free handed an awesome picture of Olaf for Pin the Nose on Olaf. He should have been a Disney animator instead! 

 We bought Lemonaide and Blue Hawaiian Punch. We put Dry Ice in the punch bowl for a good "Frozen" effect.

As the friends arrived we started playing Pin the Nose on Olaf. 

 Maylee was the only one too short to actually reach Olaf's nose....

 So I helped her win :)

 Dax, Tess, Maylee, Adalyn and Emma.

 After Pin the Nose on Olaf everyone went out back for the Snowball (marshmallow) Obstacle course that I loosely planned and Matt perfected. All the kids lined up and took turns crawling through tunnels, zig zagging, tossing marshmallows, and running through the crepe paper finish line. Ty loved it. Maylee actually didn't want to do it but had a great time watching.

 Sam Zig Zagging with his Mallow on a spoon.

 Hanging out

 Aaron helping Tess (May's bestie) through the course.

 Scarlet was too little for the course so she stayed inside and ate some yummy pizza I was cooking up.

 We ate Pizza and my friends helped by bringing veggies, fruit and chips as well. We ate and had a great time chatting and playing until right at the end of the party Matt said, "Are we going to eat any cake?" I had completely forgotten! We pulled out the Ice Cream cake that Maylee specifically requested. Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Ice Cream (lactose free, thank you Breyers!) and Rock candy ice crystals on the top. She was shy while everyone payed attention to her singing Happy Birthday.

 She had a great party, the weather was lovely and everyone had a great time. We have the BEST friends who helped us clean up everything afterward. I mean, loaded the dishwasher, took out the trash, stored the left overs kid of help. It was SO nice. Also, we've come to find Maylee does not like the spot light so we didn't pay SUPER special attention to just her at HER party and it was just right. We asked for no presents as well. I think parties for littles are much more fun with out the gimme gimme attitude of the Birthday child. I wish we lived in Holland where the Birthday kiddie gave presents to all their friends for being such good friends! That is my kind of thing :) Maylee didn't know any different about the presents and it was a great time. Of course, Tess bought her a Frozen coloring book and a Frozen sticker book anyway :)

On Monday (her actual Birthday) we played a ton (it was 68 Degrees!!!) and I asked her what she wanted for dinner, Chicken and noodles, easy enough. After dinner we opened presents. Ty, Matt and I picked out the presents while Maylee was asleep in the shopping cart a few days earlier. That made things easy! She picked out a new dress as well that I didnt get a photo of, she wore it to Church today and looked like the pretty princess she is.

She loved her Frozen golden book.

 She loved her new Pink and Purple nail polish (REALLY loved, this girl is 100% girly girl)

 She got an Anna princess doll.

 Grandma and Grandpa got her a Frozen ?switch? doll both Anna and Elsa. She sleeps with that currently.

 That morning she took Birthday selfies.

We love our sweet little Maylee cakes, she brings quite the spunk to our house but (luckily) is also a peacemaker when it comes down to it. At her 3 year check up she weighed a whopping 23 pounds and was 33 inches tall. Yeah, not even close to the charts... no worries though she is growing and learning and that is all that matters. She counts to ten, sings the ABC's and is even beginning to put sounds with letters because of listening to brother learn to read. Fingers crossed she gets in to Tiny Titans Pre-school this Spring and can attend one session with Brother.

The Reading's Visit!

Two weeks ago Preston, Suzanne and McKinley drove out for a visit. It was SO fun to have them here! They drove out on Friday and that evening Matt and Preston went Cosmic Tubing up on Mt. Hood with the youth of our ward to be chaperones. I teased Matt and Preston when they got home and told Suzanne and I of their adventures in stupidity that they should have been the ones being chaperoned. They had a great time though so it was a good activity to kick off the weekend right. 

Saturday we wanted to go to the temple but Preston forgot his recommend so instead we did a little bit of shopping watch a movie and the BYU Basketball game. 

Sunday we lounged around after church and watched another movie. 

Monday Matt was able to get away from work for the day. We went to Dizzy Castle and ran around. 

Dancing with the projector games. 

Pres took Em down, she ended up backwards haha 

Ty, king of the slides 

McKinley playing in the lil' tykes area. 

May and Em playing too

It may look like Emma is nervous she wasn't, she was loving the hang! She did really well with it too! 

After Dizzy Castle we went home for lunch and naps, then headed over to swim at Firstenburg. 

The twin cousins wouldn't turn around... But their backsides are cute too :) 

Matt and the girlies

Ty having a blast. 

That night we went home and grilled up some chicken and burgers. Matt introduced Pres to his famous (to him) jalepenos sausage queso burger. Preston ate two and declared it better than five guys and quite delicious. I can't get over how funny this picture is! Apple Manzana to drink really kicked it up a notch as well. 

Tuesday we headed over to VooDoo Donuts in the morning and had some delicious treats before we went to OMSI. Preston didn't do the Texas donut challenge since Matt wasn't there, he had to work so we took some donuts to go for him. 

The kids LOVED OMSI, the water part put me over the edge and I think it was a little too old for May and Em, outside of the 6 and under area, but next time with a stroller it will be much more do-able. 

Building with blocks. 

Emma saying CHEESE. 

Water fun! 

Ty was a bullet, he hardly was still enough for this photo op. 

McKinley was the cutest in the water. She could have played for hours but I called it, my OCD kicked in and I couldn't handle soggy kids another minute. 

We went to the bigger people area and only got through one full section before the kids weren't having it anymore. The grown ups did have a little fun though. We did the fitness challenge. I think all of us were better than average. Even me, pregnant and all. Here's Zan, rockin the push-ups. 

Preston, working on those sit ups. 

The kids were occupied by the jump rope simulator.

Suzanne even did it while holding little ones. 

Preston and his grip strength, with a little help from Emma bug. 

Lastly we tried to go to the man made science portion but we made it about 10 minutes before throwing in the towel. Boat racing! 

That night we watched BYU again, they lost the WCC tourney to Gonzaga. It was a pretty painful loss, and Collinsworth, one of our starters, tore his ACL so we won't have him for the big dance. I don't think we'll make it too far with out him but it's still fun to see the Cougs compete! 

Anyhow The Reading crew took off on Wednesday and we missed them dearly. We had a ton of fun and love it when they come to visit us :) 

Growing up and changing.

The last week has been quite eventful around here from 1-4:30 am. Starting Monday night, Emma would wake up and scream, and scream and scream. She is cutting teeth, her top and bottom kanines (not sure what they are really called) you know, the pointy ones. Anyhow, I think they were giving here some serious grief and turned her inter a MONSTER. Not exaggerating that. All day every day was whining and crying. We alternated Tylenol and Ibuprofen we gave her cold things to eat, soft foods to eat, cuddled, did everything. At night drugged or not it was screaming non-stop, and I mean non-stop. No drugs, no diaper changes, no bottles, no changing of the clothes, being held or not changed it. The last night, Friday night, I heard Maylee start yelling at Emma at about 3 am "EMMA PLEASE! Stop CRYING! " then 2 seconds later Maylee shuffled in to our room and I hear in a whispered voice, " Mom, I sleep in yours bed?" Before I even answered she was crawling into bed with me.

Also, last week every Dr. and dentist appointment happened (more on that) plus meetings for church and Matt Church Basketball tournament were happening. (Matts team got to the finals, lost to prune hill ward, Matt was depressed but they had a fun season) we were getting to bed every night at midnight only to be waken up just 1 hour later. Matt and I each were runnin' on about 15 hours of sleep during those 4 days. Being pregnant and just being me, who requires at LEAST 7 hours of sleep a night, wasn't the most productive or happy about things. 

Finally, the last night I had had ENOUGH and told Matt he had to take care of it. He did, by moving Emma in to Maylee's bed. Maylee was in our bed all ready. She cried for about 30 minutes longer and slept the rest of the night. Every nap and bed time since Friday night she has slept in Maylees toddler bed, and slept like a dream. Last night, we got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep and it was A.MA.ZING. We were late to church, but Matt woke up literally doing a happy dance. 

So, we think she might be about over the super rough part of teething AND enjoying the freedom of toddlerhood. I was hoping we could wait to get Em out of the crib until we knew if fourth and final was a boy or girl... To move the crib or not and buy another toddler bed for Ty's room or move the crib in there, but she is done and I guess well just be buying another toddler bed. Oh well for an extra 3 hours every night I'll do just about everything. 

In other news, at the urging of our Pediatric Dentist Dr. Josh, Ty is getting his tonsils and adenoids out soon. His tonsils about touch in the back in the picture it doesn't look like it, but he was being silly. Anyway, it's causing him to have a little sleep apnea, that will only get worse the older he gets. He's a deep sleeper I think but doesn't get enough sleep now that he is pretty well done with naps. 

We took him to ENT Dr. Mitchell who Ty warmed up to after a little bit and showed him his tonsils. Dr. Mitchell said they were pretty big, not the biggest he's seen, but nearly. So we'll schedule that in the next week or so. He doesn't really know about it all yet, not sure how to approach that topic with him. 

In other news Suzanne Preston and McKinley are here visiting. We've got a fun day packed tomorrow so I'll try and take pictures to post :)