Happy 2nd Birthday Giovanni

We celebrated LJ's 2nd Birthday yesterday, even though it is technically today.

Cake and Ice Cream...

And of course lots of presents (mostly toys that he really doesn't need, but who can resist giving a little boy a new toy)

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Im Over My Head - The Big Day

The boys had a great time at their birthday party! Since, it wasn't until 4 p.m. I spent the whole cleaning the rest of the house, that I was suppose to do Friday night. And because of my procrastination i wasn't able the meet with Mary and her kids at the mall, since they were in town for the day.

(If you can look past the people and into the dining room you can see the decorations that I hung up and the two giant dinosaur balloons

The boys took a nap starting at about 1 p.m. (I wanted them to be well rested for the party). While they were napping I went to go pick up the balloons, cake, and some snack food, which because it was snowing out, it took me about 1 1/2 hours. I bought some dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets made by Tyson, but I never got to cook them, because I forgot and there were only two other kids who showed up. So I just put out some fruit for the guess and got them drinks as needed.

Then once everyone was at the party we put the candles on the cake and pigged out on it. Alex and Jon both got their own cake. I thought that was only fair, since I was combining their party together. Thanks to Wal-Mart for decorating them plus a free cupcake, since Jon was turning one, but the dinosaurs on the cake I bought at Toy's R US.


Alex only ate the frosting off the cake, but Jon fully enjoyed his cupcake. Once I got him all cleaned up, we moved all the presents to the living room for the boys to open. I put Andy in charge of taking pictures. The boys got a lot of presents, now I feel like we don't have to open presents on Christmas Day, but I'm not a mean mom like that.

After all present were unwrappped, the kids played for awhile, and one by one the guess started to leave.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Sesame Street Live

On Friday Alex didn't go to the babysitter, instead Andy and me took him to go see Sesame Street Live: Elmo's Green Thumb.


Alex had so much fun, but towards the end he was getting tired of sitting still, he wanted to get up and dance and play.

Since the show wasn't until 10:30 a.m. Andy was hungry when we got there, so he got some food from the concession stand, which I'm sure cost a lot of money. Speaking of a lot of money, we wanted to let Alex get a souvenir, but that was all over priced as well.

Program = $8.oo
Small 6 inch soccer ball = $12.00
8 inch doll = $15.00
6 pack of figures = $25.00

See what I mean. Exxxpensive! I told Andy that he don't need anything, because he has so much Sesame Street stuff at home, especially ELMO.

In Over My Head - Progress Day 3, 4, & 5

Once again not doing so well...

I still need to clean both bathrooms, and pick up the toy room.

I did get the decorations up and their presents wrapped, which are semi-earth friendly. What I do is reuse a shoe box and put pretty wrapping paper on the outside of it, I do this with the bottom and lid, so all you have to do is lift off the lid. To keep the shoe box from being open too early, I tie ribbon around it, which is also use to help attach the name tag. So as long as the paper isn't ripped by the over excited birthday boy, you can reuse the box for next time. (NOTE: Use nice and strudy wrapping paper, because the cheap stuff 1)rips too easily and 2) it has a tendency to fade or get the yellow tinge to the paper. Also make sure to use good tape that will hold on good.) This year will be the second year that i'll be using my wrapped shoebox. This is a lot better than throwing the ripped wrapping paper away, but when the box looks like it's had better days, then you can place it in the recycling bin.

In Over My Head - Progress Day 1 & 2

Ok, on Monday night I didn't get the kitchen cleaned, but I did get a load of dishes in the washer, which is step one to a clean kitchen.

So, last night I scrubbed the kitchen from top to bottom. Another load of dishes, clean stove top, clean counters, and sweep floor. I also got the dining room table cleared off for the most part. There is only a couple things left on it, and one item is suppose to be there to begin with and that's the wire rack used to hold fruit, if I had any. Right now it's holding camera & cell phone accessories, bills, and receipts.

Tonight I will tackle the bathrooms and Thursday night I'll get to the living room and toy room. Honestly, the toy room is probably the easiest to do, because it's just putting them away and collecting the stuff in buckets. I just don't do that, because 1) Alex knows how to put the toys away (Jon's too small yet) and 2) why put toys away when they're just going to be back out the next day and the day after that and so on. I just don't see the point sometimes. But then again, it might be easier if we had the right tools for putting the toys away, such as some kind of storage system. What we have right now is not big enough anymore. And the sad thing about this, is that on Saturday the boys will be getting even more toys. Which I have told everyone that they don't need any more toys, but like they're going to listen to me. I don't even listen to me. I said I was going to buy them a toy box and instead bought them toys. Go Figure!

In Over My Head

There are five days left until Saturday, December 6, 2008. You ask what is so special about that day??? Absolutely nothing, but I decided over a month ago to have the boys birthday party on that day...one week after Jon turned the BIG 1 and one week before Alex turns 3.

My problem??? My house is a disaster! I have been neglecting it for about a week now. Usually I do the dishes on Saturdays, but if I don't they can sometimes sit there until Monday or Tuesday night, which isn't a pretty picture. Just see for yourself.

This was taken about 20 minutes ago, just so that it would be up to date, but please keep in mind that I did make dinner on the stove.

Yes, I know that my kitchen is small. The dishes aren't the hard part...it's finding a home for everything on the counter where the microwave is. Much of it is paper, either from daycare, the mail, or my little grocery notes, which I always lose. ( I wonder way?) Well kitchen won't be so hard...just stick the dishes in the dishwasher, pay the bills, and the rest of the paper can go in the recycling box.

Onto the dinner room, which is where everyone will be for the food.

OMG!

I don't even know where to start here. The coats, hats, mittens, scarfs...they can all go in the coat closet. When I don't know where to put something it goes onto the kitchen table, until I can find a spot, but that never happens. I'll set it ont he counter top in the kitchen and deal with it last, but when I get to it, I out it back onto the table and say to myself, "Well, at least it's on the corner of the table and taking up a lot of space anymore." And then we start all over. We can't even have a family meal together, because there is no where for Andy to sit down. I bet you I could put everything on that table into a box and throw it away and I'd never know what I did or didn't get rid of.

The Living Room

Pillows go on the couches, but they only stay there for about 10 minutes, and then they are back on the floor for a crash pad. Toys just need to go in the toy room and the clothes in the laundry basket just need put away. But the desk does need some cleaning up. Everthing is piling up it and never getting to where it really needs to go.

And then the...

Toy Room

For those of you who don't know... The toy room was formly the master bedroom. We decided to give it up for the front bedroom on the other side of the house, this way the living room wouldn't have toys laying all over the floor. (Yeah....it's working great!).

I want this room picked up, so that the kids coming over for the birthday party can have a room to play in while eveything is being setup in the dining room.

I think that I have it figured out. I can tackle one room a night after work, which would also have to include to bathrooms and their bedroom. Since the living room isn't that bad, I can do that and the toy room in the same night.

So now it's time to get busy!