Stripes

All I did was put on my stripey shirt this morning. The kids were the ones who decided they had to match.

Birthday party dilemma - the decision

Thanks so much to everyone who commented on my recent post - birthday party dilemma.  I really appreciated all the different ideas and views that everyone had (although it didn't make it easy to come to a decision!).  Just wanted to give you a quick update with my decision (because I know you're all just dying to know).  I've decided to just invite the 5 or 6 girls that Annika wants from her class.  While it makes me sad to exclude the other girls, what it really came down to for me was what several people said in the comments - make sure the party is what Annika will enjoy.  It's no secret that Annika is not a "big crowd" kind of girl.  Even having 5 or 6 friends over at the same time might be a bit much for her.  A party of 10 or 11 would completely overwhelm her.  So unfortunately, we will be excluding some of the others (and since I only have contact info for 2 of the parents, the invites will have to be "discretely" handed out at school), but I think it will be for the best. And while I think the idea of "no school friends at the birthday party" is a good idea in some cases, it just wouldn't work right now - Annika doesn't have very many friends outside of her school friends, and she would be terribly disappointed if she didn't get to invite any of them.

During the past week, to distract myself from all the illness that won't seem to leave us alone (I'm still having my pity party, as we are still not back to 100% - mostly Annika), I decided to design the party invitation (yes, I know it still a long way off, but like I said - I needed a distraction).  I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  The party theme will be rainbows, in case you couldn't tell! ;)

Making an impact

I co-teach the preschool Sunday School class at our church.  It's a group of 5 kids, ages 2-4 (including Emmett).  I enjoy doing it, but sometimes I feel more like a babysitter than a teacher.  Like the majority of my job is just to dole out the play-doh and the snack and make sure nobody gets poked in the eye or anything.  Today was one of the harder mornings, as the kids were having a hard time listening, and it seemed like everything I said was just being lost in the noise.  However, this evening Emmett said something that really encouraged me. In the middle of eating supper he pipes up, unprompted and completely out of nowhere, "Jesus is the Son of God" - which was our memory verse for the morning.  It made me smile, and believe that God is still working through me, even on those hard mornings.

Pity party

I have to admit, I've been having myself a little pity party lately.  Sickness (of the unpleasant gastrointestinal variety) has been circling our house for almost 2 and a half weeks now, and it's been getting me down.  I guess the one good thing is that we weren't all sick at the same time - I think that would've been really hard to handle - but it's been so tiring.  Someone is sick every few days.  Just when I think it's gone and we're back to normal, someone else gets sick.  Annika has had it twice, poor thing, although she bounced back a lot quicker the second time.  The past few days I've been cleaning every possible surface, every towel, every sheet and blanket, trying to get the sickness out of our house.  And it's exhausting.  I'm sick of being sick, I'm sick of everyone else being sick.  And I'm sad that all my Valentine's plans were cancelled.  Not that Carey and I had any plans to go out (Friday night is skating lessons for the kids anyways), but I had wanted to bake cupcakes with the kids, and make a special veggie tray for Emmett's preschool (I was going to cut the carrots and cucumbers into heart shapes), and just do special little things for/with my family.  None of that happened.  The kids weren't too disappointed, but I feel like I missed out.  Everyone was posting Valentine's pictures on Facebook and Instagram, and I was sad that I couldn't do the same.  While everyone was posting their happy pictures, I posted a picture of my one victory of the day - getting out of the house to restock our sick supplies (apple juice, saltines, ginger ale, chicken noodle soup and disinfecting wipes).

So I've been feeling a little blue (and green) lately.  Hopefully this is the end of it, though.  We've all been sick now, and it seems like we're on the mend, so fingers crossed that it's really done now and doesn't come back.  I guess the one good thing to all this is between being sick and being stressed, I've lost 3 pounds this week (gotta find a silver lining somewhere, right?).

Birthday party dilemma

Annika's birthday is still 2 months away, but since she's been at 2 birthday parties in the past 2 weeks, I've got birthday on the brain lately. 

I've decided to do her party at home this year (am I crazy?? probably - seems like no one does home parties anymore), but I'm feeling a little conflicted over the guest list.  In the past we've intentionally kept the kids' birthday parties small, and it hasn't been too much of a problem since they really didn't have a large group of friends (at least not all from one place).  It was no problem to just invite 4 or 5 kids.  However, now with Annika being in kindergarten things are a little different.  There are 11 girls in Annika's class, including Annika.  There are about 5 that are "good friends" that she's already said that she wants to invite (she also has birthday on the brain, but that's more of a year-round thing).  So, do I just go with the 5 girls that she wants to invite (and be thankful that she doesn't want a large party), or do we invite all the girls?  I shudder at the idea of having 12 kids (including Emmett) running around our house, but part of me doesn't want to exclude anyone.  One of the parties that Annika was invited to recently was a "not-so-good" friend, and Annika was absolutely over the moon that she had received an invite.  She went and had a blast, and who knows, maybe made some connections that she wouldn't have otherwise.  And maybe that's the case with some of the other girls in the class - maybe they would love an invitation, love to be included.  Maybe it would be the start of a new friendship.  Even though Annika already has her few good friends and her "best friend", I think that it's still quite early in their lives to be making friends, and friendship groups are more fluid at this point (than say, in a few years from now, when cliques become more solid).

So, I'm torn.  Do I only invite a few?  Do I invite them all? (and cross my fingers that at least several won't be able to make it?).  What's your experience with birthday parties?  I'd love to hear some stories - what you've done in the past or what you would do in this situation.  And if you could please leave your comment here, instead of on my Facebook link, that would be great (just so I have them all together in one spot).  If you don't have an account to log in, you can leave an "anonymous" comment (although I'd appreciate if you at least left your first name at the end of your comment).  Thanks!!

Nap time

I think Emmett is still feeling the effects from his tummy bug last week (he got it on Friday, about a week after Annika had it). He fell asleep while we were reading stories this afternoon and slept for about an hour on the couch.

Go fish

Family game night this evening. It's really neat that Emmett is getting old enough to start participating, and not just messing everything up.

No cavities!

These kids love going to the dentist (seriously!! They jumped around and cheered when I told them today was dentist day - I should've recorded them!). They both did awesome - and no cavities. Emmett had his first real cleaning today and he was perfectly still for the whole thing.

Party of 4

We had planned to have some friends over for a Super Bowl party this evening, but our plans changed and we ended up just having a quiet evening by ourselves.  We had a little picnic in the living room for supper (the kids [and I] could care less about football, but enjoyed the change from routine). 

Our change in plans was due to Annika's illness this week.  During the night on Wednesday she came down with a stomach bug (her first time being sick like that) and missed school on Thursday and Friday (thankfully, though, no one else got sick).  After a few days of not eating much and still having a bit of a sore tummy, she was pretty much back to normal by today, but we had a full day today with Sunday School and church, and then Annika had a birthday party to go to this afternoon (which she had been looking forward to for the past 2 weeks - thank goodness she was feeling better, or we would've had a very sad little girl here).  We figured a full house this evening and late bedtime would be pushing it too much, so we cancelled our party.  It might've all been a bit too much for Annika anyways - she was complaining after supper that her tummy was hurting again.  I guess having pizza, popcorn and cake at the party and then hot dogs and chips for supper was maybe not a good idea.  Fingers crossed we're not regretting this later on.  Thank goodness tomorrow is an inservice, so she has one more day to recuperate if necessary. I think Tuesday morning may be tough, though - trying to get back into the school routine after 5 days off.