Life With The Shirleys: a month of crazy

I can't believe it has been a month since I blogged. We have had a birthday, Mother's Day, a promotion into a big girl bed for Miss Love Bug and The Mayor has started karate since I last blogged.

We will start with D's birthday. The kids were so excited for D's birthday...I bought them each a ceramic mug with ceramic paint and I let them decorate the mugs all by themselves. I didn't help at all...which was a pretty remarkable feat considering my OCD nature :) The Mayor painted a train on his mug and Love Bug painted her hand (using all 4 colors at once) and some flowers. We put them in the oven so the paint would harden (like a kiln) and the kids were so eager for the baking to end so they could see their masterpieces. D loved his homemade gifts and he was excited with the plans the kids made for his big day. The Mayor and Love Bug decided D wanted tacos for dinner and ice cream for dessert. So we went out for Mexican and frozen yogurt, where the kids sang "Happy Birthday" to D in the frozen yogurt place. It was a great night!

helping daddy open his cards

The Mayor's train mug on the left and Love Bug's handprint mug on the right

an awesome canvas The Mayor painted at school and gave to D

So D has wanted to move Love Bug into a big girl bed for about a year...and I have been dragging my feet. She sleeps great in her crib and she doesn't crawl out. So we decided once school was over for summer break we would make the jump. Well, in typical female style, Love Bug became impatient and decided to start crawling out of her crib two weeks before school was out. It's always nice having a little visitor at the side of your bed at 2AM who isn't supposed to be there. We immediately converted her crib into a toddler bed to buy us time before we bought the full-size bed, but in typical Shirley kid style, she hated the toddler bed. Her brother was the exact same way. After one nightmare night in that toddler bed...Love Bug and I went mattress shopping. Luckily we found an amazing deal on a full-size mattress that was in the store and we were able to get it home that day. Thank you PopPop for being our delivery man! Love Bug and I went to Target to get the sheet set and we will order bedding soon. She is doing better each night. For some reason, once we removed the crib, she became afraid to be in her room. So that was a little bit of a battle, but now she is happy to be in her big girl bed, with us lying next to her while we read and then she falls asleep. Over time it will continue to get better, but we are now a crib free home.

don't let the smile fool you...she was excited about the new bed until it was time to actually sleep. This is the toddler bed that lasted only one night. I will post pics of her big girl room once we have the bedding.

Pretending to sleep

The Mayor started karate last week. We are really pleased with the training center we are going to and love the instructors. It is amazing to see how focused The Mayor is during class. He has a few moments of being antsy, but for the most part, he is so focused. He is picking up the basic skills very quickly and received his white belt Saturday and earned his green stripe today for demonstrating his basic skills (high blocks, front punches and front kicks). We meet with the program director later this week to talk longer-term goals and getting The Mayor tested for his orange belt. The Mayor is so happy and loves going. This can only mean good things for him.

before his first class

ready stance

high block

front punch

front kick

front kick and knocking over the pad

receiving his white belt (he already has his green stripe and earned 3 life skill stripes too!)

so handsome

The end is quickly approaching. This week is the last week of school...which means it is the last week of preschool for The Mayor. His PreK graduation is Thursday and I will be a basket case. I just know it. I can't believe this chapter of our life is almost over. We are so proud of the progress our boy has made over the past couple of years and he is ready for "big boy" school. He can't wait to go to kindergarten. But it is still sad to see this chapter of his life come to a close.

Friday we had his end of the year party for his class at a local park. The kids all wore tie-dye shirts they made in class and had a great time playing and eating together. Each kid received a goody bag which was a bucket and shovel, candy and a water squirter for the water fight we let them have. Each kid got a water squirter and there were two buckets of water. They had the best time. It was great to see The Mayor participate and have so much fun running around getting wet and drenching his friends. A year ago, this sort of activity would have been torture for him but he did awesome! It was nice being away from the school where everyone relaxed and the moms had a chance to talk. We collected money to give the teachers a nice gift and one of the mom's had a brilliant idea for a photo collage. She took a picture of each kid with what they wanted to be when they grew up and then she made it into a collage and framed it. Isn't that the cutest gift idea ever? I love some of the occupations the kids said and the facial expressions of some of these kids is priceless. I mainly love the enormous grin on The Mayor's face with his Fireman sign.

Love Bug's class party is tomorrow. It is hard to believe her first year of preschool is almost over. Time is definitely flying by.