It's a Party!

The girls are going to be two years old on the 4th, but we had to have their party today since Daddy is leaving tomorrow for a job interview. They woke up with runny noses but they still enjoyed the presents. :)

For the cake, it was Duncan Hines all the way. Would you believe both the cake and the icing are milk-free!!! Daddy had a hand in decorating them. :)

The birthday tiara design is courtesy of Curious George and I. It says, "Katelyn is Two" and "Jordan is Two". (Thing 1 on the left, Thing 2 on the right)


Thing 1 gobbled up her cake without using any utensils. Thing 2 wasn't in the mood for cake.

The bikes are courtesy of the Grandma's gift money. Nana & Papaw got them a folding foam/bed chair, clothes and coloring books. (Thing 1 on the left, Thing 2 on the right)

Being the good big brother that he is, Curious George helped Thing 1 open presents. She didn't quite know what to do with the wrapper.

In the middle of the party, Curious George his care package from his Grandma. He requested dried mango a couple of weeks back. He was grinning like a fool!

The girls in their birthday dress. I didn't put them on since I was anticipating messy clothes smeared by cake like last year. Backless! Gotta love it.
(Thing 2 standing, Thing 1 sitting)

Thing 1 eats some Chex cereal for an afternoon snack.

Woman and the Sky

I went out with Curious George this afternoon so he could enjoy the warm day using his bike. He fell once in a while, so I was ready to help him. But I got ahead of myself once and helped before he needed it, and it turned out he didn't need the help. He said, "You don't have to do that, woman!" I cracked up laughing and made Daddy crack up with I told him. It seems I'm not the only one Curious George repeats things from.

One of Curious George's favorite phrase lately is , "the sky told me!" Sometimes we exclaim how smart he is and ask him where he gets things. He has probably heard someone responds, "This guys told me" but substitute sky for guy. :-0

balance bike - a bike without a pedal

A few months ago, we've decided to get Curious George a balance bike for his birthday. Balance bikes are bikes without pedals in order to teach little ones to balance. A bike with training wheels doesn't really do much to teach kids. Balance bikes run anywhere from $100 to upwards of $300. But since our family is now in the poor house, we have to do it the cheap way. We bought a $35 12-inch bike at Wal-Mart and Daddy removed the pedal. Actually, arriving at what size bike to get Curious George ruined the surprise. We measured his stance and went to the store, but that didn't quite work so we had to bring him in. And of course we couldn't get him out of the store without one. So with much negotiation, we finally just broke down and gave him an early present. Which then ruined one more thing - the pedal. He loved pedaling around the store, that when Daddy surprised him the next day with the bike with missing pedal and training wheels, all hell broke lose. And the fact that he didn't sleep well the night before made the 'hell' even worse.

But after the nap, we were able to convince him to try the bike without the pedal with the promise that Daddy would put the pedal and training wheels back on if he just but try first.

Here is what happened:

As a balance bike, he should be able to put both feet flat on the ground, so this is just a tad too high. But Daddy couldn't make it any lower. Still, he did very well. We are very proud of Curious George. This video includes me screaming with excitement about his little run of balancing so I had to cover it up with pretty music. :0) After about half an hour, Daddy finally put the pedal and training wheels back on, at which point, Curious George became a speed-demon.

Unfortunately, it rained the next day so we had to occupy Curious George another way. Here is Daddy and son bonding over Lego.