A Busy Week, Part I -- Benjamin's Birthday Party

This week has been an unusually busy week full of parties and the last week of school before Christmas. Our busy week started last Saturday afternoon with our third Kindergarten birthday party. Benjamin's birthday party was held at a local art studio. It was a great venue. The kids created a treasure map, got their faces painted (if they were interested) and painted on a canvas that was decorated with a pirate ship. The party was pirate themed (hence the pirate ship painting) and the kids were encouraged to dress in their pirate best. It gave us another excuse to dress them in their Halloween costumes. They were definitely the most ornately dressed as most kids just had on a bandanna from home. The kids didn't keep their costumes on for long though, in fact we didn't even get a picture of them since the whole party was a fun, messy affair. Both kids loved the coloring, painting and of course the cupcakes.




The only unfortunate part of the party was the timing. It was from one to three in the afternoon -- right during nap time. :( We tried to have an early nap time at about 11:00, but it wasn't very successful. Elijah falls asleep about half of the time, but we still do quiet time every day he's home. It's nice for all of us to have some downtime. While Elijah wasn't affected by the lack of a nap. Keira was a bit of a mess. Truthfully, she's been quite challenging lately. She's whiny, fussy, grumpy and she yells a lot. I think some of it is that she's VERY two, and some of it can be attributed to all the various sicknesses she's had in the last few months. Whatever the cause, Keira and I spent some of the party walking around in the sling outside while she pulled herself together.


After the party, she got over her grumpy spell and we headed to Barnes and Noble. Lately, Ashley Park is one of our favorite weekend outings. We can spend several happy hours playing with the train table and reading books at Barnes and Noble and then often we head to La Parilla for some yummy Mexican food. On that particular Saturday, Keira went to Ashley Park in her full Tinkerbell costume, including light up Tinkerbell shoes. She caused quite a stir. There were lots of appreciative glances, smiles and exclamations of "Oh, she's so cute!"