Tball

Carson started Tball a couple of weeks ago! I must say, I think I was meant to be a "boy" mom!! I'm loving it!! We have games twice a week, once during the week and one on Saturday morning. It's been so much fun to watch him! We are still working on his baseball skills but it's a big step up from soccer a couple of years ago when he cried the whole game!! 

Nats Game

This weekend we decided to take advantage of living in Florida and being Washington Nationals fans. The Nats do spring training about an hour away from us, near Cocoa Beach. We took the boys to their first Spring Training game Saturday afternoon. We had high expectations when we bought the seats. In reality we should have just purchased the cheaper high up bleacher seats because that is where we ended up going so they could run around!! Overall, we had a great time but Tyler is probably a but too young to actually sit and watch a game. We lasted about 4 innings, which wasn't too bad! :) On our way out, Carson even got a foul ball! He was SO excited!

It's snowing!!!

We drive up to Charlotte to visit some friends for the long weekend and we got a pleasant weather surprise!! It snowed on Saturday evening!! Tyler had never seen snow before and Carson was pretty excited!! When I asked Tyler if he wanted to play in the snow he said, "No!" I said why, he said "cold!" I guess he truly is Florida boy!

Boys will be boys!

Carson has taken an interested in "shirtless dinners." Of course that means that Tyler wants to do the same! Here are few pictures that were taken for "shirtless tv watching." It also turned into "pants-less tv watching."

What do people say... Boys will be boys?? I am pretty sure not many young girls decide to eat topless and watch tv in just their panties. I guess we are just made differently! :)

A din-o-mite party

Phew! I am tired!! We had Carson's BIG fourth birthday party here this weekend. When all was said and done we had around 23 kids and their parents here. (Some were siblings) We invited pretty much everyone we know here in Orlando. Our neighbors, some friends from swim, and then his classmates from last year and this year.

This was the first year we didn't have family in town for a child's birthday party. Not only did I (we) miss our family for obvious reasons but I missed them helping out with all the extra prep work! Our party started at 10 am and I was still running around at 9:55!! I was not able to take pictures of all the finished stations or food or the house!! Ha! Oh well!!

I think the party was a big success. We had a great turn out and the kids seemed to have fun. Other than having a rain storm in the middle of our egg hunt, everything went as planned.

We had the food in the dining room and I split the table into different dinosaur categories. (Herbivores, Sweetosaurs, Carnivores, Fruitosaurs, Snackosaurs.) Inside I had a couple of stations (decorate a dinosaur and pin the plate on the stegosaurus). Outside we rented some tables so we could have some more setting and other places to do some activities. We did the "dinosaur egg" hunt, dig for T-rex bones (int he sandbox), hit the pinata, and excavate a dinosaur out of a cupcake.

The Food: 

Fruit skewers, Strawberry Spanish Salad, Pirates Booty

 

Orzo Greek Salad, Veggies and Hummus (and the fruit again) 

 

BBQ Pulled Chicken  and you can't see them that well 

but the famous Chick Fil A Chicken Nuggets 

  

The Sweets! 

Shortbread dinosaur cookies and cupcakes. 

 

 Shortbread cookies with royal icing: 

Stegosaurus Cookies (in the middle) and small Brachiosaurus

Carson REALLY wanted a T-Rex and a Triceratops cake. I cut out food dyes from Carson's diet nearly a year ago so I knew that I couldn't make a cake that the birthday boy wouldn't be able to fully enjoy. So I did the next best thing. I made two larger dinosaurs out of rice krispie treats and then covered them with fondant. 

The T-rex was about 5 inches tall and the triceratops was about 3.5.

The drink spread. We had tall and small water bottles (with custom labels) and juice "bags." I decided to go simple and give two choices. I did not want to mess with cups, ice, and different sodas left over that Jason and I don't drink (anything regular, we're a diet family).

 

The "play" stations: 

This one was inside. It was "decorate a dinosaur." I made little plaster (3 inch) dinosaurs using a large candy mold. The kids were able to use markers to decorate/color their dinosaur any way they wanted. The dinosaur options were: T-rex, triceratops, stegosaurus, and Brachiosaurus

 

The collection bags. Each guest had his/her own bag to 

collect different goodie through out the party.

When each child arrived we gave him/her the option to wear a triceratops hat.

Digging for T-Rex bones. I made 10 plaster T-rex bones and then hid them in the sand. The children were able to use paint brushes and shovels to find the bones.

Brachiosaurus pinata...I filled it with little plastic dinosaurs, dinosaur silly bands, dino stickers, dino stamps, organic suckers, and fruit snacks. I think the kids were a little disappointed that there wasn't more candy!! 

Excavate a dinosaur. I baked little plastic dinosaurs in chocolate cupcakes. The kids were able to use popsicle sticks and little paint brushes. The kids were able to keep the dinosaur they excavate.

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Pin the "plate" on the stegosaurus. Each child was given a red stegosaurus plate, blind folded, and then guided to the stegosaurus. I picked the stegosaurus because it has many plates on it's back so every child would be a winner!!

We also did a "dinosaur egg" hunt. I filled plastic eggs with little dinosaurs, dinosaur tattoos, dinosaur stamps, dinosaur stickers, and dinosaur rings. Unfortunately a HUGE rain cloud rolled in right before the egg hunt and it started to POUR right after they started looking for eggs. Most of the kids stayed out looking (I had 140 eggs or so) while it was lightly raining but as it poured they all came running back inside leaving the eggs behind. Oh well!! It was something to laugh about!!

More pictures of the sweets...

Now pictures from the party! Warning... there are a lot!!