Lily's 4th Birthday

The other day, Lily snuck into Jamisen's room and absconded with some of his Halloween stash (yes, he still has quite a bit of his Fall plunder). She looked at me, with an impish smile and said,

"Every time he's away I take some of his candy."

I asked, in a neutral tone, "Why?"

Her quick response? "Because I like candy so much. "

Our 'Little Lily' isn't so little anymore. She is four years old and growing into quite a quick-witted study of human behavior and sweetly innocent manipulation. 

It's hardly believable that she's gone from a tiny little 5 pound bean to the walking, talking dynamo she is. She loves to read (be read to), adores snuggling, and is remarkably giving and generous with everyone around her. She frequently gives gifts to her playdates and of course, her older brother (whom she adores).

We held Lily's birthday party at a local toy store. They offered a variety of themes (Princess, water, etc). We chose Dr. Seuess which was super fun. 

The kiddos were enthralled with the laundry soap/hydrogen peroxide volcano thing. The teenage party host was flustered the project didn't work quite right away, stating they had bought a different brand than usual of the hair dye so then she dumped a whooooooole lot in and gave the kids quite a performance. 

Each of the kids made a Dr. Suess hat when they got to the party as their first party activity. The kids were very cute, all wearing their colorful Dr. Suess hats. 

Our happy Lily is fiercely independent, loves her brother (so so so much), takes easily to strangers and new people and claims her favorite food item is 'sugar'. (ay yai yai). She is in the 3 to 6 classroom at Montessori school and has never met someone she didn't want to connect with. As her teacher told us proudly, "Lily knows everyone's name; she is friends with everyone." 

Baby Alise came to the party as did Lily's top man, Sasha. She also invited other friends from school and it was fun to get to know the parents outside of a school setting. 

One of the games was a bean bag toss. The kids enjoyed it though were spectacularly not good at it. 

Baby Alise is growing by leaps and bounds. Her vocabulary is so big now (!) and she is a delightful, happy little cousin.  She is also extremely well behaved and I do fear that Lily's natural leadership tendencies  (read: bossy and completely wholly unaware of consequences like punishments or gravity) may bode badly for that dynamic duo when they are teens. 

The kids loved the scavenger hunt that the store set up as well. Of course, all of the parents noticed that there was definitely a method to the madness (up every aisle of the store, lots of stopping in front of expensively lavish displays of toys).

We had such a good time celebrating Lily and her birthday - and we can't wait to see what's around the corner for our little dynamic social butterfly.

Jamisen Selling Bath Fizzies at the Farmer's Market

Both of the kiddos have been crafting bath and body products since a young age. I think they both started around the age of two so Jamisen has been making nail polish, bath fizzies, soaps and lip balms for over four years now. 

The Bellingham Farmer's Market has a children's market one time per month. Kids can rent booth space for $5 and the promise to stay until all of their products are sold out or until the market ends, whichever is first. 

Chris and I staked Jamisen his first ingredients and his booth rental fee for his first week of sales. He helped me make the bath fizzies and was able to share his thoughts with buyers about his technique and the fizzies.

Jamisen's sister helped for multiple hours for each market. Jamisen's first market, he made $48 (minus his booth fee) and his second market, he made $63 (minus his booth fee). He's improving on his sales technique and has all the appearance of a mogul in the making. 

Jamisen Turns Six!

It's hard to believe our little dude is six years old. Like every parent, we feel like the time is going so slowly. As I like the say, the days are long but the years are short.

This year was quite a challenging birthday. Jamisen still had his occluded salivary gland and his debut stage performance on the same day. So in addition to shoving antibiotics down his throat two or three times a day, we had a party to prepare for.

Thank goodness for Grandma and Grandpa Faiola. They came up a day early to help with everything. Grandpa Faiola is an amazing streamer-hanger-upper. It's undoubtedly something that they taught in Med school.

We had quite a house full of people and the weather cooperated for the first hour which was good since as soon as everyone came inside, it felt like a lot! We served quiche and kale salad for the adults. Kids got more options but really, we all know what kids want: dessert!

The cupcakes were a hit. For this party, we introduced Jamisen to the Dollar Store where he bought all of his decorations and, his cupcake ingredients. I did make the frosting from scratch (but only because they didn't have a dented or expired can of frosting to buy there).

Jamisen wanted to have a restaurant for his birthday party and so everyone had a menu with food choices. The food choices for Jamisen's Restaurant were Feta Onion Bites, Quiche, Salad, Goldfish, String Cheese, Fruit Leather, Cupcakes and Jello. He took everyone's orders and served them.

Jamisen has some characteristics that are so sweet. He is very service-oriented (he loves to help out all the time) and he's very orderly. Those skills made him a great waiter and server for his own party.

We got a bubble blower just for Jamisen's party and it was a huge hit; so fun to watch the kids run through the bubbles.

We love our little family and are so happy that Jamisen is six years old.

Jamisen's Big Debut - Aristokittens

Dearest Jamisen loves to sing. He is a SINGER and he has some great tone. He can hold a note and a tune like nobody's business.

Chris suggested that we get Jamisen singing lessons. I did a quick Google search and came up with what I thought was a choir.

It was not a choir. It was a theater troupe.  And they had a musical that they were planning to put on ... on Jamisen's birthday! What a weekend for our little guy. His birthday AND his stage debut, all at once. 

Jamisen played a very important role in Aristokitties - the role of Roquefort - a heroic mouse that saves the kittens from a dastardly plot to kill them. He had lines to memorize and dance moves to do. It was a lot for what was just originally going to be private music lessons. He rose to the occasion.

It was a challenging weekend because not only did he have his birthday party, but he was fighting an aggressive infection of the salivary gland that caused his face to swell in a rather crazy and insane manner. It was also deeply uncomfortable and accompanied by high fevers.

Originally, he had been misdiagnosed with mumps (and put in quarantine while Chris was in Saudi and I was single-parenting it so that was a challenging week). As it turns out, it was not mumps. Jamisen had an occluded salivary gland (which his Grandpa had diagnosed from a photo well before the incorrect mumps diagnosis). Jamisen was on very strong doses of antibiotics for his stage debut/birthday weekend AND was told that there was a 40% chance of his infection rupturing through his cheek. It was under this heavy duty craziness that his big theater debut happened.

We are proud of our little dude for persevering.

The show was a huge success. The kids were cute. Jamisen smiled, danced and said his lines with aplomb. Obviously, he was the best Roquefort. Ever.

A few photos from my 40th Birthday Party

You only turn 40 once and so, inspired by another girlfriend that threw a blow-out birthday party for her 40th, Chris and I went all-in for my mid-point birthday party.

We rented a lovely Italian deli out for the night.

The food was epic: platters of Mediterranean food, cheese, phyllo pastries and of course, desserts from my favorite shop (Pure Bliss).

The desserts were a mixture of delightful sugar cookies and assorted cupcakes, including a stunningly delicious salted caramel chocolate cupcake that was filled with salted caramel gooey deliciousness.

It was fun to see all of my friend groups together at once. It was a great mix of book club girlfriends, political friends, and workout friends.

It was good the party was in a wine shop/deli because the party was **thirsty** and went through quite a few more libations than we originally anticipated.

We had a DJ and everyone danced late into the night.

There were also a few toasts though I cut them off at 3 to keep the momentum of the party and celebration going.

It was such a fun night that I exclaimed to longtime Bramble Berry COO, Norman, the next day that I couldn't wait to turn 50 to do it all over again. =) He suggested that 41 was a fine year to do it as well. Ha! =)

Friends. Laughter. Good food. Witty Conversation. It was a wonderful night to remember. 

Happy Easter

We had the most wonderful time at the local Easter Egg hunt. Every year, it's held at the Lairmont Manor - a historical manor that is commonly used to host weddings but once a year gets taken over by small, adorable munchins searching for sugar like pigs searching for truffles.

The kids all line up for the starting 'Go!' The eggs for the little kids are hidden in plain sight (come to think of it, it's not really hiding. It's more like 'gently and lovingly placed every egg in close proximity to small ankles and within eyesight of all but the blindest of squirrels').

The kiddos very much enjoyed the easy placement and hoovered up eggs with candy as though they were training for the Annual Vaccum Cleaner Convention (which, fun fact, does have vacuum cleaning competitions).

Equally fun fact: Jamisen still has ALL of his candy over three weeks later. Lily has none. Jamisen also is judiciously using his candy to reward Lily for being extra cooperative. The kid understands motivation theory.

Baby Alise was just as into the egg hunting and both girls were happily oblivious for the real reason of the day (queue ominous yet somewhat celebratory music) the gollllllllden Easter Egg.

Jamisen heard about the Golden Easter Egg and was intrigued and, his competitive streak totally came out. He wanted that Golden Egg SO bad. He was strategic about trying to hunt it out. And when another father "helped" his son find the Golden Egg, we got to have many many conversations about cheating.  Thanks random Dad for that early-learning ethics conversation.

The kids loved the face painter. Jamisen became a pirate (which was SO annoying to try to wash off later) and Lily chose an orange and white baseball to be painted on her cheek. Her mind works in mysterious ways.