Happy Birthday Xander

Xander is growing up and has hit the 4 year mark. He is our all-boy boy and loves all things that are explosive, messy, creepy-crawly or annoying to his big sister. He is a joy to have in our family and ensures we are never bored. For his birthday party this year we did a rocket ship themed party and all of the kids got to make and launch there own water rocket.  The video's are short clips of two of the launches (the quality of the video makes it a bit difficult to see, but in the second one you can actually see the rocket/bottle on its way back down). After cake and presents each kid got a water gun and they ran around the park shooting eachother . . . and the parents.  Unfortunately the wind decided to be extra blustery, but we manage to launch the rockets and have a good time even with the extra grit thrown in. After a full afternoon Xander sighed and said, "My party was so fun, right mom."

Happiness

"If my heart can become pure and simple like that of a child, I think there probably can be no greater happiness than this."

--  Kitaro Nishida

I don't think I will ever tire of Marama's laughter.

A girl and her shoes

 

 Awhile back a friend found these cute shoes for Marama at a used store, but they were far to big for her at the time.  I tried them on her again this past week and was happy to see that they fit her.  It seems, however, I was not nearly as happy about it as Marama because whenever she finds these shoes she brings them to me to put on her.  One night she brought them to me a couple minutes before bed time and I told her, "No we are not going to put shoes on, it's almost bedtime."  This appearantly was the wrong thing to say and resulted instantly in tears as she toddled off, shoes in hand, to find dad.  When he told her no, her world officially ended and she colapsed on the floor, crying and occasionally holding up the shoes hoping we would put them on her.  I decided this was clearly more important to her than me and put the shoes on her so she could wear them for a few minutes before going to bed.  Moral of the story: When it comes to shoes, you don't tell a girl no.