birthday

A Hoppin’ Good Time

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Claire celebrated her 6th birthday today with about 20 friends at Jumpoline Park.  According to their website, “Jumpoline Park is for everyone who is seeking excitement and entertainment while exercising.”  It was actually a lot more fun than they make it sound!  Who cares about exercise?  These kids just love to run and jump!  Basically, this place is one gigantic trampoline, or at least a bunch of big trampolines spliced together.  It is hard to describe, so some pictures will have to suffice.

It doesn’t look like much from the outside…
But there is lots of fun to be had on the inside.
Here’s Claire with Coco, Zoe, and Hannah.
Almost every picture from the party was a blur.
Cupcake time.
The monkey theme came from Claire’s kindergarten class mascot.

Oddly enough, Claire’s Uncle Tim, who lives in Washington DC, recommend Jumpoline Park to us.  He said some friends of his had visited Austin and discovered this crazy giant trampoline place.  So we went to check it out and quickly estimated that it would be perfect for Claire’s birthday party.

We invited all of Claire’s kindergarten class plus a few “old” friends from preschool and the like.  I think we’re getting pretty good at these big kid’s parties now, at least when we can rent out a facility like this.  I have heard “horror stories” about hosting a party at your own home, with 20 kids running around tearing the place apart.  But this party went really well and was not too tough to pull off, even right on the heals of Thanksgiving (as always!).

Grammy helped with the preparations and was on duty as the official Molly watcher at the party.  She spent most of the party protecting Molly from bigger kids in the little bounce-house obstacle course.  Without Grammy, I am pretty sure we would have lost track of Molly, as in “Where is she?  Oh no, I thought you had her…”

There is not much more to report, but I do like to make a note of some presents since it might be interesting later.  Claire is opening two presents a day, and so far she has made out with…

  • A fresh influx of pink, girly Legos from Noni
  • A super-cute Lalaloopsy doll from Grammy
  • A Hello Kitty water dispenser
  • An indoor “princess castle” play tent 
  • Decorate-your-own frame and bracelet sets
This was just the beginning.  Claire’s official birthday is coming up soon!

Party at the Park

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Yesterday was Molly’s actual birthday, but today being a Saturday, we were able to really celebrate.

We kept the celebration small, just family this year.  Noni and grandpa Phil were in town for the occasion, so they and Molly had a lot of great face time together.  Kit wanted to do something that Molly would really like, so we decided on going to Pease Park and just letting her go nuts.  We brought some Sesame-Street-themed party supplies to make it festive.  Molly and Claire both got identical party favors, which were completely mixed up together by the afternoon.

One of Molly’s classmates had her second birthday party today at a local kid-oriented gym (and indoor play area) in the afternoon.  It was nice to celebrate with one of Molly’s friends as well.  Claire was the biggest kid at the party and seemed to enjoy helping the little ones out (especially Molly), and just going nuts herself.

We managed to open a couple of presents today but still have some left over for tomorrow.  Some highlights include an Elmer the Patchwork Elephant stuffed animal to go with Molly’s Elmer book, an interactive electronic toddler purse, and a hand-made book from Claire (and Noni).

A Book About Molly, For Molly

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As her present for Molly’s second birthday, Claire made a book for about Molly for Molly.  This was done with inspiration and the help of gramma Noni, who assembled the book, while Claire came up with all the words and pictures.  There is one thing about Molly per page, with an illustration for each.  The book reads:

    Molly likes vanilla yogurt.
    Molly likes her snuggy bear.
    Molly is giggling.
    Molly is funny.  She is having a crazy hair day.
    Molly is cute.
    I love Molly.

Here are a few sample illustrations.

Molly is funny.
She is having a crazy hair day.

Molly is cute.

I love Molly.

Molly Turns Two!

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Molly doubled her age today!  She went from one year old to two.

Being a regular work/school day, and not having much time for a proper celebration, Kit suggested making a few brief notes about Molly’s regular-ish day when she turned two…

The day started just before 7 am, with Claire already downstairs eating breakfast and prepping for school.  I sat Molly down in her little blue toddler seat for a normal breakfast, starting with a fresh sippy cup of whole milk and an English muffin with cream cheese.  Molly almost immediately began to scold her breakfast.  She literally shook her finger at her food, saying “No!” sharply a few times, as if it had done something wrong.  Her mixed feelings about food continue to age two, I can see.  Within a minute or two, though, she was happily eating the naughty English muffins.

We dropped Claire off at kindergarten and then dropped Molly off at pre-school with a couple dozen mini-cupcakes to celebrate her birthday.  The next I saw of Molly was at 5 pm, when I heard about Molly’s day from her teachers.  Molly was okay but had been somewhat banged up from a small toddler stampede on the playground earlier in the day.  Before going onto the playground, all the kids wait their turn on a bench right outside the playground.  Usually Molly goes in last, maybe because she is smallest.  But today she went first, and she decided to run really fast through the gate. She tripped and fell face-first on the the way through the gate, and the next two kids then tripped and fell on Molly.  Apparently another couple of kids tripped and fell after that too, and there was a pile of crying toddlers at the playground entrance, with Molly on the bottom of the heap.  The teachers brought out some ice packs and sent for some help at the main office to check for loose teeth, blood, etc. but everyone checked out okay aside form scrapes and bruises.  I am told that at the end of playground time, Molly was the last one out of the playground and proceeded carefully.

Also, Molly had changed into a new set of shorts at school, as is often the case, due to some unknown liquid or dampness issues (the teachers think it’s probably water).

Checking into school
Checking out of shcool

Being a normal weekday, there was not time for Molly to do much between school and bedtime.  My parents had come to town for Molly’s birthday, so Molly did get a nice surprise in that regard.  I considered making Molly a special dinner, but she doesn’t really have a “favorite food” except for what she eats every day, which mostly whole-fat vanilla yogurt.  We tried giving her some penne with marinara, but it did not “take”, so she had vanilla yogurt as per usual.  Dinner was followed by a rendition of “Happy Birthday”, a mini-cupcake, a bath, and bed.  We didn’t even have a chance to give Molly her presents today and are saving them for the real celebration tomorrow.

It was a pretty normal day, but we are so proud of our Molly turning a ripe old two years old and getting bigger and stronger every day!

Pes, Love, Citn

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For her Mom’s birthday this year, Claire created a large picture of a princess. She spent all of her morning TV time on it. The princess is framed by glitter stickers. The picture is inscribed with some words that Claire spelled phonetically without any help, and with varying degrees of technical correctness: peace (“pec” or “pes”), love (which she had already learned to spell), and kitten with a creative but nearly dead-on phonetic spelling.


Claire also created a large sign with some spelling help that reads, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!”


Pump it up!

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Claire has officially been five years old for a few days now, but today it was time to celebrate with all her friends! With Claire’s birthday falling on the Monday after Thanksgiving, we opted to have the party the following weekend to try to get the biggest crowd for Claire. Although the initial response was low, in the end we had over 20 kids, mostly classmates, plus about as many parents, at the party. Plus all four of Claire’s grandparents were in town for the event. This gave the weekend a big, festive feel.
A picture break at Pump It Up

For the past few months, Claire had been communicating two key requests for her party. Her first request was to have the party specifically at Pump It Up!, her favorite bounce house, which had, among other amenities, a big colorful blow-up throne for the birthday girl to sit on. She had been dreaming of sitting on that throne for months. Claire also requested several times that we invite everyone from her class. Last year, in the wake of Molly’s birth and just moving to Austin, we had a small party with a few girls from her class. But this year, she wanted to make sure we invite everyone. Surely, anything less would be undemocratic! She really did not want to leave anyone out.
We scheduled the party for Saturday morning at 9:15, which was unconventionally early. But the party had a good vibe. The kids were fresh and rested. The parents were in good spirits too and were able to relax, socialize, and feast on coffee and bagels while the kids played.
Claire savors her time on the throne
The kids had a blast playing on the bounce houses, and then gathered for cupcakes and to sing Happy Birthday to Claire. Claire beamed on her throne. The only tense moment was when she had a little trouble sharing the throne with some eager friends, but she did relent and then had fun sharing the spotlight with her friends.
We went home and opened dozens of presents that day and next. Some highlights for Claire were various the Littlest Pet Shop and Polly Pocket sets, plus some real Annie shoes from Noni to go along with the outfit we had given her on her actual birthday. Many items went into storage to rediscover in the coming weeks and months. It’s a long time until another birthday!

Claire turns 5!

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A very proud Claire turned five today. She is excited to be one year older all of the sudden. Leading up to her birthday, she had asked me if she would get taller when she turned five, since her five year old friends tend to be taller. She was sort of interested when I told her she gets a little tiny bit taller every day.

Her birthday fell on a boring old Monday this year. She had actually spent the previous four days at home for Thanksgiving, patiently awaiting her birthday. I had been tempted to let her open one of her presents early over the long weekend, but I held off, assuming that would set a dangerous precedent. I can just hear, “Please Daddy! It’s almost my birthday” next year.

We decided to push her big birthday party to following weekend, and for tonight let Claire pick where to eat for dinner after we picked up her and Molly from school. She was initially overwhelmed by the decision. She thought briefly about going to Jason’s Deli because they have hot dogs and free ice cream. But she decided against it because the ice cream would spoil appetite for birthday cake after dinner. She settled on McDonald’s, mostly because of the playground.

We ordered hamburgers and went out to the playground seating. So we sat out there on the dark playground alone as a family at 6 pm on Monday night. It was a little odd, but Claire was happy, and Molly was really excited about the whole thing. Pretty soon, a girl Claire’s age and her little brother showed up, along with their mom and dad. Claire went to the girl and said her usual, “Do you want to play with me?” And of course within a minute there was a lot of running and screaming and laughing. Claire got excited enough to climb all the way up the tall, dark, plastic tower and slide down the pitch black covered slide several times. This was unusually brave for Claire, who would normally be hesitant to climb the tower even when well lit.

We eventually turned loose a very interested Molly, who immediately crawled over to the bottom of the slide and tried to crawl up it, never mind incoming kids twice her size. Molly was overjoyed to get a shot at the slide, and she kept frantically trying to climb up the slippery slope and let herself slide down. With our help, she got to slide down a few feet at a time. She was overjoyed, and was having a great time celebrating with Claire.

Once we got home, we put an exhausted Molly right to sleep and did presents and cake with Claire. We gave Claire a little purple stuffed kitty with an unusually long furry tail, and an Annie costume. She had been going through an Annie obsession lately, and had been asking to be an “Annie actor” a lot, specifically asking for an Annie dress, an Annie locket, and tap dance shoes (by which I think she meant black dressy shoes). We thought this would be the perfect gift, and she was anxious to try it on. Once she got it on, though, for whatever reason, she froze up and started to look very awkward and uncomfortable. We really felt bad for her. I don’t think I have ever seen her look that uncomfortable in all her life, and why will always remain a mystery. The wig was really bad and didn’t really look like Annie; maybe that had something to do with it. Anyways, it was not a loss in the end. She would go on to wear that outfit many times over the next few weeks, but she would never perform any Annie songs or dances in it. She just liked to put in on after school and curl up on the couch and watch TV in it. Whatever makes our five-year-old Claire happy!

Molly’s First Birthday Party

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Molly’s actual first birthday was a couple of days ago, and we celebrated with everyone today. We had cake and hamburgers at our house. It was actually the first party or gathering of any kind we had at the new house, as it turns out. All the grandparents were in town, as were a few other local friends, including Claire’s friends Coco & Zoey. Molly was present for some of her party but missed a lot of it due to an extreme need for a nap.
Among Molly’s presents were a baby xylophone on wheels and a baby phone on wheels. I am probably forgetting something else on wheels as well.


Molly Turns One!

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Molly had her official first birthday today!

After a regular day at school, we had a spaghetti dinner at home (Molly’s favorite). Grammy was here to help celebrate, too. After dinner, we offered her a petite cupcake from Whole Foods. At first, she was not happy about this idea at all. She did not want that cupcake! What were we trying to do? Eventually she gave it a try and enjoyed the results.


Happy birthday, Molly!

Her birthday party will be coming up this weekend.