Hand me downs...

I'm not at all against hand me downs... especially sentimental, cute ones.  Here are some hand me downs that I got from my mom the other day.  I wore several of these and my mom made several of them too.  (I haven't gotten pictures of all of them... but here are a couple.)

My mom made this as an Easter dress for me.

The sweater and shirt were my mom's.

The shirt was my mom's, but just thought that baby was cute.

Dress (worn by Janelle) and tights were my mom's and the shoes were my mother in laws... she thinks that Marg? wore them.

For Amy

Dear Amy,

These are for you... just cause your kids are so dang cute.  I have one of Aubrey, but I posted it with Ada's party pictures...

Ada's bday party

So yes, if you couldn't tell, Ada is officially 4.  But yesterday we had her party.  It was so fun!  There were 17 kids in the end.  Ruth, Kate, Johnny, and Adam helped Jer and I put on a storyline for the kids.  At the beginning of the party, the evil birthday party witch (Kate) stole all the kids cupcakes.  To get them back they each had to complete 5 tasks.  After each task they got a magic token that they'd sprinkle on the witch to get the cupcakes back.  So here's basically what happened:

Kate - the witch stole the cupcakes.
Johnny and Adam - the monsters put a bean bag in their way so they couldn't chase the witch... the kids climbed over it and ran to the front lawn.
Adam - played red light green light to try to sneak past the monster.
Then we had to cross a lake by going over a bridge (we had an old slide that we laid down on some blocks so it was up off the ground).
Ruth - The princess, they had to draw a picture for the princess to get a token.
Johnny and Adam - they had to put the monsters to sleep by singing them a song so they could get the tokens that they were guarding... then Adam was a little impromptu and stole the tokens and we had to chase him to get them back.
Then we had them complete an obstacle course by going through hula hoops, around balls, down a slide, through a tunnel, etc... to get a token.
Then they had to kick a ball from one end of the yard to the other to get a token.
And finally they had to put together a puzzle to get a token. 
Then we all ran up to the balcony and poured the tokens over the witch and were able to get the cupcakes back.

It was a lot of fun and I'm really grateful to my nieces and nephews for helping us have so much fun!  And to my partner in all crimes... my sister Janelle snuggled Evelyn for me from start to finish so that I could run around being crazy and take pictures.  Thanks Nells!  You know I owe you big time for everything right?  Let me know whenever you want to cash in! 

And I mostly videoed the goings on, but here are some pictures...

Money thief

So, Grandma Robertson usually gives kids $10 for their bdays. I wasn't there when Ada opened her card from Grandma so I never saw where the money went, and Jer says, "There was money?"  I just figured that Judy had forgotten this year (which I didn't mind Judy... ), until I did laundry today.  I did the kids bathroom laundry and in the dryer was a brand new laundered $10 bill.  I'm guessing that Ada pocketed it before anyone else knew! 

We took it to the bank today to put in her savings.  (I wanted to set up savings for each kid so that they get the idea of how to save, that's one way my parents taught me.  Our bank even has an early savers program that you get stamps and stickers when you deposit things into their account, and after x amount of deposits they give the child $10... so the kids like going to the bank.)  It was really cute.  I gave Ada the money and her little bank book.  Sam wanted to do it too... so I gave him his bank book and $1.00 in quarters that I found in the car... and they very seriously took them up to the man.  Ada told him, "This is my birthday money." Sammy chucked them up at the counter because he couldn't reach... after trying to intervene several times I finally got all the quarters away from him and to the clerk.  And they proudly gave me back their books and I gave them their receipts and stuck their stickers onto their shirts... which are still there.  Sammy was so sad in the car when he dropped it... he kept saying, "My dollar, my dollar!"

I hope that eventually they understand what saving is and what you can/should use it for.  We'll see!

Angry bird

Sammy's newest addiction is Angry birds... which is funny cause he can't really play it on our PC... and I think he's only seen it played on his uncles ipad.  But we were in Walmart and were going to buy these cute little masks/hats that they had just for fun, but then they saw the stuffed Angry Bird display and it was all over.  So I told them that if they didn't want to buy the hats then we could buy one stuffed bird to share.  So of course they did.  Ada was very opinionated about the color, Sammy could care less which one we got as long as we got one.  Blue. So we got it home, set up some of the other stuffed animals as pigs and threw it at them to knock them over. 

Here's what Sammy had to say about it: 
to the bird - "Did you fall down? ohhh... " including a kiss on it's cheek.  "Shhhh, shhh, shhh." with his finger in front of his lips (like I do when I tell him to be quiet) and rocking it back and forth. 

Here's what Ada had to say:
to me - "We need more pigs!"

Seth, I forgot to tell you

I was asking Ada what friends she wanted to invite to her party... and she said, "My cousins!"  I told her that all the cousins were invited but what friends did she want... "Seth!"  So it's official... you're not an Uncle, you're a friend.

More on Ada's bday

The first thing she said when she woke up and I told her it was her birthday: "Ohhh!  Now I can reach stuff!"

Her first present:  My Little Ponies from Sammy and Evelyn.  (the old ones... she got Spike the dragon, a baby pony, and a sea pony with a float... she's been singing the Shoobedoo song all morning that the sea ponies sing in the tv show)

Her first cake:  A surprise present from Grandpa Wilcox.

Her first activity:  To play with Daddy and the cats.

Her first time buy something with birthday money:  Went to target and let her pick out a $1 toy to buy with her bday money from GGma.  The rest goes into her savings account.  (She probably won't fight me on that until she really understands what money is.)

Her first family activity:  Going to Kung Fu Panda 2 at the movie theater.

Her last activity:  To go down fighting... didn't want the day to end.  After playing with cousins Henry and Wesley, "Those boys were my birthday party!"  (Party's actually on Saturday, but we can say she had two right?)

She also got $10 from Greatgrandma Robertson, a beautiful handmade card from Grandma Robertson, a play horse for her dolls from mom and dad, a jewlery box full of my grandma's old jewlery (that I used to play with when I was little acutally) from Janelle, Seth, and Sharon, and some clothes, a princess cape (made by my mom) and a book about the last year together made by Grandma Wilcox.  Love them!  Everything was something that she adores! 

Fencing

So Tues nights, Wed afternoons, and Friday nights are all becoming fencing nights.  It's something that both Jer and I enjoy and it's some excercise too... But the kids are starting to pick up on some of it without directly teaching them.  It's pretty funny.  Friday night we were there learning how to fence Sabre and Sammy (2 year old) starts yelling, "Ready, Fence!  1, 2, 3"  Which as far as I can make out is that he is referreeing... ("En Gaurde, Fence... halt... (then tell the score.)")  I about peed my pants, which then Evelyn did for me... I ended up with pee all down my leg that wasn't mine.  Lovely.

Of Mice and Men

And yes, I hope that in this case the mice end up in the same condition as in the book.  We have mice in our garage... so, Jer cleaned out the garage, we got two cats from Amy and Jon, and put all our dog food into a plastic container.  And today we found a mouse in the house.  Now I'm not an animals in the house person.  In essence, I'm lazy.  I don't want to clean up after animals in the house... so we're trying to trap the dang thing.  Jer put a mouse trap where he'd seen it earlier today, and after church we were in the front room just talking and a mouse ran out from under the couch... saw us... and ran back under.  So we brought the cats inside and scared the mouse out.  Unfortunately, they didn't catch it... but they did get really excited about chasing it and the mouse did run away.  We're going to buy more traps tomorrow though and maybe we can catch it before I get too grossed out.

Happy 4th!

I'm writing a little early since tomorrow I plan to try to spend with my baby! 

My oldest baby's turning 4 in the morning.  I love this girl!  She's happy, funny, helpful, active, and she loves me.  She's the girl that will pause a million times in the middle of getting dressed to tell Sammy a story, or to come say hi to Evelyn.  She loves to learn and loves to do things.  She's my fencing buddy and my cuddler.  She's willing to watch the baby while I'm in the bathroom.  She loves her cousins, especially Rachel, Anya, Mariah, Grace, Aubrey, and Devin.  She loves to read books, jump, and ride her bike.  She loves picnics.  She loves cats.  And she LOVES playing with her Daddy and brother Sammy.  She pretends to be afraid of things but isn't really.  She's able to do a lot on her own, but likes to be with you and asks you to do things for her just so that she can spend time together.  She's very good at picking up her room.  Loves My Little Ponies.  And someday wants to wear a bra.  I love you Ada!  You are a gift and a promise!  Be patient with me!  You're my first, and as Gma and Gpa Wilcox say, "The guinea pig child." or as Daddy says, "Version 1.0".  We're figuring out parenting and glad that you're tough enough to take it!

Communication

Sam came to me distraught after dinner tonight (that was a fun pre-thanksgiving Judy and Jim!).  He'd been playing while holding the paper cube that they'd made today in Nursery and it'd gotten smashed... so to tell me what had happened and that he wanted me to fix it, he threw it on the floor and stomped on it.  "Like that!", he said.  Then he handed it to me and wanted me to fix it.