Together Again

On Saturday morning our CRV packed with the remainder of our things was dropped off in Orange County.  We are now officially out of Arkansas.  My husband finished up residency at the very end of last month and has started his new job here in California.  Man, is he hating the commute!  Arkansas certainly has California beat for traffic. 

We are completely done with Little Rock, except for the friendships we made in our time there.  Our house closed earlier this month, so that is one less thing to worry about and huge step in lowering our debt.  It was a nice house and a good learning experience, but I am so glad we were able to sell it.  We will know better what to do and expect when we buy a house here later on.

We are together as a family again.  This morning I looked at the time and calculated what time it was in Little Rock to figure out what my husband would be up to.  Then I realized that I don't have to do that anymore!  The girls are happy to have their daddy back with them.  And I am happy to have him here helping me with the girls.  Their grandparents are of course very helpful but the girls aren't their responsibility in the same way.  It's nice to be able to share that responsibility again and not have it all on me.

I'm excited for the next chapter of our lives together here in California with family and friends watching the girls grow up.

Dora 3rd Birthday Party

Funny how the month of June just flew by like that.  On the 21st, we celebrated the twins' 3rd birthday here at my mother's house.  The girls love watching Dora and I don't mind letting them since it is one of the more interactive, educational shows out there.  I decided it would be a good theme for the party.  Only, I didn't want it to be all Dora, all over the place.  I wanted the decorations to be more subtly Dora and concentrate more on the activities now that they are at the age where they can participate in party activities. 

We don't really know any local toddlers around the same age yet and my friends in San Diego with little ones have too far of a drive to make it worth their while.  So it was a nice family party with just the cousins.

I made a map for the three toddlers and we went through it like on Dora.  "Birdhouse, prize box, cake and presents!" and repeat two more times in your best map voice imitation.  Making the map was easy and quick.  I simply searched for what I wanted on google images and copied and pasted them into Paint. 

 

I tried to stick to a orange/purple/pink color theme for decorations but almost anything could be argued to work with the Dora theme.  So the green table cloth that Oma found in her collection and the flowers/bug decorations from Little H's 1st birthday party that my sister brought all worked out perfectly.  For food we had quiches with asparagus and tomato, deviled eggs, a veggie and cracker platter with hummus and shrimp with home made cocktail sauce.  The fruit and cake came later. 

 







 

After eating, we painted birdhouses.  All shirts came off so their would be no permanent messes. I got the birdhouses for a dollar each in the craft section of Walmart along with the acrylic paints and little paint brushes.  Being a full 8 months older gave Big H the edge in painting his bird house.  The girls mixed their paints a lot making their houses a muddle-colored mess.  Big H's turned out really well though; he was very careful to clean his brush between colors.  They all had fun painting.

 

 

 

After the birdhouses, we moved on to the prize/punch box.  I followed the tutorial over at Diapers and Heels.  It is a great idea for this age group instead of a piñata, although I supposed a piñata would go with the Dora theme better.  All the kids, except baby M, got three turns punching into the circles and pulling out prizes like flutes, maracas, whistles and bubbles (all Dora themed from Party City).

 

 

I baked two square strawberry cakes with a cool whip frosting.  I mixed blended mulberries into the frosting to give it a nice flavor and pink color.  I also piped a yellow T and D on the cakes so they would know whose was whose.  They each got three candles to blow out, but Big H jumped the gun and blew out D's.  She didn't exactly realize that he had done it.  She just looked surprised that her candles went out before she blew them.  Then when we congratulated her on blowing out the candles to avoid a fight, she looked suspicious until she decided she must have blown them out after all.

 

 

My big three year old girls!