How we spent August

Well, I have not been very good about keeping up with either blogging or taking pictures this summer.  I lost my camera charger, so turning the camera on suddenly became very precious.  Plus, I've been nesting and re-organizing trying to get ready for Baby #3, so I keep finding other things to do with my free time.  So here is a quick summary of how we spent August (and really, our whole summer): 

We ate lots of popsicles.  Lots.

We had "school" time - 10 minutes to practice something.  Charlotte has been practicing writing and is making fairly good progress, and Paige has been practicing counting to 10 and the color names.  She knows most of her colors now, but for some reason STILL calls purple, pink almost every time!

We destroy the toy room.  Here they have pulled their chairs (on their own!) into a train.  Koby and his brother used to do this when they were kids.  I promise I never told C and P about this - but that's why I made sure to take a pic of it!

We dress up!  Paige is an especially big fan of the fairy wings.  She wears them with clothes and without!

We sing.  A lot.  In particular, "Let It Go" from the Disney movie Frozen.  I love the next few pictures - watch the displacement of Paige.  So sneaky, so smooth, and done without a single bit of pushing, or even touching!

We clean.  Not fun for mommy, but really fun for the girlies.  I made them each their own cleaning bucket, with a spray bottle and sponge, a hand-held broom, and a duster.  They love it!  They ASK to use it!

The birthday party

So the last event in Paige's birthday month was her actual party.  We kept it very simple and full of her favorite things - balloons, bubbles, and water.  We set up 5 stations in the front yard, invited some friends, and had cake and juice while the grown-ups sat in front of fans (because it was about 100 degrees!).  I think everyone had lots of fun!

We opened presents before everyone showed up, just to have a few moments to enjoy "Dink-bell" (Tinkerbell).

"Necklace!"

 

As for the cake, we kept that simple, too.  Cupcakes and a candle for everyone to blow out - because what kid doesn't like blowing out a candle?

The "stations," all of Paige's favorite things that we had around the house.

Turns out everyone's favorite thing to do was pop balloons in the driveway or on the grass.  Luckily, there was a stash of water balloons in the house, so after they had popped all the large balloons, we filled up at least 150 water balloons.  I was filling them with water, so there aren't any pictures of it, but the kiddos loved it. We did that until they ran out, then stuffed everyone full of delicious strawberry cake with cream cheese icing.

Happy birthday, my 2 year old Paige!

Paige's birthday breakfast

It has become a family tradition to have birthday cake pancakes the morning of the girls' actual birthdays, and now they are old enough to want to help make them.  So we mixed up some funfetti cake in the mixer, then had lots of fun licking the beater clean.  Paige got to be in charge of holding it, but she was really good about sharing.  She even offered some to me!

Sprinkles are, of course, a very important part of birthday cake pancakes, and the girls applied them liberally to the pancakes.  There were some sprinkles that made it directly to the mouth...

Everyone was very pleased with the result.  Pink "icing" instead of syrup was the topper.  I'd be lying if I told you Koby and I didn't enjoy ours just as much as the girls did theirs! Yum!