Birthday Party Celebration at Chuck E. Cheese

We went to Lit's 5th birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese today and the kids had a great old time.  Lit is the oldest son of our neighbors' across the street.  We unfortunately didn't get any pictures of the kids with Lit.  WE had playtime for about an hour followed by pizza and cake and ice cream.

I thought this picture of talking on the play phone was so cute.

Stella loved this mechanical horse ride.

Stella and Des had fun playing air hockey.

They also liked this motion simulator ride that took them on a roller coaster adventure ride.  This was the first time that Des has been on one of these and as you can see from some of the expressions on these pictures, he was not so sure about this ride at times and was definitely white-knuckling it on the grip bars on the sides =;)

Check Out My New Ride!

Amamma and Appachen bought Des his very first car, a motorized Jeep Hurricane, for his 3rd Birthday.  Like I said in the previous post, we had to wait until today to give it to him since it was raining all day on his birthday.

At first glance Des didn't know what to make of this new toy....

In fact, Stella was the first to get inside, but he soon followed her lead.

Once inside, Des soon put his foot on the accelerator and the jeep lurched forward.  He was sold after that and was laughing like crazy.  Des and Stella thought it was the coolest toy ever as you can see by the mile-long smiles plastered all over their faces in the pictures below.

Des, being the generous and gracious one let Stella (as well as his next door buddy, Hudson) have a turn driving his new jeep.

I just love this picture of the two of them looking at each other and sharing in the joy of this fun, new toy.

A great big THANKS to Amamma and Appachen for this awesome new toy!!!  Des and Stella really love it and appreciate it!

Happy 3rd Birthday Des

Our little baby boy is 3 years old today!!!  I guess he is no longer a "baby" and I should stop referring to him as that, but I can't help it.  In this picture above, he is showing me how much I love him when I asked him, "how much does Mama love you?"  You better believe it boy!

After we ate breakfast, we let Des open his presents. 

Some of the highlights include this giant magna-doodle, since he loves drawing on his regular sized magna-doodle.

He loved the new Mickey Mouse video game for his V-tech.

This present is a wand of sorts that when turned on, has multi-colored lights that spin around in different patterns.  Stella first brought this home when she picked it out of her treasure box at school (in Stella's class, for certain good behaviors, you get a sticker on a chart and when you fill up your sticker chart, you get to go to the treasure box and pick out a toy).  When Des saw Stella's wand, his exact words were:  "Wow, Stella, how did you do that?  That's amazing!"  He then told me that he wanted one for his birthday, so we kindly obliged.  When he was opening this particular gift today and got a glimpse of what it was, he let out an excited sigh.  It was so sweet and so cute.

This next toy is called Elefun and it's basically an elephant with a long, soft plastic trunk that shoots out butterflies when turned on and the object is to catch these butterflies using a butterfly net.  Stella and Des just loved this game.  So simple and yet so fun!!!

Desmond was so gracious and shared all of his new presents with Stella.  He is such a sweet boy and I hope he never changes.  His big present is from his Amamma and Appachen but because it is a present meant to be used outside and it was a rainy day today, we couldn't give it to him.  We are hoping for a sunny day tomorrow so that Des can get his last, but not least, present.

In the evening, we went out to dinner at Red Robin.  Before we left, Des and I shared some snuggle time as we opened and read his birthday cards.

The theme for Des's birthday this year was Monkeys!  Des is going to be a monkey for Halloween and he requested monkey cupcakes for his birthday.  He also got a monkey birthday card from Amamma and Appachen which he loved.  Here are the cupcakes I made for him...orange and brown monkeys!

Sharing a sweet moment with his big sister Stella before we sang to him.

Smiling as we're singing "Happy Birthday" to him.

Des is such a sweet, sweet boy with a sensitive heart.  He is always willing to share his toys with Stella and take turns.  All month, when we would ask him what he wanted for his birthday, he would just shrug his shoulders and his hands and would say I don't know.  Now and then, he would answer by saying he wanted another candle on his cake.   He wears his heart on his sleeve and loves all of us so much, especially his baby sister who is yet to be born.  He is constantly telling me, while hugging and kissing my belly, how much he loves his baby sister.
 
He is also very much a boy who does boy things like play in the dirt, draw with crayons and markers on our brick fireplace, the walls, and our brand new rug, unroll an entire roll of toilet paper and stuff it in the sink, etc..  Like his shirt says, he is a "heart breaker in training", because he certainly loves the ladies, especially 20-something, pretty college girls.  One of the advantages of being in a college town!  He has the uncanny ability to pick out the prettiest girl in a restaurant (usually a college girl), get her attention and flirt with her.  And the girls always fall for his charms by engaging with him.  He has been doing this before he turned 2 years old.

We love, love, love you sweet boy and we hope that you had a great 3rd Birthday!!!

Stella's Second to Last Soccer Game

Stella had her second to last soccer game of the Fall season today and she played against the team of one of her good friends and kindergarten classmate Evan.

Here is Stella and Evan squaring off against each other for the ball.

When the two were on break, Evan came over to say "Hi" to Stella.

They thought it would be funny to do some stretches.

I want to document what Des was doing during Stella's soccer game...playing in the dirt!!!  This is what he does during every one of Stella's soccer game.  Because of this, Dada has nicknamed "Dirt Ball" which he acknowledges and accepts only if he's been playing in the dirt.  If you call him a "Dirt Ball" any other time, he gets mad and says "No, I am not a Dirt Ball!  I'm clean!"

Here he is kicking the dirt around and laughing about it.

Here he is digging in the dirt and showing you the rocks he has collected.

During one of her breaks, Stella went over to where Des was digging in the dirt and instead of joining him in his favorite pastime, she decided to climb the tree that was there.

New Playground Set

Ommy and Poppa generously bought this super nice playground set for the kids.  Dada has been spending 90% of his time on the weekends putting together the play set for the kids.  

 

Don't let Dada's smile fool you.  To say that putting together the play set has been a bear is an understatement.  

Since I am retroposting, I can say that the play set construction is now complete, except for a few minor cosmetic finishing touches that need to be done (i.e, putting up the dormers and chimney on the roof and attaching the telescope, etc.).  It only took David 4 weekends to put it together.  Even though I haven't taken pictures of the kids since the whole thing has been completed, here are some shots of Stella and Des enjoying their new play set when it was about 50% done, before the swings and slides were put on.  They just couldn't wait!

 

 

A big THANK YOU to Ommy and Poppa for our awesome new play set.  The kids absolutely love them!  And once I take some pictures of them on the completed play set, I will be sure to post them here.

Lunch Date

At Stella's school, parents are allowed to come have lunch with their child if they want to.  So today, Dada decided to go have lunch with his sweet girl at school.  Dada said it was the cutest thing ever and loved the experience.
When Dada first got there, Stella was in charge of squirting out the "magic soap" (Purell) to each of her classmates...a job she took very seriously.  Her classmates saw David, but Stella didn't because Dada was being quite just wanting to observe Stella without her knowing he was there.  Then her classmates told Stella that her Dad was there but at this point, Dada was playing tricks on Stella and hiding from her.  Stella looked all around and when she finally saw Dada, she came running towards him and gave him the biggest, happiest hug ever.  She was SUPER excited that her Dada was there to have lunch with her.  So, so, so cute!!!

Then, the kids all got in a line to go to the cafeteria with Stella and Dada bringing up the rear of the line.  Stella and Dada were buying lunch today because it was spaghetti day.  Stella and Dada got in line and Stella got her lunch while a whole bunch of kids cut in front of Dada =:)  Stella went off to the cashier and paid for her lunch and went to sit down at the specially designated "lunch date" tables.  By the time Dada got to the cashier, the cashier informed him that Stella had already paid for his lunch as well.  I just thought that was so, so cute.

Here are a few pics that Dada took of Stella with his iPhone during lunch.

 After lunch, Stella's teacher asked Dada whether he wanted to stay to read the kids some books and Dada agreed.  Dada got to sit in the rocking chair up in the front of the class while he read the books and Stella got to sit up there next to him.  She thought that was very, very special.  And Stella's class thought that David was a riot when he read the books using all sorts of different and funny voices for the different characters in the books.

When Stella came home, her first question to me was when I was going to come have lunch with her.  I can't wait to go have a lunch date with my Stella girl when I am no longer pregnant.

Staying Dry All Night

Des wanted to wear his big boy underwear to bed last night, as opposed to the pull-ups he usually wears at night.  Since he has been keeping his pull-ups dry overnight, we decided to let him wear his big boy underwear for the night.

And it was a...success.  He kept himself dry all night.  Then I heard him get up early morning to go pee in the potty and then he went right back to bed. 

He has also been keeping his pull ups at nap time dry for awhile now and occassionally we have let him nap with his big boy underwear.  I guess we can make that a regular process now.

Our lil' guy sure is becoming such a big boy!!!