Mia’s birthday party was last night.

Brendan celebrated by making it official that he is a big boy by refusing to take a nap. He made it all day just fine and even stayed up past his bedtime. Don’t ask me how I feel about this cuz it ain’t good.
I am up with the birds to start preparing for Brendan’s birthday party tonight. It is supposed to get up to 89 today!!! But by 5:00 it should be down to 84 and 77 by 7:00 so it should get back down to pleasant as the party progresses. That’s a good thing because his party is in our backyard.
One good thing about having 2 parties in a row is that much of the prep work is done. The tables are in position in the backyard and most of the house has been straightened up. I need to water the garden and go to the grocery store to buy copious amounts of food. We are expecting 30+ people to show. People seem surprised til I point out that we are a household of seven already.
The menu:
Deli meats and cheeses on white rolls
Chicken Salad on croissants
cocktail sausage speared with mini pretzel sticks (toddler entree)
Veggie tray
chips, punch, sodas
Racetrack cake
That should do it, huh? I think I’ll buy 5 pounds of meats and 3 pounds of cheese- along with the chicken salad, that should cover us all without copious leftovers.
Well, I had better get started. Wish me luck on my first real hosting of a child’s birthday party!

Brendan and I played a few matching games today. I had bought him this picture pairs game yesterday:

I took out about 9 pairs of very familiar objects and laid them out on the floor. If I gave Bren a picture of one of them, he could easily match them up either by placing one on top of the other or by picking up the correct matching picture. I knew he had this skill because he demonstrated it with the car puzzle I made him a couple weeks ago. But when I hid the 2nd set and asked him to bring me, say, the banana he didn’t. He would come over and squat by me and look to the correct picture but he didn’t pick it up or give it to me. I don’t know if he was just not cooperating or he didn’t understand to give it to me part. I was a bit bummed and he lost interest so I put it away.
I got out a muffin tin and some fruit snacks and separated them by color in different compartments. I set it in front of him and he did put a few colors in the correct spot but the lure of the fruit snacks was too great- he’d snag one for his mouth every chance he got. LOL.
So I did the same thing but with cereal consisting of different colored balls. I got him to put a red ball in the red ball spot, etc. So I took it a step further and “accidently” dropped a purple ball into the red section. “Uh oh! Fix it Brendan” and I’d jiggle the offending ball with a finger. It took awhile but he finally would take the intruder out of the wrong pile and place it in the correct spot. Success! So he learned a bit of something mathematical today.

My husband Darrell is keeping a blog now too!
One of his latest entries is about a website that has a very cool feature where you just type in a letter or two and it’ll show you a graph of the historic trends of the names bwginning with that letter(s). Very fun to doodle with.

Brendan is having sleep issues again. He is waking up in the middle of the night plus at least 2 hours earlier than normal. It is driving me nutso. I am only half awake today.
DH and I spent much of the weekend (when it wasn’t raining and even some when is was) putting part of a concrete stone garden bed together. It is laborious work even to me, the mostly creative team member! You have to till the ground, dig out the area you want to lay the stones on, flatten it, level it, buy and haul stones, get each stone “just so” and level… you get the idea. We have 20 stones in place and maybe 50 more to go. They weigh like 25 pounds each!!!
First stone:

20 stones from the back (I’ll save the front for the grand finale, lol):

I am happy with our work so far but both DH and I need some serious recreational down time!!!
On a happier note-
Have I mentioned that Bren asks, “What doin’?” now. Haha. I also got him to eat half a strawberry AND lots of watermelon today. I can’t believe it, myself. He may be easing up on his pickiness. I can only hope it continues.
Bren’s 2 year checkup is on the 23rd. I can’t wait to find out how much he’s grown! He’s eating like a horse right now. Is there a 2 year growth spurt?! His birthday party is in 6 days. Looking forward to it but not looking forward to all the work that needs to be done beforehand.

he even looks two years old now. When did that happen?

Just came froma a really rough night. Bren woke up 4 hours early- and wouldn’t go back to sleep for 5 hours!! Grrr. He better sleep *all* afternoon.
Still need to buy party invitations…