May the force be with you...

and also with you. I so know that that is not how it goes, but that is the only proper ending of that sentence to me!! little L had a Star Wars party for his 4th *gasp* Birthday party. I was the bad mama who tried (REALLY hard) to steer him in a different direction:) truck party? no. john deer? no. and so on...

And so it was... Star Wars. I made it as non-star warsy as possible. None of the scary stuff. And it was definitely NOT a lego Star Wars party. Seems to be the trend lately & we know how I am with trends. I'd rather be an original;)

I actually ended up having a lot of fun with this party, making it our own and not overly Star Wars. Pinterest helped A LOT!  As you can see our colors (I sound like it's a wedding) were lime green, turquoise and black. My two favorite things, both of which I didn't take pictures of *duh*, were the forks that had a sign "may the fork be with you" and the green, turquoise and black balloons I hung upside down from the ceiling. L kept showing everyone his Birthday balloons:) All in all a great day and the Birthday boy was over the moon... which is really all that matters when it comes down to it!

and then he was four

My little dude is four, 4, FOUR!! I can still practically feel his little baby body sleeping in my arms on our futon in Port Angeles. My first born, stubborn, silly, handsome, independent little man who we love more and more every single day. Who I butt heads with, at one time or another, every single day;) I can't even begin to imagine our lives without you and am so thankful that I don't have to!

The Birthday boy woke up to Star Wars wrapped pressies waiting for him downstairs:) Followed by banana chocolate chip pancakes. Then the day went on pretty much as it normally would, gym for mama, lunch, naps, while I baked and made some pizza dough for a special make your own pizza party/dinner with some special friends! The dude had a great time & there was a cake to decorate at the end of the day!! I'm pretty sure that will definitely be a new tradition for the marlands! so. much. fun. letting the little ones put whatever they wanted on that cake, wherever they wanted! It turned out pretty yummy to boot!

playing catchup

so the last few posts were all from May... I think:) Now we are all caught up... so next up june.

Obviously May was supah busy!  AND I left you all hanging, sorry about that! I'm still doing better than I was a year ago... right?!?

We had dr. appointments - Landon may or may not need glasses... the jury is still out on that one. He has the makings of a lazy eye, it's just not full on lazy yet. There's some fancy shmancy name but I won't bore you with those details. We bought some super cute frames, filled the script from dr. #1 and we were NOT happy. They didn't seem to be what they needed to be. Granted neither of us have a degree in ophthalmology, but we made an appointment for a second opinion just to be sure this is the road we should be taking.

We had a wedding, well not us but some really special, fantastic, wonderful peeps:) It was seriously one of the best weddings we've been to, there have been many great ones but this one is definitely somewhere around the top;) So low key, so down to earth, so crafty, so much attention to detail, so them:) good time had by all, that's for sure!

We started t-ball!!! This is just crazy... can't believe my little man is old enough to play an organized sport. I'm SO not ready to be a soccer, baseball (or any kind of sport) mom. Although I do say, BRING ON THE MINIVAN!! I could rock it... totally!!

We had family time, Luke is back on his day working schedule!! WOOOHOOO!! This means we have him most nights and weekends, unless he gets called back to work for some catastrophe. Sometimes I wish he didn't have such an important job... I mean those boaters can just save themselves can't they!?!?! Jeesh!

So now we are on to summer!! Landon's last day, of his first year, of school is today! I really can't even comprehend the fact that I have a full on preschooler on my hands! Where oh where does the time go?
Now it's time to break out the summer list & get going! I am hoping for a nice sunny, warm, gorgeous summer!
I will take lots of pictures & try to keep on this little ol' blog of ours:) xoxo

a visit from grammy & grampy

Luke's parents watched the boys overnight for us back in May, so we could go to a very special wedding and stay the night since it was about 20 minutes from our house. When we got home we hung outside for the morning since it was absolutely gorgeous out. Luke took out the water table and the boys had some fun in the sun:)

arts and crafts

I've been wanting to dye macaroni for necklaces, forever! It looked so easy but I just never got around to it. I finally made some time and did it... SO easy and SO fun for the boys!!

We also made our own gak. Landon picked some out at the store as a reward for sleeping in his own bed for a full week - not consecutively;) I knew I had seen a recipe so we returned the store gak and made our own. Part of the fun was the actual making of the gak. He definitely enjoyed playing with it too! Yes it did dye his hands (and mine) blue but it came right off:)

lets play ball...

Landon's first day of T-ball. He picked number 6, the last number to be handed out since he didn't raise his hand for any of the others - even though he really wanted number 3. He's the youngest kid on his team, we kinda-sorta-mighta had to fib a bit on his age... he was only off by a month. I'm wondering if we should have waited, you can totally tell he's the youngest amongst the older 4 and 5 year olds. He seems to be getting more comfortable as the season goes on... we'll see:) All I know is he is super cute in that little uniform and he wants to practice ALL the time, which is a great start!

a warm welcome

The boys & I had a rough day... a REALLY rough day. Luke came home... I took a mama break and this is what I came home to:) I love my boys. I love that they have a great daddy. I love that Luke knows just what to do to make me smile. I am one lucky mama!!

Pajama time...

said to the tune of "hammer time" ohhhoohhhhoohhhooohhh - oooohhhhoooohhh pajama time:) i'm crackin' myself up over here!

i have a LOT of pics of the boys in their jammies. probably because it's lazy mornings when we hang out in our jams that i actually have time to shoot some pics.

Now i am all caught up for the month of april... sorry i left you all hanging for a month! oopps

Hoping i can do better in may!

pentagrams & such

uncle D gave L some pentagrams for xmas this year. GREAT gift!! he loveeeeees them & i love that they provide hours (ok maybe 1/2 hours) of entertainment & education to the little dude! and yes he is supah cool rockin' the hurley hat;)

the Binky

i HATE... HATE... LOATHE.. the binky!! with L we took the darn thing away at 6 months - just like "the books" told us too. and with the first one we followed every little thing that book said!! it was easy, it was painless, no one was hurt in the process! round two... NOT so smooth! we took E's binky away at 6 months... then he cried (it was probably a two second cry) and he won it back! we've been trying to get rid of that thing ever since!!

now he sticks it out & gives us a look like "see i got it" anytime he has it out of his crib - which is where it's supposed to stay.

Lord help us when we finally part with the binky - i will probably put out an alert for prayers for our sanity:)

Ice Ice Baby...

Stop collaborate & listen... ok ok, i couldn't resist!! This boy LOVES ice! Anytime I fill up a glass he is right behind Angie begging for a piece! I'm sure he'll be an ice chomper like me - before I broke my tooth chomping away:) Hopefully no (more) broken teeth for little E though:)

a very hungry caterpillar {party}

E is TWO!! I can hardly believe it... seems like we were just bringing him home & adjusting to two boys!

This year we went with the very hungry caterpillar. secretly this may be my favorite theme so far, it doesn't hurt that this used to be one of my all time favorite books & the boys have been digging on it big time lately too:) and that i pretty much love all things eric carle... i mean who doesn't??

I had a ton of fun pinteresting (that just became a word) for all things caterpillar! I found the shirt on etsy & then went from there. The lantern idea was from pottery barn - they always have the cutest ideas!! my super talented friend elizabeth made all the cookies! and L helped make a whole bunch of cute little clothespin butterflies!

The party was awesome... so many good friends made it a very special day for all of us:) we are so lucky to have such amazing people in our (and our kiddos) lives!! xoxo

I scream you scream..

we all scream for ice cream!!

so here's the back story to these lovely little pics you may or may not have seen on fb. i took the boys out for a bike/scooter ride on a gorgeous spring day. i decided a little treat was needed after all the energy they burned off;) so we went to grab some ice cream. my plan was to sit on a bench & relax with our little snack (mama got some black raspberry frozen yogurt... oh my yum!!). so i called luke and he wanted some too... who wouldn't??? so plan b - the boys can eat their cones on the ride home so daddy's wouldn't melt (the line was super long so i didn't want to have to go wait in line twice with my little cherubs). i knew we would have a little mess to clean up when we got home... no biggie.

WRONG... the ice cream started to melt pretty much as soon as the boys got their little hands on it!! i looked back at one point & E had more ice cream on him than the cone! then his ice cream fell completely off the cone! i reached back & grabbed it - this is when i became completely covered as well:) when we got home the boys came out - everyone finished their ice cream & mama got to work. car seats were taken apart, vacuumed, covers thrown in washing machine, complete wipe down/vacuum of the car. It was much needed & way over due so that was all good. then... i moved on to the garage & got that all cleaned out & spring/summer- ified:) nothing like a little ice cream accident to light a fire under my a**!

It was all worth it to have two happy boys who were much appreciative of their afternoon treat:)

ps... those cones are mini's (smaller than baby cones) they still look ginormous to me!!

memory

do you all remember playing memory when you were younger. i used to love that game! our very talented very crafty auntie jenny made a personalized alphabet memory game for l when he was about a year. at that time we used the pictures for recognition. where's the sun? what color? what letter? etc. now we're having a little more fun by adding the memory aspect! e likes to play along too, although the rules of his game are a little different;)

just 'cause he's cute

jammies, cereal/milk mouth and all... this kid is CUTE!

crafty time

i love love love when i get some crafty time... i actually just got back from an amazing weekend of crafty time with some of my favorite people! more on that later this week (or next).

i also love love love seeing my boys using their little crafty imaginations for some crafty time of their own. i do NOT... i repeat DO NOT! enjoy the mess of their creations BUT the fun they have far out weighs my overly type A personality flaws;)

batman pretzel

what?!?!? you've never eaten one of those... they're damn good;) l got some batman magnets from the $1 section of target {love} for valentine's day. he loves them. he also loves doing totally inappropriate non-magnet type things with them. for example sticking them in his soft pretzel. doesn't it look delicious all mangled and what not?

potty talk

yes yes we do in fact have lots o' potty talk going on right now with a certain three year old. he says butt & smirks at me to see if he'll get in trouble for using it in that particular context... oh the joys of boys:)

but this is a whole other level of potty talk. we're talkin' about broken potties! this would be our second broken potty that my lovely, talented, super duper handy hubby has had to fix! the first was last year or the year before. we were living in newburyport and l decided to flush a toothbrush down the toilet... our ONE toilet;) luke fixed that one mighty fast!

this time around it was the toilet paper holder - you know the round little thing that the roll sits on... yup, THAT! since we have two other toilet options this was not of top priority. i think all in all it took about 2 weeks. only problem is three year olds don't understand that a toilet isn't working. even when they're told A LOT! that's where the painters tape comes in! that was the reminder he needed to get his little behind upstairs just as fast as he could & do his business up there;)

so onto the fixing. to fix this particular potty faux pas, luke had to take the toilet off not once but twice. the second time included the caring of said toilet down to the backyard to use the jet stream of our garden hose to dislodge the stuck item! finally we have a working toilet and did not have to shell out $250 to have it fixed! good job my love:)

flash back friday

i don't know if this will become a regular occurrence here but i just came across these cutie pie pics of l when he was almost a year and i just had to share.

he was so tiny. he was so cute. he was so smiley.

i know i will probably look back in three years at pictures from now and say the same thing:) how time flies!!

St. Paty's

We are not even one tiny bit Irish BUT... I love St. Patrick's day! I think, ok ok I KNOW it's mostly for the food;) I love me some corned beef!

This year I've been decorating for the holidays a little more than I used too... it's been so fun and I'm loving switching up my decor even for the littler holidays. For St. Patrick's day I left my every day decor up on the top of my hutch but I did swap out my subway art. I had a really hard time downloading anything I found online. SO I made my own... this is a MAJOR accomplishment, for those of you who know just how un-tech savy I am! I was going to post the file on here for anyone who might want to print one up real fast but I can't even do that... see I am a non-techy girl:)

I also whipped up some shamrocks on sticks & lj & I made the shamrock man for a little crafty project. All super fun, super quick & super cute... if I do say so myself!

So enjoy your St. Patrick's day & if you're eating it, enjoy your corned beef & cabbage! I won't eat mine until Monday & I can hardly wait!