High Five for Friday

Hi there! I'm linking up with Jennie today to share some fun stuff from the past week.

1) Friday evening, since we had no homework to do, Grant and I made some candy cane bead ornaments to get a jump start on Christmas stuff. The best part is that my mom taught me how to make these when I was kid (crafty, she was not but we had fun) and now I get to make them with Grant.

2) Saturday was my birthday. As soon as I woke up, Grant handed me an envelope that said "Mom" (he calls me Mama). Then he told me "I wrote 'mom' by myself! It's a sight word!" How cute is that? I'm not one to make a big deal out of my birthday but Husband wanted to take me out to breakfast and do a little shopping before we took Grant to a birthday party for one of his friends. Later on we had a movie night and Grant got to see Jurassic World for the first time.

Brunch at Briggs! I love starting the day with a dish the
size of a row boat filled with grits :)

We took Grant to a birthday party at this neat gymnastics
place (that's him on a trampoline about to dive into a foam pit).
What a fun place! He had a great time and I dont' think
he's ever been that tired after a birthday party!

Testing out my birthday present on Sunday!

3) Also over the weekend, my little kitchen helper and I made some chicken & rice soup.

4) I had a dinner date with Grant on Monday! Usually he picks Cracker Barrel for our dates. I guess he's tired of it because it was Moe's this time. He loves when they yell "Welcome to Moe's!"

5) Since I was off work on Wednesday and Grant was off school, Husband took the day off and we went to the Museum of Life & Science in Durham. It's one of our usual places on days off but they recently opened some new tree houses so we were excited to check those out. We had a really great day together!

Up in a tree house!

Even with the new tree houses, "Into the Mist"
is still one of his favorites!

6) Yesterday when I got home from work there was a package from my sister waiting for me. Along with a cute new bag, she also sent me three boxes of my favorite store bought cookies! I love packages with treats from home :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

Five Years

Yesterday this crazy kid turned 5 years old:

I haven't had time to do Grant's "5 year pictures"  yet, so
I'm re-using one of my favorites from his party day. 

So what is this little man up to at 5:

• KINDERGARTNER! Crazy, right? So far, so good, though. He seems to be enjoying school and loves to tell us about his day so we're trying to enjoy that while it lasts.
• At least 45" tall. I know this because my sister & took Grant to a water park last week and he was tall enough to go on some of the crazier water slides. He has his check up next week.
• SO excited to be 5! I'm not sure why this year more than last year but he just couldn't wait to be 5.
• Current obsessions: dinosaurs - the boy is crazy over dinosaurs; volcanoes - probably because he associates them with dinosaurs; solar system - not sure what started this but we've been reading some interesting stuff (also if you ask Grant what he knows about the solar system, you may hear "Jupiter has gas!"); cars, trucks, trains, planes, helicopters, and anything else that has an engine; Minions - they fart, 'nuff said.
• What's on TV: Transformers, Jurassic Park, The Land Before Time, DinoTrux, Ninja Turtles, Paw Patrol, Jake and the Neverland Pirates, Sofia the First, Night at the Museum, Lion King, Cars (and Cars 2).
• Books! I love that this kid is a book lover. 9 time out of 10, if Grant is quiet, he's in his room thumbing through a book. For Easter he got a big book about dinosaurs so he looks through that often and most recently he's been requesting his book about sharks when we read at bed time (although the new book about the solar system he got from us yesterday may be taking the #1 spot for a while).
• Music: Grant is alarmingly into country music. It started out kind of funny because he just loved to listen to Boxcar Willie in the truck with Husband. But then he really got into Eric Church and now Luke Brian is his favorite thing ever. Sometimes in my car I have to impose a "No Country Music Rule" where he has to listen to the Disney pandora station or sometimes he'll ask to listen to Trans Siberian Orchestra (he does actually like TSO). 
• Very animated. Loves to act things out when telling stories.
• Loves to build! Legos are everywhere in our house. Grant is always building something (and then crashing it and building it again).
• Still loves board games and puzzles and recently got him into some card games (Go Fish and Crazy 8's). We have so much fun playing games together...and I don't even have to let him win.
• Grant loves to be outside. In the sandbox, hitting baseballs, knocking around his kickball, doesn't matter. Most recently we've started going on long walks at the park. I love that he's at an age where we can take bigger walks together and explore places we couldn't go back when he needed a stroller. 

After having Grant's birthday party on Saturday, we had a small celebration yesterday just the three of us. Husband & I had lunch at school with Grant. He had requested Olive Garden for dinner so we did that and then went home to open a couple presents. I think he had a really good day and even told us at dinner "This has been the best birthday EVER!" 

I love that Grant is always looking forward. But as his Mama I can't help but look back at how he's grown into the awesome little man that I'm so proud of.

I'm aiming for this weekend to do some 5 year pictures. I promised a choice of ice cream or a snow cone for cooperation (I remember when it just used to be a lollipop). But I think Grant is looking a little forward to it too...I told him he could wear his "cowboy outfit" for a couple pictures.

Grant's 5th Birthday Party

This year for Grant's 5th birthday party, we had a splash party (or water party or whatever you want to call it). I filled the backyard with water-related items and let the kids go to town. It was a bit chaotic (to be expected, yes?) but I think the kids had fun. My sister was in town for the week and was a HUGE help getting the party ready!

There were approximately one million children in my backyard but these pictures kind of look like no one showed up. I left out pictures that included other children just in case the other parents don't want their kid plastered all over my blog.

We did some beachy decorations inside and pretty much let the water toys outside be the decorations for the yard (except for some pool noodle garland I made that was so fun!).

The banner I made for Grant's first birthday!

Fun little buckets for Grant's friends to take home
(my sister did a LOT of cooking and cleaning for me
so I could sew stuff for the kiddos - thanks sister!)

I didn't have any games or anything planned for the kids, just play time. I had a slip-n-slide, a sprinkler, some beach balls to play with, water guns, and water balloons. The water balloons lasted about 5 minutes - I should have seen that coming. The slip-n-slide had to be repositioned about 10 times but we eventually got it working great (especially after putting some soap on it!).

I have no idea how I managed to get a picture of just
Grant going on the slip-n-slide

Sitting in one of the water gun re-fill buckets

Bubbles!

I love this beach ball sprinkler! And it's apparently quite sturdy.

The kids played for about an hour before we broke out the pinata. After going to a birthday party earlier this year that had a pinata, Grant really wanted to do one. He picked out a shark. 

So we filled it with his favorite candies...and those poor kids tried so hard to bust it open but in the end, we had to get Husband to knock it down. Which STILL didn't actually bust it. So he tore it open and dumped out the candy...ha!

We did presents and cake after the pinata.

He got a real pair of cowboy boots from Gramma
& Grandpa so he put on his hat to go with them

Telling an animated story of dragons blowing
fire after eating spicy tacos

Really not sure what this was about...maybe cake.

Cake. Grant wanted a shark cake (his favorite birthday activity is looking at cake pictures to figure out what he wants me to make) and he picked one that was supposed to have the shark standing up but that didn't happen. I think he loved it anyway.

3 layers of chocolate cake

Happy Birthday, Grant!

Would you believe he ate the cake this year?? We went from Grant wanting a cake, to Grant wanting ice cream sundaes, back to cake because he decided he loves cake  - which I didn't believe for a minute. I don't know how much he ate at the party, but we still have some leftovers and he's actually eating it. It only took 5 years :)

Grant put on a little show for us after his friends left:

(Currently, he's asking to be a country singer for Halloween)

And he kind of continued the party while we were cleaning up. We turned the slip-n-slide back on and Grant kept up the fun while we cleaned up the yard (and picked up what must have been thousands of pieces of balloon). 

Grant had such an awesome time! I'm so glad his friends could come play and celebrate with him!

High Five for Friday

Hello again! Today I'm linking up with Jennie to share some fun stuff from the past week. 

1) Friday was Grant's preschool graduation! It was absolutely adorable. The teachers did an awesome job working with the kids and the kids just too freaking cute. AND I only cried a tiny bit! 

2) On Saturday, me, Husband, and my in-laws took Grant to Chuck E Cheese for lunch to celebrate graduation. Grant had the best time! He's been wanting to go back since we went for a birthday party and this seemed like the perfect thing to do. The best part was when he put a token in one of the ticket "jackpot" games. He said "Did I win?!" and when we looked, tickets werejust pouring out! 

He won over 100 tickets off one token!

3) One of the things I really wanted to sew this year was a dinosaur tail for Grant. And I did it! It's not perfect but it's damn good for a first try. And Grant loves it!

4) There was more slip-n-slide action over the weekend!

5) I found cheese curd! It's one of my favorite things from back home and practically impossible to get here. But I randomly found it at a Super Target! It's not from back home, but it'll do for the craving :)

It's been a pretty good week and I'm looking forward to nice weekend.

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

High Five for Friday

Hi there! Today I'm linking up Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) Last weekend I made and delivered this fun beach themed birthday cake!

It was my first attempt at making palm trees!

2) On Saturday we went to a birthday party for Grant's best friend. He was so excited that he couldn't get to sleep Friday night, woke up early Saturday morning, and asked every hour if it was time to go to the party. The party was at a place that teaches circus-type aerial tricks and the kids had fun swinging and playing around. It's always so fun to watch Grant play with his friends!

3) Sunday, we went to the park for a walk and some playtime.

4) And I made Grant this fun mask:

5) My co-worker and, as she calls herself, "work mom" is retiring this week. We had a little celebration for her yesterday and I made her this cake:

6) Have you ever heard of a hot brown sandwich? Maybe I watch too much food TV but I've been wanting to try one forever. Last night for dinner I gave it a shot and holy crap was it good! I used THIS simplified version from Kraft. But I found a baked potato version online somewhere as well and I think I'll be giving that a try soon!

I actually can't stand tomato so I made a couple without it for me
but Husband and Grant enjoyed the tomato ones :)

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!