Piper had a Birthday

On labor day Monday it was Piper's birthday. (So far I have all holiday babies, Christmas, Valentines, and Labor day). My due date for this baby is a few days after Halloween so who knows maybe a Halloween baby too. Anyway a few weeks before Piper's birthday we were looking through our cake book and trying to come up with party ideas. One of the cakes was a monster cake. Perfect! We call Piper, the Piper monster all the time. There were tons of cute ideas on Pinterest so I crafted for the first time since I've been pregnant. I could tell I wasn't my usual self however because by the time Piper's birthday was here I wasn't done yet and was already burned out. I found some short cuts and got most of it done. When I was trying to think of what special breakfast to make (and I was already tired and burned out) I thought sugar cereal. Brilliant! That is a super special treat around here and it was a huge hit and so easy. Scott ended up taking Corbin with him to go check out and buy a swing set off of somebody on Craigslist. He brought it home and built it straight away (my city slicker husband has turned out to be so handy)! That took a bit of time so we only ended up having time to go to dinner and have cake and presents. We were also going to go to PoJos but we will have to do that another day.

The kids have loved having their swing set. Why didn't we get one sooner? Our yard is small and we initially thought we would only live in this house for five years but now it's looking like 10 or forever. Ha. Well folks time to bust out some toy things.

Corbin still doesn't talk much about school but I think he likes it. I can already see a huge improvement from his work after just 2 weeks! I have been doing home preschool stuff with him for years and I am telling you his coloring, cutting, writing, everything has improved. It kind of makes me feel like a failure but happy at the same time. I think with school we often focus on the negative like bad peer pressure. But peer pressure can also be really good. I think that having Corbin go to school and do his work with kids his age and for someone other than his mom has made a huge difference. Sweet! He is also doing extra work with me at home to earn stickers and prizes.

I am going to start doing Preschool with the girls this week. With Corbin in school now my goal every morning is to be up dressed and ready, fix and feed breakfast and have all the kids ready before we walk Corbin to school. We also started scripture study and family prayer. We have been putting that one off until Corbin started school. No more excuses now! They are busy mornings and thankfully Corbin's school doesn't start until 9:05. Of course all of this is going to go down the drain as soon as said baby is born. Oh well!

It was Stake Conference this weekend and one of the Young Women babysat for free so we could go to the adult session. That was kind of her. The session was about the refugees from Africa in our ward who have all recently been baptized. They made a video all about it. There was some pretty amazing things and lots of little miracles. As far as Stake Conference today we survived another Stake Conference with young children. Yay.

Piper is 2. Some things about Piper. She has a really funny quirky personality. She is great at picking up on a mood and trying to be a part of something. She has been fake laughing forever. She still does. If Corbin and Gabby are laughing she will throw her head back and do a fake laugh. So funny. She did that as a baby. She is a hot head. She is totally unreasonable and will freak out and scream at the slightest dissatisfaction. She gets confused when to say thank you and when to say you're welcome. If I do something for her like open the door she says, "you're welcome, mommy." It kills me. She loves to say, "mommy, watch" and then do something silly like blowing a raspberry. She will do this over and over. "Mommy, watch." She totally loves to watch TV. She will park herself down with her pillow pet and blanket and be in heaven. I try to limit the TV and I will come into the room and she has turned the TV on by herself. I have to leave the remotes up. She is definitely in a parrot stage and likes to say everything. We have her say a scripture verse and say prayers with us. She is a cutie and we love her to death!

Do you like the two streamers in the back. Ha. Like I said I was burned out I couldn't put up anymore. Plus hanging those streamers is painful and dangerous at my stage in pregnancy. I was going to make balloon monsters and hang those up but that sure wasn't happening. 

Monster cake. That cake was super moist and delicious. I think I ate most of it by myself. Yikes!

Family pic. I bought party hats from the Dollar Store and spray painted them and put monster faces on them. I did a lot of the crafts with Corbin and Gabby which was fun and kind of annoying. They were such back seat crafters.

Piper's shirt. Her shirt was for sure the hardest. Corbin and Gabby's I just cut and glued out of felt. Piper's I had to draw, redraw, cut out the paper, cut out the fabric, iron on all of the different fabrics. It took forever! The stupid iron on stuff doesn't work very well and I did not want to sew it so I had to bust out some hot glue in the end.

Gabby's shirt.

Corbin's shirt

Cute Piper. This girl has spunk!

Love her!

I made apple crisp. It was good! Scott was kind enough to drive the girls and I to the Caldwell church farms and we bought a bunch of pears and apples. Yummy! I love fruit from the church farms. So cheap and so delicious!

Our play set. It has been great!