A, B, or C

I have 2ish weeks until the B's 2nd birthday.  For her first birthday I was so overwhelmed with just keeping her alive, it was really just a gathering of people.  This year, I'm determined to make it a themed birthday party.  This idea is causing me a huge headache.  I'm pretty sure at the end I'll be so overwhelmed, it'll just be me putting a cake on her plate, sticking it with 2 candles, and calling it a day.

However, if I can get my act together, the party is going to be Winnie the Pooh themed.  Winnie the Pooh is the B's current obsession.  If you even say Winnie, Pooh, or honey she flies into a tizzy.  Out of necessity my husband has coined the acronym WTP.  The B has not caught on, yet.

For the party, I really want to make her a dress in the same theme.  The pattern that I've fallen in love with was created by An at StraightGrain.  I'm not yet sure of the colors I want to use yet.  If you'll please excuse the bad art work, these are the 3 ideas I have:

Artwork on A would be painted bees.

Do you like A, B, or C?

Also, need some help with food ideas.  This is my list of what I have so far:

1. Tigger tails (cookies/pretzels with drizzled stripes of chocolate)
2. Rabbit's Garden (veggies to dip)
3. Honey Hive cake

Can you think of any ideas for Pooh themed entrees?

Game ideas for the 12 or so kids ranging from the age of 1 year to 4 include:

1. Pin the tail on Eeyore
2. Bee-Bag toss (shoot, I have to make these soon!)
3. Treasure hunt (water table filled with rice and stick toys inside)
4. Window Painting

We can't fit a bounce house at our home so I'm lost for other ideas to burn toddler energy.  Did I mention that most of the kids are boys!  Yikes.

Any toddler boy energy busters that you know of?  (preferably games that are not so destructive of themselves, their friends, or my house.)

Now that my panic is out of the way, let's talk racing!  The LA Rock N' Roll is coming up fast.  It is this Sunday and I'm more excited than nervous this time.  I'm not even worried about pooping my pants.  It may be because it's the 2nd time around, I'm running with Jason, and or I'm not shooting for a time. 

I'm certainly not prepared this time (shame on me), but it's meant to be more focused on running with Jason.  The longest distance he's cover so far is now 8.9 miles.  Which is fantastic for him!  In fact, I don't think he's ever run that far before.  Since I'm ever the brilliant one, I decided to run 12.1 miles on Saturday just to make sure I can finish the half.  It's good to know that I have not lost my base, but I sure was slow.  Whatever, I read somewhere that a half marathon doesn't need a taper.

Pumpkin Picking Poto Pomb

Last weekend was a wonderful blur.  I know this is post is outdated but little things like parenting, sleep, and my job get in the way.  At any rate here's my list of wonderful blurs:

1. My college friend came to visit from Malaysia

           We've talked on the phone and over email but have not seen each other since 2006.  It was so exciting to spend some time with her.  It's crazy that she doesn't look any different from the last time I saw her.  We were able to catch up some more and she got to see the B for the first time.  She said, "she looks smaller than I thought.  Maybe it's because you put her in those huge hats."  She's right, the B does live in huge hats because she's so fair and burns in the sun like her dad. 

2. My parents surprised me at the park
       
           Monday was my birthday so my parents drove down from SF to surprise me.  They showed up when we were at the park.  I was just chatting with a friend and this dog came running up between us.  My first thought was, what a rude owner.  Don't they know this is a park with kids?!  The next thought was, this dog looks just like my mom's dog.  Then when I saw my mom I realized that it was indeed my mom's dog.

3. Everybody stayed at our house

           It's so fun to have a full house bustling with activity.  The B seems to really enjoy it too and is much less whiny.  I think it's because she's getting so much attention.  If we have another kid, she is going to be in for one rude surprise. 

4. 7 mile run with the husband

          The race is next weekend and neither of us are prepared.  I've only run 7 times this month and the furthest I've covered is 7 miles.  *gulp*  We are in for a world of pain.  I foresee a lot of walking.  At least we'll be doing it together.
 
5. Pumpkin farm visit

           The farm was a 1.5 hour drive from our house.  The B watched the Winnie the Pooh movie on my iPad during the drive so it wasn't too bad.  They had a petting zoo and the B had a great time even though it was during her nap time.  I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Pumpkin Picking Photo bomb!

(Does it count as an alliteration if the first letters don't sound the same?  I'm sure the internet will tell me but I'm too lazy to look it up.  For now just do me a favor and say "Pumpkin Picking Poto" out loud.)

My little beauty

Now see here, you need to get back in line with the rest of your friends Mr. Pumpkin.

OMG!  He's so big and FLUFFY!

Can I have both of these?

Nevermind, this is the one I want. 
Yes, I know he is not a pumpkin.   But you said I could pick out something to take home
 and you didn't specify that it couldn't be a goat.

Sorry kid, I'm not taking that kid home.  Haha, get it?  Kid.  I crack myself up.  (My apologies, as it turns out, 5 hours of sleep plus a 5 mile run at 5am makes me more crazy than usual.)

Crafting Update

I currently have at least 10 ongoing crafting projects around the house.  Here are 3 that I have finally finished.

1.  The B has this jumper that I adore.  It's so soft and the color is just so cute.  The only problem is that the B hates the jumper.  She requires access to her belly button at all times.  We like to call it her emergency button.  She touches her belly button whenever she is feeling anxious.  Which is pretty much whenever we are in public.  So if you see us around and have a burning desire to see a toddler belly, just make eye contact with her and she'll reach for the emergency button.  Moving on with the jumper story, I cut off the bottom 3 inches to get clearance from the taper, snaps and elastic.  Then I sewed on a 4 inch trim.  The first time I sewed it I sewed the trim inside out.  durrrrrr.  While I was agonizing over having to tear it out (I used a zigzag stitch), my husband suggested that I sew another piece the right side up and just double the trim up.  Turns out my husband is brilliant.  The extra weight keeps the dress from coming up and it stays less wrinkled. 

I'm terrible at remembering to take "before" pictures.  So here is the faked before pic.

Here's the after picture on the B.  She is wearing Daddy's belt.  What can I say, the girl likes to accessorize.

2.  Here is a bubble dress that I made with an old bedsheet.  I followed a fantastic bubble dress tutorial by StraightGrain.  This is the first dress item of clothing I made for the B and the blogger made it so easy!  You can tell the B is delighted to model for me.

3.  The B has become addicted to Winne the Pooh.  She just loves everything about him.  She often goes around with the stuffed Pooh bear her Dad bought and pretends to feed him honey.  So I decided to crochet her a honey pot to feed the bear.  The B loves it and said "Choo choo", when I gave it to her.  (That's her version of Thank you.)

Defying the Alphabet

It has been a long time since I've blogged.  Consequently, this post will be a huge dump of what is going on around here.

1.  I got a new job!  It's a new role but the same company and same cubicle even.  The job starts Monday next week.  I'm excited to learn something new and terrified I'm going to fail and get fired.

2. Jason is training for a half marathon with me. :)  I signed him up when he only had 8 weeks to prepare.  (I may have gotten over enthusiastic.)  The training plan must have been too aggressive because he now has a slight injury.  We're working through it slowly.  The half has a 4 hour limit, so we could easily walk the thing if he is hurting too bad.  It is his first race ever and I'm so excited that he was willing to try.  (We don't do half-assed at our house!)

3.  The bed frame is FINALLY built and we are no longer sleeping on the floor.  The bed still needs a head board, a foot board, and drawers for the carcass.  I'm not making that up, woodworkers call the frame a carcass.  The word carcass gives me the heebie-jeevies.

4.  The B is stringing words together.  It is so fun to watch her learn and grow.  My little monkey is not so little anymore.  Everything is either, "NO!" or "OWN!" around our house now.  In general there is a lot of shouting.  I can't blame her as shouting new words is much more fun than just speaking them.  Try it, you'll see.

5.  Our social calendar is filling up.  We have something to do every weekend until December.  Turns out that having a kid makes you extremely busy with birthdays, play-dates, and classes.  We could always decline, but the B is so anti-social she really needs the time to play with other kids her age.  She has started to yell "NO!" at kids that want to come play with her.  Or else she just sits on our lap and glares at them.  I'm hoping it is just a phase.

Why would you want me to spend time with the riff-raff anyway?

**Disclaimer:  The following rant is super duper nerdy.  Feel free to skip it if you are the kind of person that doesn't like a good math joke like the d/dx, d/dy, e^x joke.  (Mei, you know the one I'm talking about.)

Lately, I've been really annoyed at the iPhone 5 commercials on TV.  What is really killing me right now is when the narrator talks smack about Physics and says, "I guess the laws of Physics is more of a guideline."  AHGHGHGHGHGh!!!! I just want to lunge through the TV and beat the narrator senseless.  Physics makes the iPhone possible.  In fact it is Solid State Physics and a little bit of Quantum because the components are so small.  It drives me crazy in the same way that people say something is gravity defying.  WTF?!?!  It ONLY works BECAUSE of gravity.  The only comparison I can come up with on why this is so infuriating is if someone said, "This sentence changes the fundamentals of the alphabet."  No, no it doesn't.  If it did, you would not be able to read it.  GAH!