Andrew's Scooby-riffic Fifth Birthday!

 

This cutie pie of a nephew of mine celebrated his fifth birthday over Labor Day weekend.  Andrew is nuts for Scooby Doo, so it only made sense for him to have a Scooby party.

 

Theresa had Scooby everything - Scooby rings in the cupcakes, Scooby fabric on the tables, Scooby stickers on the walls, Scooby favors and balloons, Scooby wrapping paper for presents, even a MYSTERY MACHINE bounce house!!!!

 

This was the hit of the party!  The kids spent practically the whole party in the bounce house! 

We were so happy to see Auntie Cynthia and finally meet Dan.  I know she was thrilled to finally attend a kid birthday party.  Not an easy feat when you live in Boston. 

Theresa also made a super delicious Scooby cake, in addition to the cupcakes. Fresh strawberry filling with white cake and whipped cream frosting. mmm.

 

There was even a Scooby piñata. It was my job to fill it up. I got a little overzealous, I admit it. I stuffed so many goodies in that thing that it was impossible to fit one single more piece of candy inside.  This kind of backfired. The piñata was one of those magic string kind, and when the door popped open, the candy just stayed put because it was smooshed so tightly inside.  whoops, sorry kids. Uncle Tim came to the rescue and solved that problem.  Check it out, there wasn't just candy in this piñata.

 The whole party was a smashing success. But what do you expect with some creative mommies and a crew of TEN adults for set up and tear down?!? 

Gabriela Update

I don't know when this happened, but Gabriela is such a big girl now. She can recognize her name in writing, adores doing 12 piece puzzles all by herself, and sings the alphabet.  Some of her favorite things to do these days are jumping on the trampoline, pretending in her kitchen, and going places like to the library for story time, the zoo, and riding on the merry go round.  Gabriela also loves to "do letters on the computer". I bring up Word, increase the font size and color and she types away saying which letter she's working on.

Gabriela has also been playing a lot with a doll baby she refers to as My Baby Sister.  What the heck?!?!?!  She rocks her and puts her in the stroller, changes her poopy diaper, and wraps her up in a blankie.  We talked about Keady's baby sister growing in her mommy's belly and visited another friend with a 1 month old baby sister recently so this may be where all the Baby Sister talk is coming from.  As far as we know, Gabriela doesn't have a real baby sister coming anytime soon.

She also has been saying lots of funny things recently like...

calling me "Uncle Mommy"  that was special.

"Daddy!!! TWO HANDS!  Drive two hands!! ... Good boy"  I never tell Lane to drive with two hands, but Gabriela is always on his case about driving this way.  What a backseat driver she is!

"Daddy, I growing today!"

She saw me with a barrette of hers in my hair the other day and said, "um, actually it's mines.   That special."

Gabriela has progressed from referring to herself as "Lah-Lah" to "gabi-lah-lah" and now, "Gabi -ella"

Gabriela also started using the word "remember" recently. She asks all the time if I remember an auntie or uncle or cousin of hers, or our friend's dog, or the time we went to the store and tried on shoes. I love knowing more about what she's thinking about.

She also appears to have a little OCD or something.  Gabriela cannot STAND when any doors or drawers have been left open, not even the tiniest bit.  She yells, "mommy, the door open, door open" and she'll get up to close it. She detests messes of any kind and insists they be cleaned up right away. Gabriela wants to wash her hands ALL the time. In the middle of eating she will get up to wash her hands if there are even a few crumbs on her hands.

Return to Little Farm

We originally chose to skip Little Farm in favor of Habitot, but when Rhonda said that day how much Keady gets a kick out of feeding animals, I knew we couldn't pass it up.  So, we geared up for a big day - Little Farm, followed by Fairyland, then dinner, a stop back to the house to enjoy Eric's birthday cake, and squeezed in some trampoline time before saying our goodbyes.

Little Farm is a fabulous little place at Tilden Park where you can bring celery and lettuce to feed the animals.  The girls had so much fun running around chasing each other in the grass, and of course, passing out their produce to the animals.

Habitot

We were really looking forward to Keady's arrival.  I guess Gabriela wanted to impress her or something because this is what Gabriela did to herself in the 3 minutes that we weren't watching her closely before the Medinas arrived.

I guess we have to add the "no coloring your face" rule to marker time.  We cleaned Gabriela up before her Keady-reunion.

Back to Habitot...Haitot is a children's discovery museum in Berkeley, but especially for toddlers.  They had a wiggle wall that kiddos could crawl up and down inside, a space ship station, complete with astronaut dress up outfits, a grocery store with play food and shopping carts, an arts and crafts room, a water play/car wash area, and even a hookah room.  Okay, it wasn't really a hookah room.  But it was painted a deep purple, had exotic lighting, and fancy decorative pillows all over the floor.  It was officially the "storytelling tent".  Habitot also had a parents' resource room, a toy lending library, and they offer cool classes for kids like Spanish music, African dance, or toddler cooking!  We are definitely coming back. Glad to have experienced it for the first time with Gabriela's friend Keady.

These girls were so busy playing, I hardly got any pictures where they were actually both looking at the camera.  It's safe to say that Habitot was a hit!

Reunion

Gabriela's BFF from daycare, Keady, came to visit last weekend with her mommy and daddy. It was so nice to see Rhonda and Eric and Keady.  Gabriela and Keady got playing right away, and didn't even skip a beat after not seeing each other for three months, which is a really long time when you're only two years old.

We went to Habitot in Berkeley, to Little Farm and Fairyland, out to eat, played outside, and just had a wonderful time together.

I hope they continue to stay in touch. They've been friends since Gabriela was just four months old!

Other fun stuff from last weekend

 

Gabriela helped Nana bake muffins for breakfast. 

 

She played in this playground next door. Where Gabriela spends a lot of her outside time in Gilroy 

Gabriela read books with Nana and with Grandma

 

She also insisted that Grandpa read a book to Cozy the Kitty 

My sister Cynthia came into town from Boston for a few days before hitting the road. Shame on me for not taking pictures.  Here's a plate full of Fakesgiving dinner in her honor.  I roasted three chickens - one with a sage rub, another full of citrus juice and zest, and another with garlic, rosemary, dijon mustard, and white wine. 

Lane and I also went on a date to see a play at Pintello Comedy Theater and visit with our theater friends in Gilroy. We went back to visit Grandpa where Gabriela gobbled up cinnamon raisin toast and then moved on to tomatoes.  As soon as we arrived she said, "Grandpa, let's pick tomatoes!!!!"

A new roof

Luckily the real heat that weekend didn't start until after the roofing project was finished.  One of the big reasons we came to Gilroy this weekend was to help my dad put a roof on his outdoor arbor by the pool. Lane helped organized the whole project.  Lane, Matthew, Tim, and Bobby were up on the roof while my dad and our neighbor Steve helped prep stuff on the ground. What a team effort.

Here's the almost final product - not bad for six guys who never put a roof on before.  Thanks to Noal and the internet for advice :)