the fireman, the biker, and the runway

today we inhaled large quantities of cupcakes, hosed a parking lot with a real fire hose, strutted down a pink runway, and 2 little boys somehow got makeup all over their faces...yes, makeup.

it's the week of birthday parties. we have 5...a birthday marathon...just the the thing to send our sugar and fun levels into mayhem mode. today was no exception. it was awesome.

the morning party involved riding around the block in a real fire truck...the kids wore the headsets so they could chat it up over the sirens. even the adults thought it rocked. the highlight was seeing the unbridled excitement of our friend jesse, the birthday boy, as he wielded a fire hose.

miss emery is really warming up and allowing a few of my dear friends to feed her, touch her hands, and even hold her for a few seconds. today, it was linds who was the chosen one. emery is very selective and shy around new people, but she was crawling all over linds, eating snacks with her buddy finn and giving linds some cute emery love.

i'm still struck randomly in moments like this to see emery finally here with us. how huge it is to do everyday things with ALL of my children alongside of me. seeing emery scampering about makes me realize just how long we waited, and how very worthwhile the wait was :)

(miss em on the fire truck ride...she was laughing most of the way...of course when i try to snap her smile, it disappears :)

both of my sons cried when we left. clearly, it was awesome.


we scurried home and took full advantage of our new fire pit.
it gets a LOT of use these days.

apparently, there is more than one use for a fire pit, of which i was previously not aware.

tough dude.

and then this guy pulled up....

after spending all day on his first ride with my dad (who has an extra bike he lent to clint), he pulled up at home with the biggest smile on his face. it's been a while since i've seen him so wholeheartedly excited.

2 little buddies were quite excited as well.

and then it was time to leave boyland and enter the world of runway walks, aerosol glitter, exploding pink streamers, and lip gloss. lots and lots of lip gloss.

in an effort to simplify the marathon of 5 parties in the gift giving department, i decided to go homemade instead of trying to figure out what new gift to get each of these sweet kiddos that they don't already have. let's face it...our kids all have so many toys, including mine. i find that the simple things are often what my kids enjoy the most.

so we made 5 of these...(tutorial found here)
each gift includes a Make Your Own Ocean Kit as well as an Exploding Foam Volcano Kit. i had a few other ideas to add as well, but i decided to use what i have on hand with the exception of the bottles of hydrogen peroxide and the bins (both from the dollar store).
i always save glass jars from spaghetti or jelly, etc...we Goo Gone'd them and added some spray paint and monograms.

my favorite item was the paint swatch on which i wrote instructions, and the pop out circles that i double sided taped onto each item to identify them. i usually grab a few when i'm in Lowes to use for notes, etc, but they were super perfect (and FREE) for this project.

wow, i'm exhausted just writing about our day. back to my glass of wine, bowl of popcorn, and season one of 30 rock.
goodnight :)