Happy Birthday Cash & Riley!!!

Cash & Riley had a very fun 4th birthday...or that is what they told me anyway! 

We have had so many birthday parties to go to lately and every time we go to one I give the kids their "instructions".  I tell them that the birthday child is the one who blows out the candles and opens the presents. 

So today they were very excited to hear that they were the ones who were getting to blow out the candles and open presents...finally!

I had the table decorated for them when they came down in the morning.  I didn't let them open any presents before KDO to avoid any meltdowns since we have to leave the house by 8:30 am!  Much to my delight, we had a major meltdown to deal with anyway!

Riley couldn't find her dog to take to school and wanted to find it herself.  Well, I found it and that didn't sit well with her.  She actually took the dog back upstairs, put it back in its "hiding" place and "found' it herself.  Then she went on to hide in the office until I found her.  When I asked her what was wrong she told me she was hiding because I was "being mad at her". 

It makes me feel bad now, but at the time, didn't care...I was mad at her.  Ahhhh, she was acting like a crazy woman.  You should have seen her.  I think she may have been possessed for a short while, but we got through it and made it to school only 15 minutes late! 

After school, the kids opened their cards from Grandma and Grandpa.  Tripp even got one which was nice.  Transformers and My Little Pony birthday cards WITH stickers and no confetti...thank you Sue.  What could be more perfect.  They both kept saying that those were their favorite and they were very excited about their cards.

We got home and opened presents, the kids played, ate dinner and then had our "cake".  I used Brownie Bites instead of cake.  They only ever lick the frosting off of the cake so I decided to get something I thought they would actually eat this year.  And it had to be something we could stick candles in.  I think Rileys favorite part of her birthday is when she gets to blow out the candles. 

She loves it.

So we had a great 4th birthday celebration here at the Johnson home with just the 6 of us.  Cash and Riley are busy playing with their ponies and transformers and anxiously awaiting their grandparents arrival this weekend. 

More birthday celebrations to follow!!!

Guess Who Got New Glasses...

Here are Cash and Riley making their birthday treats to take to school.  We made a very healthy trail mix of Trix, Goldfish, pretzels, chocolate chips, Teddy Grahams and mini Pop-Tarts. 

I am sure the kids loved it.

Little Drew...



iXL's & Chuckie Cheese

The party must go on...and on and on and on! 

Darin and I got Cash & Riley iXL's for their birthday.  I spent over an hour trying to get my computer to recognize the software and they ended up catching me in the act.  I caved and gave them their presents early.  They love them though and I still have a couple little things for them to open on their actual birthday. 

I took the kids to Chuckie Cheese one day last week. We met some friends there and it was great. There was hardly anyone else there and the kids had a blast.

Cash and Riley blew through the tokens in no time at all.

Tripp spent his time collecting all the balls he could find. It was pretty funny. He was like a dog when they hear the bag of dog food open or something. Tripp would hear the balls drop when someone put a token in the game and he would dart over. One time I caught him standing on the skee ball machine trying to reach over and grab the footballs out of this game while a guy was playing it!

Of course I thought it was funny. The guy playing...not so much. I mean come on, you are like 40 years old tossing around a football at Chuckie Cheese at noon on a Wednesday. At least smile at the 2 year old and humor him a little.

Duh.

Well, eventually Tripp got a football somehow.

Good job little buddy!

Chuckie gave out free tickets to all the kids that danced with him.  Instead of picking them up and keeping them, Tripp kept picking them up and trying to give them back to Chuckie. 

It was really sweet.

Riley used her winnings to buy some sweetarts...and put them on her pizza. 

Very healthy choice.

Here are a couple videos of Tripp doing the cupid shuffle with Chuckie.  The first one got cut short because Riley decided to stick her grubby hands into the food at the salad bar. 

Salad bars kind of gross me out anyway, but at the right place, I like a good salad bar. 

Chuckie Cheese is not that place.

The salad bar is right at the kids eye level and right at the front of the place so its one of the first things you see.  The kids walk in, they are hungry, want to grab a little taste before they go play, why not?! 

Anyway, just a little piece of advice from me...don't eat the salad bar at Chuckie Cheese...ever.



Party Time!

I think out of all our friends and family, probably half of the group either has a birthday in April or a child with a birthday in April.

April is a crazy, busy birthday month for us.

The pictures below are my kids with early birthday presents and my kids at a couple birthday celebrations for some of their friends.

Tripp's birthday isn't until November, but you know how it is...he gets presents for his brother and sisters birthday too!

You will notice that I took Riley in to get her hair cut.  I had taken the boys in and thought I might as well get Riley's cut too.  And cut I did...I had them chop it.  I was growing tired of the nightly fight to brush the tangles out of her hair.

I think her new do is super cute and it is super easy to brush!

Royals Game

My friend, Cathy and I took Cash, Riley and Tripp out to a Royals game.  The weather was awesome so it was a great day to be outside.  Thankfully, Sarah had the day off so she stayed home with Drew.

The kids had a lot of fun.  Tripp was really into the game.  He couldn't take his eyes off the field for about the first 15 minutes we were there.

We watched the game, ate a bunch of food and then walked over to the fountains that go off at the end of each inning...I think. =)  After they were tired of the game, we took them over to the playground area to play and ride the carousel. 

That was when things went south.

Tripp would not leave the slide and threw a major fit when we hauled him away.

And I mean major. 

 Seriously...trying to catch him and then carry him to our next destination reminds me of those contests they have at fairs when they are running around a muddy pen trying to catch a little, greasy pig. 

Only Tripp's not little.

He's huge...and he's heavy.

Especially when he is thrashing his appendages about in a way that screams "I will get away from you!"

Usually to our advantage, Tripp isn't fast.

However, he seems to channel his inner Carl Lewis when he has a goal.

His goal was to get to that slide and never leave.

Ever.

We finally got him far enough away from the slide and stopped him from taking off back in that direction enough times that he gave up. 

He went back to watching the game.  I sat with him on the stairs while Cathy took Cash & Riley potty. 

When they came back from the bathroom, we decided we better get home.

We broke the news to Tripp that we were going home and again, major meltdown.

Cathy and I had to take turns carrying him to the car which, of course, was parked forever and a day away.

We had the other two starting to whine as well because they were getting tired. 

Obviously we overstayed our welcome.

We made it to the car in one piece and had everything we came with so that was good.

We bid adieu to the "spaceship", as Tripp called it on our way in, and were on our way home...

never to overstay our welcome again!