Cait is 4!

My baby turned 4! How can that BE?? We had a blast though. 

We started the day with the traditional wake-up gift and then had a yummy breakfast of Almond Banana pancakes. (Excuse the shirtlessness. Undies and jammies are one and the same in the summer.)

Among other gifts, Cait got a job chart for her birthday and was really excited to be old enough to have her very own jobs. It's been about a month now and she has been an AWESOME job-doer. A lot of the time I don't even need to remind her anymore.

Grandma Disparte send Caitlyn some birthday money so I took her to the store to pick out what she wanted to buy with it. She chose a Princess "T-roar-a" dress. (She calls Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty "T-roar-a".)

She also got a birthday package from Grandma and Grandpa Sitthichai, and she's insisted on taking her preschool book to school in her backpack every day.

A couple weeks before her party Caitlyn helped me back the cakes for her birthday cake and freeze them so we wouldn't have to worry about baking and cleaning up the day before or the day of the party. You can see that Caitlyn REALLY loves helping me cook. Licking the bowl is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it right?

Cait chose to have an "Ocean" themed party. Probably because we were at SeaWorld when I was asking her what kind of cake she wanted. So we had a treasure hunt as one of the activities, and this is the treasure chest the kids found at the end of the clues. We also played "fish" where the kids threw their fishing pole over a blanket and I hooked on a sand toy and threw it back over. Kind of like at the 4th and 24th of July celebrations at the park.

What would an ocean-themed party be without sea creatures dangling for the ceiling?

Caitlyn also helped me make this banner in the days before the party. Seriously, shopping and getting ready for the party was at least 70% of the fun!

We had a goldfish cracker bar (in the sand pails), tuna salad sandwich bites, ocean blue punch, and of course, the ocean themed cake. Those little white seashells Caitlyn and I made using a molds we found at Michaels and melting chocolate. Yum....

Cait had a blast with a bunch of her little friends, all of whose parents are also good friends of ours, which made it a blast for us too. 

At the end of the party we changed the kids into their swimsuits and all went out to the pool. The dads all got in the pool and hot tub with the kids, and we moms all sat on the side and chatted. THAT, my friends, is my idea of a great time. :-) 

Happy Birthday to our big girl! We love you Cait!

First Day of School! First Day of School!

As much as we totally loved the preschool we did during the summer where all three kids and I stayed the whole time, it was pretty challenging for me to monitor Nathan, hold/nurse Benjamin, and also run a station or do the snack. I was tense and exhausted by the end of every preschool day. So...

Last week Caitlyn had her first day of preschool at Jones Elementary!

In San Diego the coat and backpack hooks are outside. And why not, when the weather is great pretty much every day of the entire year?

This is Miss Barbie. Another family in our ward who's had two of her boys in Miss Barbie's class recommended this preschool to us and said Miss Barbie is fantastic. So far we haven't been disappointed.

Yes, Caitlyn is eating breakfast. Nice that they serve the kids breakfast! Quinn drops her off at 7:15 on his way to work, and he loves the daddy-daughter time. He says Caitlyn is a little chatterbox and talks his ear off the whole way to school.

When we left on the first day of school, Caitlyn had already pulled out a puzzle and barely looked up to say goodbye. No time to waste, people!

Preschool

Tara, your text requesting some pics of our family motivated me to open up our blog page for the second time in like 7 months. Wow!
We'll do a preschool theme...and a couple other posts.
We've started a preschool where I stay and help run learning stations and siblings come too. It's so fun! Nathan loves it as much as Caitlyn and it's great for him to already be getting the preschool structure and doing the crafts and projects.
There's a theme for every day and last week one of the days was "backwards, inside out, mixed up day". So we wore our clothes backwards and inside out, etc. The art project for the art station was "upside down coloring" so the mom at the art station taped the coloring pages to the underside of the table and the kids colored laying on a mat on the floor.

p.s. Tanya, I don't know if those cowboy boots were originally Joey's or Kylan's, but Nathan insists on wearing them everywhere we go. :-)

Today during goodbye circle time the kids did tapping sticks to a song, which my kids love. I decided to whip out my camera and take a video because Nathan was following the instructions really well and I thought it was especially cute that he really closed his eyes the whole time when Teacher Marina said to for that part.

What happens when...

you allow your child to play in the water at Seaworld on a chilly San Diego evening in May even though you didn't bring extra clothes into the park?

He ends up looking like Yoda in your jacket while you walk out to the car to look for something else he can wear.

Thumb Sucker

Benjamin is a thumb sucker! They say every family gets at least one, and it looks like he's our one! I know I should try and prevent it, but it's so darn cute!

Natey's B-day

My little baby Nathan (who suddenly seemed huge once we brought Benjamin home) turned two!
He got a little learning center thingie (which our friends who were moving actually gave us and we hid it til his birthday -- when they're 2 you can still take advantage of the fact that pretty much anything is cool and exciting and they don't know or care that it's a hand-me-down, right?).

For his cake he picked out chocolate cupcakes...and wanted to eat them for breakfast. And why not? 

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby Natey!

The Birth of Baby Number Three

Yes, it's been 7 weeks, but better late than never right?
Benjamin Daniel Disparte.
The receptionist at his pediatrician's office said, "That's a good strong name."
6 lbs, 10 oz, 19 1/2 inches.
Perfect.
Benjamin's birth was pretty much the birth of my dreams. After having safe, smooth and positive births at a hospital and a birth center inside a hospital (ok, actually in the car and the ER on the second one), I felt good about giving birth at a free-standing Birth Center this time, Best Start Birth Center here in San Diego.
The few things about the first two births that I hoped to have happen differently this time around went perfectly. It was such a peaceful, calm atmosphere to labor and birth in. I LOVED giving birth at a Birth Center.
We went home four hours after he was born and got a great night's sleep with no nurses or doctors coming in and out.
Life with three kids has been, to my overwhelming relief, genuinely happy and pretty smooth! (As a side note, I found that leaving the computer off almost all the time is a major contributing factor to family and home life being smooth and happy; hence the 7-week-late post about Benjamin's arrival.)
Benjamin is a super smiley, happy baby and I am a waaaay more laid-back, calm, and relaxed mom than I was with one and even two, without sacrificing the level of orderliness that I like to have at home.
Caitlyn and Nathan looooooove the baby.
Life is good.

Benjamin, we are so incredibly happy you are here!