Le Petite Artiste

Look at that concentration!

The Jolly Sex Party!

Okay, okay, I know what you're thinking - "Sex Party?!?!?"  

I mean that as in The Jolly Gender Party.  

It was just too good of a blog post title to pass up.

:)

Last Saturday night, we went to the big gender reveal party to learn whether Jason, Erin, and Ella were adding a boy or a girl to their family.  I love this idea - and I can't believe that Erin and Jason have the willpower to have the envelope containing that big news in their house for several days and not open it!

The party was a lot of fun - Katie Anne loved playing with the kids.  She also loved checking out all Ella's toys - as she told us in the car on the way home, "Ella's got a lot of fun stuff.".  Saunders and I enjoyed catching up with Erin, Jason, and all their friends and family while enjoying the delicious food Erin had for us.  Finally, at 6:00, it was time for the big reveal.  Katie Anne and I voted for a baby girl, and Saunders voted for a boy... and Saunders was right!  Jason, Erin, and Ella will be welcoming Colin Michael Jolly in late August - Erin's due date is 6 days after mine!  It will be so exciting to have our sons so close together!  

 Here are some pictures from the fun night.

Two cool dads

Two hot mamas

KA with Daddy and Mommy

Katie Anne and Ella playing together

Opening the big envelope...

It's a BOY!!!

Congrats, Jason and Erin!

Rainy Morning Playdate

On Saturday morning, Saunders had planned to play golf with Lily and Bear's daddy, Josh.  So, Katie Anne and I thought it would be fun to have Vanessa, Lily, and Bear over to hang out with us and try out Katie Anne's new trampoline and swing set.  Unfortunately, the big storm rained out the golf morning... but we just moved the playdate indoors, and the kids had a blast together!  They played Barbies, Elefun, puzzles, dress up, tea party, blocks, and had a big time getting out practically every toy in the playroom... and they did a great job of putting them all back, too!  They stayed so busy that Vanessa and I had a chance to chat and catch up.  I snapped a few pictures of all the kids' crazy fun.

After our playful morning, we met the daddies at Chic-fil-A for a family lunch.  We had a great time - we'll definitely have to do it again soon, rain or shine!

Chores, Part I

This is the first post in a series about Chores!

Lately, Katie Anne has gotten very into doing her chores - and that makes a Mommy very happy!  Katie Anne told me a few days ago, "Now that I'm a big three-year-old, I need to start doing work around this house."

:)

So, one thing that she's started doing this week is setting the table for supper.  She puts out everyone's napkins. Then she gets the forks and spoons out of the drawer and puts those on the table, too.  She does a great job!   

Sock Puppet Fun!

For Katie Anne's birthday, her cousin Marley, Jodi, and Jason sent her a very cool "Make Your Own Sock Puppet" Kit all the way from Arizona!  When we opened it, it was filled with all kinds of fun goodies... 

and I was excited to see that almost the entire project was one that KA could really do on her own!  I love to find a craft that is really, really kid-friendly - and this one totally was.  With the exception of "sewing" the little pompoms to the top of the puppets (which an older child could easily do - it was basically poking the yarn through with a giant plastic needle and tying a knot), Katie Anne did almost all the rest of the work!  We started with the blue puppet - Katie Anne named him "Sock Puppy".  

The steps for creation were Peel...

Place...

and Stick!

Daddy came into the kitchen just in time to help peel some of the sticker backs for Katie Anne.

Without long fingernails, he was a little bit of a slow peeler...

and Little Miss Dramatic enjoyed giving him a hard time about it - but she could barely keep a straight face!

Mommy helped peel, too.   (I know I look very tired - my husband told me so as soon as he took this picture.  Hey, if you'd taken 22 kindergartners to a science museum while 22 weeks pregnant earlier in the day, you'd look this tired, too.  :)

Katie Anne was very happy with Sock Puppy when he was finished!

After that, work continued on "Clowny" the orange puppet...

And "Sophio" the green puppet!

In a little over thirty minutes, Katie Anne had three awesome new sock puppets to play with - and she'd made them herself!

After that, all that remained was to act out some very silly sock puppet plays!

I would highly recommend this product as a gift for any toddler - or just as a fun rainy day project for your own kid.  The company that makes this product - Creativity for Kids - has lots of other cool things on their website, too.  Plus, the great thing was that we had TONS of the self-adhesive stickers left, so we saved them to do other projects later!

Thanks Jodi, Jason, and Marley!!!

The First Swim of the Season

Last Sunday, we took our first dip of the season in the pool at Doc and VJ's.  We weren't exactly prepared for swimming quite yet - we hadn't bought floaties for Katie Anne's arms, and both KA and Mommy need new suimsuits.  However, Katie Anne still did a good job with her first swim of the season!

Checking everything out with Ginger...

Getting her feet wet...

In mid-air!

A family photo...

The Gender Reveal Party - Kindergarten Style!

I really, really, really wanted to have a gender reveal party for New Baby Jones.  I just love this idea, but my friend Erin didn't have her gender reveal party for Ella in time for me to steal it during my last pregnancy.  It would've been kind of awkward to have a gender reveal party for Katie Anne after Erin and Jason's ... since Katie Anne was about 4 months old when they revealed that Ella was a girl.  :)  

So, I had totally planned on having a party for friends and family to reveal the gender of this new baby.  I'd been tossing ideas like cute cupcakes and cheeky invitation wording around in my mind for weeks before I realized the bad news... we'd find out the new baby's gender on April 5.  Why is this a problem?  Well, it is the day after Easter... the day after KA's third birthday... and smack between already-planned family gatherings for the Easter holiday and KA's third birthday party.  So, there was no time for a party near the ultrasound date.  We thought about finding out but not telling anyone, and then waiting a few weeks to have the party, but... would we be able to find out the gender and not reveal it?  Short answer - No.  

Plus, this was the first year that Katie Anne really "got it" that she was having a birthday, and boy did she get it!  She was pumped out of her mind for weeks about her Tinkerbell party, and we didn't want to override any of her fun.  We thought about giving her some kind of gift at her party to reveal the news, but we were both worried about her feeling like the baby news had trumped her party.  (Hey, we're both oldest children here... so we've got KA's back on the whole first-born thing - haha!)  No point in inspiring sibling rivalry before the baby's even born.

So, we just told all our friends and family as soon as we knew, and it was just fine. Everyone was totally excited, and we were happy that we didn't have to keep the secret any longer than that.

However, was I willing to give up ALL my party ideas?  Was I willing to blow off the super-cute secret stuffed-with-pink-or-blue-filling cupcakes I'd dreamed about?  Heck, no!  This might be my last pregnancy, and there was no way that great cupcake idea was going to waste!  Plus, I have a whole captive audience full of people who get PUMPED about a party for any reason at all, and who would be more than happy to celebrate with me, even a week and a half after I found out the baby's gender.  Plus, these people don't have access to Facebook yet, so they missed the original announcement and were still in the dark about the baby's gender!

Who are they, you ask?

My kindergartners, of course!

I planned a whole (Georgia Performance Standards based, of course - MKD1 for anyone who is curious) afternoon of fun for my class.  First, I sent a letter to the parents, asking that the kids wear either blue or pink shirts based on their prediction about the baby's gender.  

Me posing with Team Girl:

Me posing with Team Boy:

Then, we asked our "informational question": Will Mrs. Jones's baby be a boy or a girl?  We gathered our data - the kids' predictions - and graphed our results as a bar graph.  It was a super-fun math lesson, and it lead really nicely into a week's worth of graphing activities.

Then, it was time for the real fun... cupcake time!  All the kids were so anxious to bite their cupcakes, and they had a hard time waiting until everyone had their cupcake ready.  Here are the cuties while they're waiting for all the cupcakes to be passed out...

Finally, it was time for the big reveal - the big bite!  As soon as Team Boy saw the bright blue icing inside the cupcakes, they started to cheer!

Of course, the girls were a little upset about the Team Girl loss...

But the boys were so excited to hear about SJ4 joining the ranks of Team Boy!

After we finished our snacks, we hung our data and graph in the hallway to share the news with the rest of the hallway.

It was such fun, and I'm glad that I got to have a little gender reveal party for Saunders IV.  Now, Erin and Jason are pregnant again, too ... and their gender reveal party for new baby Jolly is tonight!  I've got to go get ready - pictures from that party to come later!

The "Big Kid" Class

Katie Anne has now completed her first week in her new "big kid" class.  After Spring Break, Mrs. Heather moved Katie Anne up to the "Threes and Fours" class across the hall, and Katie Anne is loving it.  The big kid room is a lot bigger in size than her previous "Young Threes" class, and she loves having all that extra room.  There are new toys to look at and new books to read.  Also, there's lots more kids - and two teachers - in the class, so she's got lots of new people (and kids from her old class that had previously moved up) to play with.  In the new class, they do lots more art projects and school-related things (this is sort of the pre pre-K class), so she's loving that.  That's her modeling one of her projects above.  They've been studying gardens all week, so she made a garden hat.  But, the best part of the class - bar none - is the BIG KID PLAYGROUND.  Ever since Katie Anne started at her new school this time last year, she has been desperate to play on the big kid playground with its big slides, ladders, and just general big kid air of coolness and exclusivity.  Well, now folks - she's out there, and it is just as wonderful as she always hoped it would be!