Eydnn and Oliver's Train Birthday Party!

Two friends from Cort's school had a birthday party yesterday together at the Medford Train Park!  It was really fun!  Cortney had a great time!  Here are some pictures!

 Most of the kids there are kids from her preschool class, and Eydnn's mom is actually one of her teachers, which is fun!

 Eydnn had a blast not eating with her fork!  Most of the time she either stuck her face right in it or used a candle :)  Cortney got a big kick out of it!

 She also put some salami on her cake and ate it up!

 They asked that people bring pet food or snacks to donate to the humane society instead of presents which was cool.

 Haha!  Cortney trying to give Edynn a hug, she smiled right after but Cort kind of snuck up on her and Eydnn didn't know who was there.

 Cute snacks!

  I didn't get too many pictures of Oliver, he was running around most of the time but I did get a couple!

 Singing Happy Birthday!

 Blowing out the candles!

 They had this miniature train place where they had all these different settings, like The Island of Sodor (spelling?) where Thomas lives, an old western town, and even a Hogwarts one...You can see the car in the weeping willow:

 And Hogwarts with the quidditch field. Pretty cool!

 Cortney walking with her friends:

 Here is a little construction site they had up that I liked - how could I not with my love of construction!  I guess they even move them around all the time so the guy said if you see a little man fishing off the bridge, next time you come he might be set up somewhere else!

 The girls looking at "lady bugs"  which were actually just little tiny red bugs

 Carys and Piper, some of Cortney's friends from school!

 These are pictures on the train or what we see on the train - this is a picture of the bridge we are going to go over...

 And here is us on it!

 There was a tiny little out house and a whole bunch of other little buildings!

 The kids walking over the to the miniature town place:

 Cort and some friends on the train!  My pictures got all messed up when I tried to put them on here, but this one is actually the last train ride we took - so they were excited, but getting a little tired!

 Cort sporting her conductors hat!  The kids didn't really wear them on the train because it was a windy day and they kept flying off.

 Cort's favorite part of the train ride was seeing this sign....

 And then seeing the bears roasting some marshmallows!

It was a fun party!  And it was nice that so many of the kids knew each other!  It was funny too because Eydnn's mom was really good at getting them all to listen because she is their teacher!  The train rides were super fun - and Cortney loved playing with her friends!  Good party!

Mothers Day, Graduate School, Tadpoles, and Ballet!

I had a wonderful Mothers Day yesterday!  It started out with me staying in bed!!!!!!  It was the first year that I actually stayed in bed, and I loved it!

Cortney came into my room before her and Chris started breakfast - it might have been my favorite part of the day!  She climbed up on my bed and snuggled a little.   I asked her what today was and she said, "Mothers Day!!!!!  I Love you Mom!!!!!!"  and then gave me a big big hug!  I just melted!

Chris and Cortney made me scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, a very nice breakfast in bed!

Cortney made me this candle at school!  She told me she was thinking about me when she painted it - cute!

 Chris gave me a card and 20 tulips!  I love them!

Also HUGE news!  I got into graduate school!  I will be getting a masters in teaching - for early childhood and elementary grades :)   Super super excited!

We also got new pets!  I have been volunteering at Cortney's school and last week in Kindergarten they had a guy come and give everyone tadpoles when I was there, so they gave me some for Cortney too!  He gave a pretty cool presentation to the kids about frogs and toads.  Cortney is was so excited about them!

 When she realized what the surprise was I had for her she said, "I love this so much!  Mom I have been wishing for this my whole life!  I have pets!"  I guess that is the thing with living in apartments, we don't really have pets.  She has named them Rapunzel and Eugene - from Tangled :)  Rapunzel is the one that kind of just chills a lot and Eugene is ever moving - he really likes swimming around on his back!  I will have to post some updates once they grow some legs!

 I got Cort ready for ballet today and she looked so cute I had to snap some pictures!

 Of course everything is pink - even down to her kitty and sunglasses!

 I cannot believe how big she is getting!  She is growing and learning so much!  Love this girl!

Cortney, Cortney, Cortney....

How about some updates of my favorite little mini me?!

A couple of minutes ago (about 20) I told Cortney I needed to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen a little, so I asked her to find something she could do.  She decided to pull out the old trouble game, collect her ponies and she is about half way through the game - playing with all 4 colors!  From the looks of things her favorite team (Princess Celestia, Twilight, and Rarity) are winning using her favorite color to use when she plays trouble, yellow!

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A couple of days ago Cortney ran up to me and said, "Mom, do you know what it means to be free?!"  She sounded like she really wanted to tell me the answer, so I said "what does it mean honey?"

"Being free is taking off your shoes and running around.  Not having shoes on is being free and I like it!"  She is very much into explaining everything to me lately, and I love her little explanations of things!  She will have plenty of time to learn a deeper meaning of free when she grows up - but for now I am just enjoying her being little!

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Yes...that just happened!  Cortney is a fan of the My Little Pony show, recently on Netflix they just posted the 3rd season!  Can I just say I might have been more excited than she was!  We don't watch TV a whole lot in our house, but when we do it feels like we are just watching the same my little pony episodes over and over again, so this was very exciting!

The last episode was a musical and Cortney loves the songs so much!  After watching it a couple times over about a week or so, Cortney and I decided that we would gather all the ponies she had and act out the entire episode.  I was amazed at how Cortney knew most all of the songs and script after only watching it like 3 times!  We both had a lot of fun singing the songs - our favorite is "A True, True Friend".  Never thought I would act out an entire episode of my little pony - but it was more fun than I thought it would be, and it made Cortney's day!

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Quiet time lives on!  Since Cortney is growing up I thought maybe she would want a little less quiet time.  Quiet time is usually after lunch where she goes to her room to play for an hour - sometimes two if she wants to or when she is having a hard day.  After a couple days she asked, "Mom, how come I don't have quiet time?  I need it!"  Pretty much made my day, it is nice to have that time to get things done - and I love listening to her sing and play while she is in quiet time!

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She is growing....and growing!  I cannot believe how tall she is getting!  I would not be surprised if this little one was taller than me by the time she is 8!  She just had yet another growth spurt...at this rate she is going to be tall enough to ride Indiana Jones when we go to Disneyland in November!

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The other day I was talking to Cortney's teacher at school and making sure Cortney was not overreacting while she was there.  Being 4 and learning you can do all these things by yourself is so exciting, and then finding out you don't get to do what ever you want is difficult to deal with.  And sometimes something as simple as Cortney can you sit in your chair while you finish your lunch instead of walking around can make her flip - especially if she is tired or hungry.  Her teacher assured me that she wasn't acting out at school, which is good.  She told me Cortney was very determined, but sweet all the same.  I really liked that!  I might have called it stubborn, but I liked determined much better!  Now if I can just teach her how to harness that determination to get her to clean her room a little faster...