Thirty-Seven Weeks

The Baby: Little Sprout is pretty firmly wedged in there now. Her movements are more rippling and rolling and wriggling than kicking. She is the length of Swiss chard now (ha, love these food comparisons) and making Momma's tummy stick out further and further. At this point, everything is fully developed so she can make her entrance into the world at any time.

Me: I am just patiently waiting for her to come - really not in a rush except at night, when I am a lot more uncomfortable. My maternity clothes are getting tighter, and I am just about ready for this pregnancy to be over. Otherwise, I feel pretty good and am trying to use what energy I have to get ready for baby and enjoy the holiday coming up.

The Siblings: My family and friends just threw a nice baby shower for the Sprout and me, and the house is now full of cute baby things. With all these reminders lying around, the kids are now constantly talking about the coming baby. The Drama Queen and Beast are very excited and can't wait to help out with Little Sprout; while the Spud is adamant that he doesn't want a new baby and that she can just stay at the hospital when she is born. Poor little guy - I know he will come around, but it's tough when your position as youngest is being usurped. :)

The Plans: As I said, I was blessed with a wonderful baby shower the other night. Little Sprout now boasts a wardrobe more stylish than her momma's! I am grateful for the gifts of diapers, bibs, wipes, blankets, and other essentials for sure. One thoughtful lady even gave the Nerd and I some money for a date night. Super sweet and super thoughtful! I didn't expect a lot of people to come - after all, it is baby number four for us; so I was humbled and amazed by the great turnout. My mother-in-law and my friend Dawn worked hard to make it a big success.

The guests all took turns sniffing a variety of diapers to guess what melted candy bar was inside.

It was so fun to talk and catch up with friends.

Three teams worked to decorate their "baby" with toilet paper - the one with the drinking problem on the end was the winner!

The little guests had fun too - maybe a little too much cake!

We're ready! Come on, Little Sprout, you can come any time now!

How to Have a Perfect Penguin Party

First, make invitations for all the little guests. These funny penguins were made out of construction paper shapes, felt scarves, and star brads for their party celebration hats. All of the party information was written on the back of each penguin.

Next, make cupcakes for your child's class to help them remember that a penguin party is coming up. I made these clever cupcakes following instructions at Family Fun; only we substituted candy orange slices for the dried apricots and mini chocolate chips for the brown m'n'm's.

Then, begin making some special treats for the party. A healthy and almost unbearably cute snack to serve are these black olive/cream cheese/carrot penguins. I found instructions to make these cuties here.

And what's a party without cake? I made an ice cream cake following an old recipe I found in a Better Homes and Gardens cake decorating book and made it look like a frosty igloo. And don't forget to make up some "penguin food" to delight your little guests! It's easy to make up some blue jello jigglers with swedish fish inside!

Hot cocoa is the proper drink for a penguin party (although we did serve up "ocean juice" for those who didn't care for hot cocoa.) I made up a hot chocolate bar so the kids could customize their own hot cocoa with chocolate chips, marshmallows, and candy canes.

Decorating for a penguin party is super easy! We made pretty snowflakes out of coffee filters and hung them from the ceiling along with several blue streamers. My daughter strategically placed a few stuffed penguins around the room, and viola! the room was decorated!

When I googled the words "penguin party games", I found several ideas that sounded like a lot of fun. However, we chose to stick to just a couple of activities for these 5 and 6 year olds. When guests first arrived, they got to play a fun interactive video game called "Start the Party" for the Play Station Move. I originally intended it to be a time-filler until all the guests arrived, but it proved so popular that we abandoned some of our game plans so the kids could have more time playing this game. :)

Then, to get some of that crazy energy out, we staged a giant "snowball fight", in which two teams competed to keep the "snowballs" (balloons) away from their side of the room. Mass chaos and crazy fun!

I personally am not a big fan of having all the party guests sit down and watch the birthday girl open a huge pile of gifts. We always try to do a gift exchange with some sort of theme instead. For our penguin party, we asked each guest to bring a wrapped small stuffed animal. The kids all drew numbers and then got to open a stuffed animal to take home.

The kids liked all the treats, but it seemed that the "penguin food" and make-your-own-hot-cocoa were the biggest hits. We sent those kiddies home happy, a little sugared up, and one stuffed animal richer.

And that's how you have a perfect penguin party!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We have gloriously rung in 2010 with friends, food, and much fun! We invited two dear friends over and (after a hasty cleaning spree) broke out the mini tacos, taquitos, empanadas, and pizza.

The little monsters were beyond thrilled to stay up past their bedtime and indulge in Pringles, pepperoni pizza, and root beer. We all watched a movie over dinner and then played some GiraffeaLaff Limbo with the kiddies. The guys followed up with a wild pillow fight and sent them giggling off to bed.

After tucking the sugared-up little ones in bed, we opened our new Super Mario Bros game for the Wii and had a blast playing through the levels together. Well, mostly we depended on the Nerd's mad gaming skills to get us through each obstacle while the rest of us did our very best to jump on each other's heads and cause mass confusion.

At 12:00 midnight, we shouted Happy New Year! rather giddily(well, all except the one who had already fallen asleep on the floor and was snoring heavily). I finally called it a night around 3:00 am.

And, I am pleased to say, the kiddies were kind and let us sleep in a little. New Year's Day was full of more movie-watching, game-playing, general laziness, and a fun trip to IKEA to spend some Christmas money. Dinner involved Swedish meatballs and mac'n'cheese and free meals for the kids!

A Happy New Year indeed!