Pudge's 5th Birthday Party

Somehow, time is flying by and our little Pudge is now FIVE! For his birthday party, he chose to go to a local bounce place called BounceU. He invited his entire preschool class and had a great turnout! The kids all had a great time and were tired and sweating by the time they were finished bouncing and brought into the party room for pizza and cake. I don't think that I've heard so much laughing in long time.

He was so excited to be "king" because he got to wear a crown and sit on a big throne at the head of the table! 

For his cake, he REALLY wanted an Oreo cake so we bought Oreos and placed them in ziploc bags to let the Pudge and Pequeño crush them and then covered the top of his cake with them. He loved it and kept telling his friends about how he got to help make it. 

5 Things about Pudge:

1) He loves animals and says that he wants to be an animal doctor or work at a zoo.

2) He is very sweet. He is always looking for ways to help other people and finding ways to share what he has.

3) He loves any type of tumbling, gymnastics, and yoga. He can do headstands and is working on handstands.

4) He would eat all day if allowed. He generally chooses to snack on things like carrots, apples, celery, and cold baked potatoes. He currently doesn't like any kind of dip/condiments (ketchup, bbq sauce, dressing, etc.). 

5) His favorite activities right now are playing outside, creating with playdoh, and doing "homework" at home. He uses ABC Mouse online and will ask daily if it's his turn to do his homework. 

Shhhh...

We've been keeping a secret...

Baby Cuatro will be here in June 2016!

(11 week ultrasound!)

Mama has been dealing with hyperemesis again this pregnancy so the doctors are keeping a close eye on this bean but everything looks good! We are so excited to welcome this little one to our family. Little Bear hopes that it's a boy. Pudge says he'll love a baby brother or a baby sister. Pequeño says "No baby!"... So he may have to come around to the idea of no longer being the youngest. 

Homemade Ornaments & Playdough

The kids spent part of the morning making Christmas tree ornaments to give with some of their gifts for relatives. They had a ton of fun breaking wooden craft sticks (to have various sizes), painting, helping glue, and decorating with beads. We plan to make reindeer ornaments later this week and will attach all of the ribbons at the same time.

Painting stars

In their Advent box, they received mini playdough and have been making all kinds of things.

Advent begins

It's time for one of our favorite traditions... Advent boxes

And the advent ornament wreath for the kids' mini tree

Kids Castle

After Ringing Rocks Park, we went to a place called Kids Castle Doylestown which Papa had heard about. It was an awesome public park that had a playground shaped like a giant castle and a ton of other play equipment surrounding it. The kids LOVED it and we stayed until it was dark.

The kids all loved this ride. It was a firemans pole that they would stand on and it would slowly lower them down.

Ringing Rocks

We took the kids to a landmark about an hour away that we kept hearing about called Ringing Rocks Park. It's a 128 acre pile of boulders that you can climb and explore and when you strike the boulders, they make bell-like sounds! We came armed with a few hammers for the kids to tap the rocks with and they also tried using smaller rocks to tap the larger ones. Before taking the kids into the Boulder field, we had them bang a few regular rocks to hear the sound that they made so that they would be surprised by the noises that the ringing rocks made. They thought that it was awesome and loved finding different sounding boulders and climbing throughout the boulders. Pudge took a spill at one point which made us nervous but they were otherwise careful. 

We also explored some of the trails but found that those rocks didn't ring 

(Checking out an acorn that he found)