This is 40

I meant to do so many posts over the last month but nothing has quite been how I planned it. I'm going to try to prevent writing a novel here, so to be very brief:

In early June, within two days Chewie broke both of her arms-- her left wrist and then her upper right arm (proximal humerus). She has a cast on the wrist and a sling on the right arm. We hoped to get rid of them both last week but they haven't healed yet. No summer camp for her, no swimming, no playing, no running and jumping and enjoying summer. She is now able to feed herself some things but still cannot dress herself or brush her teeth. I bought her an iPad mini and she uses it all the time. She will have major withdrawal once her arms are working again and she has to follow the same electronics rules. It is impacting everything-- LightRunner's behavior, our routines, everything. Right after she broke both arms, the Princess came down with both strep throat and a mystery high-fever virus, and then Chewie caught the same bug. Anything I hoped to accomplish before school was out was thrown out the window. No special LightRunner and me time.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, also in June, Vader threw me a "surprise" early 40th birthday party. I knew it was coming but not where or when (until that week). It was a great night filled with wonderful friends and the perfect beginning to what will no doubt be my best decade yet.

Surrounded by friends! Ignore the red eye. 

On my actual birthday, Britt came over with pizza and peanut butter brownies that she spent all day making, despite her son's severe peanut and milk allergies. That's love.

I celebrated by running 8 miles (8/2=4 and also it was on my plan) the day before my birthday and running 4 awesome miles of speedwork yesterday. Truly awesome. I paid for a babysitter to watch LightRunner and Chewie so I could do my speedwork at the track and it was worth every penny.

June pretty much sucked and was not at all what I planned and I'll admit I had a couple of days when I was not at my best. But we adapt. We do what we can do and we move on. In my 20s and early 30s I would have wallowed and lamented and cursed my fate. But what's the point? You do what you can do. And let the rest go. And *that* is 40.

The final result: The Superhero Party!

The Superhero Party is done.

I made the masks, and the capes, and the last part was the city buildings for the Superhero Training Ground Obstacle Course. I gathered all the shoe boxes we save for no reason, Vader and I taped some together, he spray painted them black and I added windows with some oversized thick graph paper I had. 

The kids started the party decorating the capes and then headed to the yard.

The Obstacle Course was relatively simple, but I think it was fun. I had two separate courses, one for the under 4s and one for the over 4s. The littlest kids jumped on the mini trampoline, climbed up the toddler climber, slid down, jumped over tiny buildings and then went in the Tent of Balls to retrieve a special "token" (a laminated Wonder Woman or Superhero logo): 

The older kids started out on the trampoline, jumped over the set of 3 bigger boxes, swung over a box with the rings on our playset, climbed up the climbing wall, slid down the slide, jumped over more boxes: 

Then they had to get around Lex Luthor throwing kryptonite (cut up chunks of a green pool noodle):

Vader's face has been blurred to protect his identity.
Which is a shame because it was the funniest face ever.

After evading Lex Luthor they too went into the Tent of Balls to get the token. When they found one, they brought it to me and were awarded with the Superhero Mask. Then they could do it all over again.

We had cupcakes made by the bestest friend ever: 

They brought home their capes, masks, and either a Wonder Woman or Superman plastic ring (the one bit of plastic junk I couldn't resist). All in all it was pretty damn awesome. 

Now I will rest (until next weekend when we put the raised bed garden together).

Oh yeah, I was in costume for a little while. Catwoman (Target pleather pants from a decade ago, newly purchased Bee Band to cover the unzipped part, and a really snug mask from the internets. It was 80 degrees. I didn't wear this long.)

Superhero Party Part B

(Yes, I know the first part was 1, so this should be 2 and not B. Sadly the person I always make that joke for probably doesn't read this blog anymore!)

The Capes. Capes, capes, capes. Oy. First I let a salesman talk me into buying felt instead of the polyester knit fabric I wanted (because they didn't have enough of the red). So then I had to take it back to a different store and got red knit and blue knit and figured I'd do half and half. I got 7 yards of each.

I cut the fabric into manageable sizes, specifically 24"x 28", a task made immensely easier when I bought a new 24"x 36" mat for my rotary cutter.

This is the best purchase I've made recently, aside from my Ice Tea Maker. 

Then I worked on shaping the fabric into capes and not rectangles. Of course I checked the interwebs first and this website: http://shannonmakesstuff.blogspot.com/2011/07/super-hero-capes-and-eye-masks-for-your.html It was a tremendous help. I did the blue ones first--14 of them--and totally screwed them up. Well, not totally, but I made the neck "holes" way too big so it wound up being more like a shawl than a cape. Ugh. I made the red ones without messing up and attempted to fix the blue ones. I quickly realized that the only way to fix the blue ones was to cut off the necks and start all over--losing 5 inches of length. Eek. BUT I had leftover fabric since I bought 7 yards of it. So I cut up the rest of the red fabric. It wasn't enough for all the kids, but miraculously worked out to be the number of big kids I have (4 & up). I decided that instead of half and half I would have all the big kids in red and the younger, smaller siblings could have the blue capes. Losing 5 inches wouldn't be quite so noticeable on them and 2-3 year olds probably wouldn't care anyway...

The smaller cape

The bigger cape

After finally getting it right, I ironed on my Velcro (that's right, ironed, no sewing involved!). That wasn't difficult, just time consuming. And then, the highlight of the capes, I ironed on the t-shirt transfer images I printed up of names and the Justice League picture I used for the invitations (I did not ask for copyright permission, sorry). My part of the capes is FINALLY done. I will now watch 23 kids put stickers and write all over them and try not to cry inside since that was the point of this whole thing!

The next thing I have to do is prepare city buildings as part of our Superhero Training Ground Obstacle Course and then it's just setting up everything the day of the party (and praying for no rain!!)

Superhero Party Part 1

Although the Princess has always been a girly girl and is in a major Princess mode right now, she's also always been into Wonder Woman and superheroes and Chewie is following in her footsteps. Their birthdays are just two weeks apart and this is the first year Chewie would have a "friend" party, or really a party at all, and I was stressing a bit as to how I was going to pull off two birthday parties two weeks apart, especially when I am pregnant. I didn't say anything to the Princess but she randomly suggested that they have a JOINT birthday party. Which was AWESOME. I was not going to suggest that because I believe each child should be able to have the spotlight alone... but if she was offering I wasn't going to refuse. Particularly since the majority of Chewie's friends are younger siblings of The Princess's preschool friends. It just made sense. The Princess will be 5 and Chewie will be 3 and we typically do at home playdate parties. They usually work out pretty well, but for some reason (insanity) I've decided to step it up a notch this year.

They are having a Superhero party, complete with capes, masks, and a Superhero Training Grounds Obstacle Course in the backyard. I started working on Part 1 today: the masks. I was going to buy masks to give out, but that would've been a bit too expensive to do it right. I'm making the capes so I might as well make the masks too!

First I downloaded a template from Krafty Kid and increased the size because it printed up teeny tiny. Then I glued it to cardboard to make my own template. I used a razor blade-exacto knife thing to cut out the eyes.

Superhero Mask template.

From there I traced the outline onto some black felt with a white pencil I've had in my sewing box for a decade and probably only used once before:

I don't know why this is washed out, but you can see the outline really well.

I used fabric scissors to cut out the felt and a combination of the scissors and my um, rotary knife thingy (is that what it's called?) to cut out the eyes. It was much easier than I thought it would be. In a stroke of genius I used my ice picker I just found yesterday to poke the holes for the string. I already had both the felt and the stretchy string from previous crafts, but I'll need to get more black felt to finish the rest of the masks.

They're not "perfect" but I made 10 of them in a couple of hours so I'm okay with that. 

Secret identity is safe from internet perverts!

It looks so big on her little face... but um, it looks big on my little (pregnant fat) face too. I need to make 14 more and then it's on to the capes and the obstacle course. Did I mention the party is in 2-3 weeks? Yeah.

This radio sucks

We're having snacky-snack. We meaning me and the Princess. We're eating nilla wafers while the boys are putting up the new garage door opener (finally). The Princess has one in her mouth and one in each hand. She has been unbelievably cute today. 

I don't have very many NC stories. It was a long drive. And after 2 days of driving to get there I had to rather forcefully say that we should go to the city of Charlotte. Why would you drive 2 days and not go to the main tourist city? Why would you drive 2 days and just eat at the same crappy local place you've already eaten at? Gah. 

Anyway.

The Princess had her 1st birthday party yesterday even though her birthday is not until Thursday. She got lots of clothes which is very good because her closet was starting to get a little sparse. I hope summer gets here soon. Real summer, not this 60-70 degree crap. She also got lots of musical instruments, including a harmonica, a recorder, another baby piano, and a real keyboard. She loves them all. She's a little musician--she just loves it all. She also got a little caterpillar rocker and will sit on it and smile as long as Mommy or Daddy is there to hold her. Speaking of which she let everyone hold her yesterday. MIL didn't try because she didn't want to be the only unsuccessful one. 

SkyWalker did very well for a 3 year old. He helped her unwrap her presents and showed her how to use a few of them. Of course the things he was most interested in are the toys he chose for her (including an Elmo doll he gave her in the store so she could put it right in her mouth forcing me to buy it). He's also pretty interested in the keyboard especially since it has a microphone attached and he can hear himself sing loud. 

There was another little one at the party as well. A cute little furry puppy dog. All of 10 weeks old. She was the cutest little thing. They always start out that way and then you open your eyes and they're eating poop in the backyard.

I finished the Princess's scrapbook last night. I had wanted it done for the party but the computer and then the printer had problems so I had to give up Friday night. But it's done now. Since I suck at actual scrapbooking it's more of a book of pictures with stickers and sayings and extra stuff thrown in. I do think it's funny that both of my children have surgery pages in their 1 year scrapbooks. 

I couldn't shake the feeling yesterday that something was missing. I kept thinking about the people who weren't there. Shinesalot and Littleman, and FIL. I suppose that's how special occasions will be now. Marred by a sense of loss. 

Yesterday morning SkyWalker said to me "This radio sucks, it won't play humpty dumpty!" Yup, that's my kid.

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