You Are Now Entering a Thomas-Free Zone

We did it. We sold the train table. Some craigslisters came and took away the table, all the track, and a mountain of little engines. And gave us actual money!

I have been trying to convince Chelsea to let the train table go for a while now. She was using it primarily as a holding area for Strawberry Shortcake toys and any other random stuff cluttering up her room. The tracks and many, many trains never saw the light of day unless a little boy came over to the house and pulled them out.

It was time.

She resisted, but I finally got her to let me stash all the Thomas stuff in the garage to see if she would notice its absence. It was not missed. By any of us.

And so, Chelsea's Thomas phase has officially ended. We were so proud of ourselves to have a daughter who wasn't obsessed with princesses, who adored Thomas and all things Sodor-related.

And now? That Thomas has been abandoned? I am sad to admit that I can name all of the Disney princesses, Disney fairies, and all of Strawberry Shortcakes berry, berry sweet friends. *sigh*

So I guess there'll be no more tricking someone into washing her hands with fancy blue soap.

Or building elaborate, if unstable, train birthday cakes.

Or giggling over someone being named Tom.

Thomas, you were fun while you lasted. I hope our forgotten engines become some other little child's new favorite things.
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Aw, yeah! Science Edumacation!

Jeremy is a rockstar, in case you didn't already know.

He had his Chemical Ecology class write songs and make videos. Here are my two favorites. The rest are on his YouTube channel, if you're inspired.





PS This is my 200th post! If you're reading this, leave me a comment already!
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Open Gym!

Fridays have always been a good day for us. Of course we're always excited for the weekend, to have Jeremy home all day and go on family adventures. We used to have our weekly playgroup in Massachusetts on Fridays, which meant Friday was MY favorite day of the week. And now that we're away from our playgroup, we have a new Friday routine.

Friday is Open Gym day.

Chelsea was taking gymnastics classes at our local Y, and it was always a pain in my everything to keep Savannah a) entertained, and b) off of the gymnastics equipment. I did a quick calculation and figured out it would be cheaper to bring them both to Open Gym every week than for just Chelsea to contunue her class.

So she quit and our Friday tradition began.

Since we're there every week, everyone knows us. We have friends we've met there who have become friends outside of Open Gym. We know all the coaches, which ones are strict, which ones are lazy. But, until today, we had no pictures of us at Open Gym.

Every once in a while, a grandma or dad is able to tag along with their kid(s) and they always take pictures. I realized that despite all the time we spend there, we didn't have a single picture.

So I finally took some pictures. And some videos. Please to enjoy.

Eff Eye Vee Eee!

Five. Chelsea turned FIVE.

I am in shock. How did this happen? How is it possible that I'm the mother of a person who has been on the planet for five years?

Robot voice: Does. not. compute.

She decided to have a Strawberry Shortcake birthday party, at home. And I am nothing if I'm not good with a theme.

We started with decor. I found some cheap-o Strawberry Shortcake wall clings, and Jeremy went a little nuts with the pink and green streamers. I also blew up some red balloons, Sharpied a bunch of black specks on them, and taped green crepe paper to the top for a stem and hung them in little bunches. (I know, I have too much free time, right?)

I made some cute accessories: all the little girls got colorful headbands and freckles to turn them into Berry Bitty City girls and the boys became the Pie Men with colored bandanas and mustaches.

Raspberry Torte with a couple of her Pie Men.

Then we had the strawberry food: bagels with strawberry cream cheese, strawberry sodas, berry lemonade for the kids, the most addictive strawberry wafer sticks, and (of course) actual strawberries.

Had to have some strawberry-themed games: Pin the Strawberry in the Basket (only cheaters were able to get anywhere NEAR the basket), Strawberry Race (which was an egg race but with less chance of broken yolk), and a homemade Strawberry-shaped pinata.

We also had a little coloring station with Strawberry Shortcake Coloring pages and a cookie decorating table with strawberry-shaped sugar cookies to cover with icing and sprinkles. Props to Albertson's for the free sugar cookie dough. Holla!

We ate strawberry cupcakes and I practically force-fed the children strawberry ice cream. Several of the kids actually turned down the ice cream because they were full. Huh? Too full for ICE CREAM? What is THAT?

Finally, we sent them home with a goody bag (goody hat, actually, thanks Target dollar bin!) full of strawberry-flavored snacks, many of which were freaky finds from my local Asian grocery store. Awesome. If you haven't had strawberry Pocky, you need to go get some. Like now.

Oh, I may have also scented the house with a strawberry shortcake candle and swapped out our usual hand soap for strawberry body wash. 'Cause I'm kooky like that.

It was so, so fun.

And I can't wait to pay someone else to host Savannah's birthday party.
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