The Adventures Of M&Ms!

In my younger days I studied abroad in London for a semester. I was very fortunate to have that experience for many reasons. One of them being the friends I made, some of them locals from the UK and others studying abroad with me. I cherish those friendships!

I met Red (nickname) in London, she was actually the first person I met there. 

I was checking out the apartment I would be living in for the next three months and none of my other roommates had arrived yet. When I went out to the balcony to see the view, I noticed that we shared it with the neighboring  apartment. Soon a petite, spunky Red head stepped out and introduced herself to me.

We began to chat and decided to go explore our new neighborhood and hunt down some phone cards to call home and let them know we arrived safely. Our friendship continued during our time in London ranging from doing homework together to going out to experience the night life in the city.

Upon returning from the UK, Red and we fell out of touch because of the distance between where we lived. That was until we were both pregnant with our future sons, and thanks to social networking found each other again.

This was wonderful, she is a lovely person and my first Mommy friend. Since the reconnection, we share our happy stories and tells of woe from our day to day adventures through motherhood.

We have become really close, she is the one that threw my second baby shower. We both have two children, beautiful boys came first and then our sweet little girls. The kids are close in age, the boys 3 months apart and the girls 6 months apart. Boo (nickname) was Boog's first little friend. And Bubbi (nickname) was Littles first girl friend.

We live a fair distance from each other (roughly 2 hours), but try and do play dates as often as our busy lives let us.

When we do get together it is always an amazingly fun time! Our kids play perfect with each other. The boys rough house and explore, the girls tag along after their big brothers. It is a pure delight!


Yesterday was no exception, we played outside, went extreme couponing (Red is a pro), spent some time at our local bookstore, lunch and then some more outside play!

The favorite games and topics of the day were twirling in chairs, spraying water from the hose, digging in dirt and of course lets not forget the snails!

Here is a glimpse into our day filled with laughter.

The twirling in the chairs started off with the kids taking turns spining each other around, soon it was the girls sitting while both boys pushed them around and around.

Then they moved onto slides and digging dirt.

Boog found one of his snail pals to share and tell Boo about. Boo took a bit to warm to the idea of touching a snail, but soon became good friends with the slimy garden creature too!

And what is summer without some water play!

Then it was off to do some extreme couponing! Red showed me the ropes since I had never done it before. With her help I  saved hundred and fifty bucks off my bill. But I will have to admit the most impressive part was how well behaved the M&Ms were (nickname for the group of Kiddos). We thought for sure our trip would have to be cut short cause they would get grumpy or restless, but they did the exact opposite.

They actually were in such good moods that we add at trip to the bookstore to play with the train table. They each got a new book and the girls got matching stuff puppies (Littles says thank you Aunt Red!).

Next up, Lunch and ended the day with more exploring and water play.

 What a FABULOUS day!

What do you do on play dates?

Momerory Monday

Doing the Lemonade Stand for the Fourth of July made me think of Littles' first birthday party. My mom and I made all the decorations by hand, the theme was Littles' in Wonderland and the colors where red, white and black. The party was lovely, I think everyone had a lot of fun.

I have always felt a first birthday is a big deal and there should be a big party to celebrate. We ended up with 45 guests in my tiny home. Luckily the weather was nice so people could go outside.

Little was dressed up as "Alice".

The house was covered in decorations........the only problem was my camera was acting up that day and all the pictures came out yellow :( Hench, I am only putting a couple of pictures up.

We made games, this one is the "bean bag toss" or toss the stuffed hedgehog in the Mad Hatters Mouth

When it came time for everyone to sing Happy Birthday, Little was out cold. She didn't have cake until later that night after the party was over, Big Brother on the other hand didn't wait............

Boog loved his Little Sisters party and was a party animal!!!!!!

I love parties and decorations are one of my favorite parts. I have already come up with the themes for the kids next birthdays. Littles' 2nd birthday will be "Sugar Plum Fairy" and Boog's Fourth Birthday is going to be "Circus". I have tons of ideas floating around in my head, I really need to start writing them down so I don't forget.

Lemonade Stand Kit Giveaway!!!!!!

Not many of you know this, but my wonderful mother has a delightful business that I help with. Her Etsy shop is called Hedgehog Studio. She has created the most darling paper dolls, whimsical banners, boxes, tags, cards and is always coming up with fresh new ideas. The thing about my Mom's crafts are that you can personalize them to make them extra special and unique. This lemonade stand could easily be turned from a fun children's activity, into decorations for a summer party

To make the Fourth of July extra fun for the kids, she and I set up a Lemonade Stand using her Printable Lemonade Stand Kit she sells in her shop.

It was a wonderful experience! I had such a good time talking with my Mom while we made the goodies and decoration (she may be my Mom, but she is also my best friend). If the kids were a bit older I would have had them help create all the decorations, but Littles can't be trusted with scissors and Boog still views ribbon as a toy to run and jump with.  The kids enjoyed selling yummy treats (and eating them) along with the refreshing Lemonade (Boog insisted it be Pineapple Lemonade).

We made Lemon Cupcakes, Lemon Cookies, Lemon Bars, and Lemon Cake in keeping with the Lemon theme. We also got yellow plates, napkins, silverware from the dollar store and put some Lemon Candy in Mason Jars to add some extra flare to the table. My Mom has an eye for detail and because of that the Lemonade Stand came out beautiful!

Once it was all set up the kids came out to join in the fun. 

Boog had a blast being the official server of Lemonade.

Littles enjoyed manning the money!

Tons of fun in the sun!

Since we all had a splendid time with this family activity, Mom and I thought it would be fun to give away a Printable Lemonade Stand Kit to two lucky winner.

To enter, simply leave a comment about this post.

**For an additional entry your can share this post (Facebook, Twitter, on your blog, pin Hedgehog Studio on Pintrest, or email some friends) and/or Like  Hedgehog Studio on Facebook and  leave another comment letting us know.**

This giveaway will close Wednesday July 13th at 8pm PST. The winner will be chosen via random number generator and announced in the this post shortly after. Thank you so much everyone :)

Memory Monday

Littles' first Halloween, it wasn't even a year ago and she has changed so much! She made the cutest Little Sugar Plum Fairy!

 

Share your Story Saturday

I would like to introduce you to Holly. She is a mother of four and has the most delightful blog, Holly's house....not a perfect mom's blog. I read her blog all the time and LOVE IT! 

I contacted her to write a guest post about her and her daughter Brooke, here is their amazing story:


By the time I became pregnant with my fourth child Brooke, I thought I could do this whole motherhood thing with my eyes closed, with one hand tied behind my back, I figured I could mother four kids in my sleep.

I figured wrong.  Brooke changed the rules on me.  Brooke took the rules I already had and pretty much crushed them.  She took them in her tiny chubby fist and ripped them, then scrunched them, and finally tossed those rules into the trash.

Brooke was born with Down Syndrome.  And a pretty severe heart defect; a complete AV canal defect.  We found out for sure when I was 23 weeks pregnant and from that point I knew raising her would not be the same as raising the previous three.

Not to say that raising Brooke is harder, it's just different.  Very different.

I'm pretty relaxed, I'm a mellow sort of mother, but now with Brooke I can't just play with her.  I have to be mindful of how I'm holding her and try to make her use her core muscles.  I have to try and play games with her that incorporate her occupational therapy skills.  But at the same time I can't overdo it, I have to let her just be a baby exploring the world on her own.

Brooke has physical therapy once a week for an hour at a time.  Currently, it's a very long hour seeing as hour my child screams for the first 40 minutes before finally giving in.  We also have an Infant and Toddler Developmental Specialist come in twice a month.  That appointment's not too bad, she just plays with Brooke and checks where she is developmentally compared to her peers.  And I try not to jump down the ITDS's throat every visit, asking where Brooke is on the chart.  Because it's not important, and really, I don't care (all that much), but still, I think every parent wants to hear their child is a rock star.

Having the two therapists right now isn't too overwhelming, but at one time for a period of about five months, Brooke had a feeding therapist come once or twice a week since my little angel decided she never ever wanted to chew real food.  Nope, baby food was good enough for her.  Brooke would just mash her little lips together and flat out refuse.  This was really hard for me, perhaps even harder than when she went through open heart surgery.  Surgery was the only answer to her heart defect and we had a timeline of when she would be better.  This was a shot in the dark.  This was a crap shoot.  This made me feel like a failure as a mother.  Surely, I thought, there could be something I could do to persuade Brooke to just eat the damn noodle.  But my worrying was for nothing, eventually we convinced her that solid food is the way to go, and unless she has a new tooth bothering her, eating isn't an issue any more. Phew!

So as you can see, having a child with Down Syndrome isn't necessarily harder, it's just different.  A good kind of different.  There are milestones that Brooke hits that I never noticed with the previous three.  We celebrate all of the little things, we take nothing for granted.

Brooke has made us slow down and appreciate what we have, and what our children can accomplish.  And I wouldn't change her for anything.

Thank you so much for sharing Holly!- Kimberly