Follow-up post and Parties galore

Well, it's kind of hard to follow-up after the last blog post. Thank you for your comments. I do want to say that I later read it, and I felt like it made my current anxiety sound worse than it is. I finally got to a place where I could write a little bit about what I went through last year and everything I'm doing to keep things balanced so it doesn't happen again. Writing the post helped me evaluate and remember the techniques I worked on with the life coach. I think the reason I rarely ever share this part of my life is I've always felt guilty dealing with anxiety and depression. I look around at people who struggle with real problems...poverty, illness, abuse etc, and I wonder how I can be so upset when I have so much in my life. Always about taking a deep breath and keeping things in perspective...

And on that note, we had a weekend filled with fun and laughter where I put all the stress and worries aside.  Sometimes when we pack so much in a weekend it goes by in a flash, but this one seemed long, even though it was busy.

First on Saturday we had Penny's birthday party with her day care friends. I broke the rules and didn't invite Penny's whole class. She just switched classes 2 weeks ago so she doesn't even know some of the kids names and still talks a lot about the kids from her preschool class. We invited 10 kids and EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. RSVP'd YES! What?! Is that telling about the Rochester social scene? The preschool parties are the top Saturday activity. We planned a Dora party at the small zoo/park. I'm swearing off outdoor parties! Last year it rained. This year it was "unseasonably cool." The Weather Channel said due to the wind chill it would feel like 36 degrees at the start of the party. It was 75 just a couple days ago. Insane! And yet everyone showed up.

I came up with doing "Find the Animal" bingo and enlisted my brother and Jenn to make the game cards. They did an excellent job, especially since these are all local animals like fishers, porcupines, red tailed hawks. They threw in some elephants, penguins and lions so you actually had to work a little bit to get bingo. The kids loved it. They raced all around the zoo with parents chasing after them. The animals must wonder why they are the ones in the cages!

We had this great idea of giving the kids maps to walk to the picnic area but it was so darn cold the majority of the families drove. (Oh, did you notice Penny isn't wearing her coat? Yeah, she refused to put it on. What a Minnesotan! Two of the boys showed up in shorts and their mom said she couldn't convince them to put on pants. I think we are all in denial that the cold is here).

We did the pinata. Has anyone actually had kids break open the pinata? After 10 minutes we broke open the hatch and I threw the candy out to everyone.

I love Penny's reactions in these photos.

And the candy is on the ground.

 I didn't get any photos of lunch or Pin the Tail on the Swiper. It wasn't until the kids sat down for lunch that we heard any complaints about the cold. Only one parent was originally from Minnesota. Most of the parents had all moved to Rochester in the past few years as fellows or residents. We had families from Ireland, England, Colorado, the east coast. Due to the cold everyone started sharing their first Minnesota winter story, the benefit of snow tires, snow shovels. Good ice breaker! (sorry, I had to...the bad Henry puns are genetic).

Penny and her Dora cake. We never got all 4 candles lit at once due to the wind.

I did not get nearly as many pictures as I wanted, but that's how it goes for the host I guess. I wanted Penny to open presents at the party, but I thought that would be torture to make the kids sit in the cold to watch her. One of the dads did stop us at the end to say his son got up at 7 am to make his card for Penny. It is adorable. It has all these construction paper hearts and watercolor paper and says LOVE. I wish he had been able to see her reaction when she opened it because she said "this is so cuuute!" 4-year-olds are hilarious.

After opening the gifts at home, we got back in the car to head up to my friend Kelly's Oktoberfest party north of St. Paul. Penny got to see Libbi and I got to catch up with a ton of friends. Kelly set up a great scavenger hunt for the kids.

Adam looks like a little boy now!

I got to hand out some baby knits to my friends. They've been sitting here in Rochester for months. Now they can actually use them.

Baby Mara

remember that snowflake hat I started for Penny? I realized about halfway through it was going to be too small.  I gave it to Big Sister Gwen. It was even a bit small for her. Need to have the ears covered.

Smiley Henry seemed happy with his hat.

Penny and Libbi were sword fighting

Such fashionable mamas!

Kelly's dad did a German sing along. Penny said "that was a good show. Can he do it again?" Encore from a 4-year-old is high praise! 

Why don't we try to get our moms and girls photo at the beginning of the night instead of when we are leaving and they are cranky pants?  I don't know the name of the kid photo bombing, but at least he's smiling with his eyes open!

And today we went to breakfast, cleaned the house, enjoyed the school carnival on the next block, and went to the library. I feel refreshed to start another full week!

(I'm just sharing this photo because I love her outfit.  I remember in 2nd grade wanting a bubble skirt so bad! When Chris saw her come out of her room he said "laura, are you dressing her  in an outfit you want to wear?" I don't think I can pull off a bubble skirt with leggings, but I'd have to say yes, I'd like this outfit in an adult size :)