a birthday, a trip, and making a mess

Hello all my lovely people,

I don't know about you, but I seem to have this weird thing where the more I have on my plate the more I add to it. For example: we are leaving for Europe in two days and I am in charge of the packing, there are the dress and shawl to finish, my usual every day mom stuff, and I would like to leave the house as clean as possible. Add to all of that the fact that we get back shortly before my boy's 4th birthday. We have picked a day, time, park, and his five closest friends. My love says, send out the evite and be done (and maybe call the park people and see if we can have a bounce house that day and time). Do I send the evite? No, I chose to do what I always do, make invitations. Now, I am not know for my paper crafts. I do not scrapbook, make stationary, or what ever else paper crafters do. But, I love actual party invitations, and my daughter loves helping me with them. This time, other than some instructions from me, she made them all by herself:

You see those balloons? That was her idea, she drew them on. I love how creative she is.

I also enjoy having some sort of theme for the parties, this one is construction vehicles. My love was asking about ordering a 3-D dump truck cake (there is no way I would have time/energy to make one and it wouldn't look very good if anyway). We are now deciding between that and this little beauty I picked up:

So that is the little extra thing I have going on the side. I am going to make my love get the birthday presents because he gets home a week before us. (The kids and I are taking a detour on the way back to visit with my family in the mid-west, I feel it is important they spend time with their cousins and I miss my parents and siblings.)

As part of our prep for the long flights we got the kids their own headphones. I then showed them how they can be used on our piano. I wish I had done this years ago. Kids love playing on pianos, especially if they can turn the volume all the way up. 

This works really well. She feels like she has privacy while she learns keys and her brother has nothing to complain about (he gets funny about live music). Now I just need to keep them from learning that they can turn the volume up on each other....

Speaking of mischief, my boy was really quiet for a good 15 minutes. In my experience, when children are quiet they are either being really really good or making an enormous mess. When we went searching for him, this is what we found: 

Don't worry, all that paint is dry and the paint cans are pounded closed. He has filled the rolling pan with soap and water that has covered the counter and started dripping on the floor. For situations like this I have two sayings : Everything is washable, including the cat. And, at least it was not sharpy on the wall. Maybe one day I will tell you both of those stories.

The shawl....is taking too long and I have lost my motivation. I just finished row 5 of the lace edging last night. Although it is a very simple 8 stitch repeat, I am constantly worrying that I have messed up some how and continuously look back over the stitches. 

I only have two more lace rows (not counting the purl ones) before I can bind off. But I also only have two more days. *Sigh* guess I had better get back to work.

Thanks for checking in,
XO Lue Lue Ellabee