STAR WARS at the Zoo

pre-wagon rejection

So, FW Children's Zoo has this Wild Zoo Halloween thing that they do, where kids get all dressed up and get some treats. This is the first year we decided to go...and It. Was. Awesome.

First off, both Janine and Daelynn AND Cathleen and Eilidh were able to come.  This became particularly helpful after I realized that 1) I didn't bring the stroller, and 2) the wagon I rented (even though we already have a stroller and a wagon of our own) was rejected by both children.

Hay Mazes and Witches

The first place we went was toward the corn/hay maze. Daelynn is totally Xander's suckah. She may be tired and want to put him down, but he'll look up at her, give her the "uh" and hold up his arms, and up he goes again.  She'll learn. Hehehe

Xander, as I've mentioned before, is more than willing to run off at a moment's notice, so it was nice that he was both contained and followed by Daelynn on this particular adventure.

Ainsley was pretty Momma-centric until we hit the hay maze, then she and Eilidh were off too! There was a lot of general frivolity and children running around getting exhausted.



Now, after the maze came pictures with the witch.  This exchange follows and I must share because it is still making me laugh. As with almost everything today (Halloween zoo is very popular, particularly on Saturdays), there was a line. After waiting forevah in the line, we walk up to BroomHilda with Ainsley and Xander.

BroomHilda: HELLO, Shrek! HELLO, Donkey!

Daelynn and I, staunch Star Wars geeks, are stunned. This is, after all, STAR WARS DAY at the zoo!  I corrected her, and she laughed...but the whole thing was pretty surreal.


General Cuteness


The animals weren't really on much display...this was all about pumpkins, scarecrows, costumes, and candy. BUT the penguins were HELLAactive.  Xander was enchanted. I've been to the zoo tons of times in the 15 years since I've lived in Fort Wayne and never have I seen them swimming around and playing so much. The temperature must have been just right for them. Or maybe they were hopped up on sugar like all the rest of the people at the zoo that day!

Also enchanted were Janine and the rest of the entire zoo population over my kids' costumes cuteness. We think that the glasses make Leia even cuter.

I think my favorite part of this whole trip was pointing out costumes to the kids and hearing people point out Yoda and Leia (or Shrek and Donkey) to their kids.  This is a *must do* for us until the kids declare it dead to them.

FINALLY the Force Is With Us

So, we'd been several places in the zoo, and the Star Wars stuff was pretty lost on us. We didn't see any characters (who were supposed to be around between 1-4), and I was getting antsy. Then we went to Australia, and we felt a trembling in the Force.

Then we saw a Storm Trooper.  Ainsley decided that she needed to stick her tongue out at him. I decided she'd gone method and let it go.

Once we entered the courtyard (of filth as I call it in my head because of all the parents that let their kids play in the fountain), we encountered several other characters. Obi Wan, a Gamorrean Guard, the Emperor, Boba Fett, and, of course, Vader.

Vader wasn't very method, he was actually a really nice guy who was patient with the gajillion kids who wanted to hang with/on him and or fight him. Sooo cute.

Will We EVER Visit the Zoo and Not Play with Lil Toot?!?

You know Stewart children looooove Lil Toot. Apparently, Yoda and Leia love Lil Toot too. I wouldn't have posted any of this pictures, but this one is so ridiculously cute, I couldn't control myself.

Eilidh kept trying to avoid getting her picture
taken. GOTCHA! On Lil Toot even!!

Ainsley Isobel Stewart Is Three Years Old!!

Post-party, the decorations remain vigilant.

Ni Hao, Kai Lan!!

So, it's almost 10pm. I've been up since God decided to create the universe...I'm so tired I could punch someone in the face...and yet here I am blogging Ainsley's 3rd birthday party.  Why? Because I know if I don't now, it likely will be Ainsley's 4th birthday before I get around to it.

So, this year Ainsley really wanted a Ni Hao Kai Lan birthday party...and I'm here to oblige.  I hit Party City and busted out the Kai Lan gear. I didn't tell her that's what I'd done, but when we got ready to show her the decorations (she played in her room with Aunt Jill while I put up decorations), I asked her, "What kind of party do you think you'll have?"

Let's go, go, GO!

She whispered, "Kai Lan."

Me: "Why Kai Lan?"

A: "Because I like her." *melt*

When we took her into the dining/living room, she got so excited she had to go back into the bedroom and squeal with excitement.

*sidenote* This year I made Ainsley's cake. I bought a cake decorating kit at Michaels, a toy from Amazon, and crossed my fingers. It ended up turning out ok. I consider it a phenomenal success considering it's my first real attempt at decorating. The handwriting was a bit janky, but all in all, PASS.

Ainsley Is Loved

Cousin Kaelynn and Xander

We had a packed house for the party. Most of my immediate family was able to attend, which is pretty extensive: my grandma, Mom, sisters Jill, Jessy, Kellyn, Alysee, and SIL Sarah, brother Joel, Dad, stepmomma Debbie, aunt Sarah. The only ones who couldn't make it were Sean who's overseas, Lee Roy who was being Batman (as Tom would say) and Jamie who had a scheduling mix up. Ainsley's invitees were at 50 percent ("Cafween, Awee, and Cawen" were there..."Faif"was out of town). Cafween brought hubby Rich along as well. My guess is Rich doesn't get singled out because he was, you know, working while we had our pool dates this summer. ;)

I think I have about 200 different shots
of this pose throughout A's 3 years

It was great fun to see that Ainsley was more willing to share her balloons and toys this year with cousins (Kaelynn and MaKayla)...she was also hopped up on "it's my birthday" crack, so she was nicer than normal...or maybe she's becoming a big girl. It's hard to say.

"I Have A Secret!"

Ainsley to the candle: Are you
lookin' at ME?!

After the obligatory singing of Happy Birthday, there was, of course, cake and ice cream. Xander didn't have a plate of either, instead he played the look how cute I am! GIVE ME CAKE, MO'FO! card. It worked really well. I'm pretty certain he ate a metric ton of cake and ice cream.  


Ainsley still isn't comfortable blowing out the candle, so I had to help out. While we all ate and were merry, the aunts got Ainsley, Xander, and Kaelynn involved in a rambunctious game of "I Have a Secret."  The premise of the game is as follows:


Aunt Sarah calls an unsuspecting bystander over because "Ainsley has a secret." Upon our going over, Ainsley tosses out a completely unexpected "AAAAHHHH BOO!" The "aahhh boo" is what Ainsley used to do to Xander when he was a teeny little brother; it was her way of playing with him before he could do things like sit on her and immobilize her, so it was sweet to see her bust out the "aahhh boo" again.

Don't hate on my party hat!

Have You Seen My Shoes?!

These shoes are sparkly AND
light up, WHAT?!

The gift opening process was a long one...people love Ainsley a lot. She got a great variety of toys—everything from My Little Ponies to awesome art supplies—and clothes—warm ones, which she greatly needed.  She loves everything...but she was particularly fond of her shoes. She got functional shoes, and slippers, and a crap ton of dress up shoes. I have a feeling Sean and I will be picking up shoes forever.

This is what a metric ton of
dress up shoes look like.

Notice her examining the sparkly, light up shoes. I consider it a victory that she isn't wearing them to bed tonight!

Anyway, present opening was pretty funny. She was GEEKED. At one point, Cathleen was certain that she was going to fall/dive into one of her gift bags.


Tell Them "Thank You"

I'd like to thank my fans!

So, this year, I made a bigger point of making Ainsley thank people for her presents—mostly because I know I'm not going to be doing thank yous. This public thank you suffices, right?  So, each time I told her to thank whomever, she'd look at them and smile. I felt that wasn't enough, so I'd prod her, "Tell them 'Thank You,' sweetie."

Her reaction?  She'd wave her hand and them and be ubercute.  We all deemed that an appropriate response.

She's a Girly Girl...In Case You Were Wondering


I know I've talked bout gender stuff in this blog before, but look at this picture. Things to notice:

> Rapunzel dress
> Tiara for Grandma
> Tea set
> Jewels


Thanks to everyone for making the party AWESOME! And happy birthday to my monster of a little girl. I love you more than I could ever express on a blog or with words or with hugs or with kisses or with candy or with toys or with trips to the zoo or with kitties or puppies. To the moon and back again, I love you, kid.

Trip Out

BUGGY!

Today the kids and I ran some errands.  While I was in Muncie for class, they were crazy wired and gave Sean a mondo headache.

So, since I needed to pick up a few things for Xander's birthday party and needed to return some things to Babies R Us, we ventured out.  Ainsley was very excited to ride in the back of the BRU buggy. Xander was very excited to chew on his wet wipes.

When we went to the party store to get the stuff for X's party, the cashier gave Ainsley a balloon. I declined a balloon for Xander, and clearly that was a mistake.

While Ainsley was outside with Sean, Xander made quick work of attacking the balloon. I watched him grab at the ribbon for a while before I ran to get the camera.  When I came back with the camera, I was able to record this:

This is Xander's first crawl up on the couch, which is littered with Ainsley's dress-up paraphernalia.  Notice how gifted he is.

Once he got on the couch, I gave him the balloon and this hilarity ensued:

The funniest/scariest thing: while Sean and A were outside grilling, I was inside making the sides.  One second, Xander was crawling under the coffee table, grabbing at a toy. In the time it took me to stir the rice and reheat the corn, Xander had crawled up on the couch and made his way onto the end table.

We're so in for it with this one...

Coloring Easter Eggs

Tiaras. Yes, mine is from
St. Patrick's Day

This year, Ainsley and I made coloring Easter eggs a girls' thing!  Mostly because Xander was too small and Sean was watching soccer.

Ainsley decided that coloring eggs was way too boring for just plain old art shirts, so she added tiaras to the mix.

Sean helped us get the cups ready by cutting up some water bottles—recycling had just run, so we *just* had enough. I'm glad we went with clear containers, she enjoyed it much more.

Dropping in the eggs! Exciting!

As we colored the eggs, I spent some time explaining to Ainsley that we leave the eggs out for the Easter Bunny to see.  He can't hide them because they'd go yucky so he leaves other eggs hidden.  She didn't really care. She just wanted to color eggs.  It was with great enthusiasm that she put each egg in the container. She wanted to do pink first—she's been on this pink kick lately.

Eggs!

Once we got all the eggs in the cups, she was pretty bored.  I now understand why the Paas people put all that crap in their packages.  So, we spent some quality time looking at the stickers that came with the kit. Yes, another thing I used to think was useless.

Matching things is awesome!

The most awesome thing for Ainsley was the matching game.  Seriously, these Paas people know what they're doing.  In the time it took us to play one game, the eggs reached maximum color awesomeness!

One thing that struck her as odd—the cards didn't exactly match. The purple egg had an orange background on one card and a different color on the other.  That, Paas people, is not a match.  We got over it though.

Inspecting sticker placement

I really thought the coloring part of the eggs would have been Ainsley's favorite part; however, I neglected to remember that there were stickers.  Once she saw the glorious, glorious sheet of stickers, it was end game.  We stickered the hell out of every egg we colored. There was no rhyme or reason to the stickering.  It was an out and out sticker melee.

Sticker HEAVEN!

Ainsley insisted on putting almost one of every sticker on her egg. Toward the end, I just got sick of stickering, I just kept feeding her stickers. It was like crack; she was so happy!

A is for Ainsley!

She also insisted on a pink egg for her A egg.  Let's hope that this isn't a trend!

*side note* Yes, that's a sparkly New York shirt Ainsley is wearing as her art shirt. Yes, that's a Thundercats shirt I'm wearing for my art shirt. We like to be sparkly and 80s when we do art. WHAT?

Our hard work.

Ultimately, we made a crap ton of eggs. But that's ok, because Xander will push an old lady in front of a bus for a hard boiled egg!

"Dress Up, Momma!"

Today, Ainsley decided to play dress up.  I present to you now...the Ainsley fashion show.

Look 1: Two tiaras

Look 1: Ainsley surprised me with this look.  Luckily, I had the camera next to me.  I was laughing so hard, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the picture before she got bored with the look...

Look 2: Princess Dora

Look 2: Princess Dora.  Notice that she's allowing Boomer to sit on her throne.

Look 3: Crazy Diva

Look 3:  This is the photo that we'll use as blackmail.  She's all crazy Lindsey Lohan in this picture--sunglasses on inside the house, waving her shoe at me.

Look 3: HRH

Look 3: The heart-shaped glasses are courtesy of Sarah Sandman. She comes by the sass naturally.

Look 4: Butterfly

Bored with the princess/crazy lady look, Ainsley moved onto her butterfly costume.  Gorgeous.

Xander sneaking a nom

Xander snuck away with Ainsley's crown while she was watching the Upside Down show.  He found it to be delicious.