Oscar Stew

Brinley is 3!!! The princess had a day filled with activities.

Her birthday got started even before she woke up. While she was sleeping, true to tradition, the birthday fairy came and decorated her room with purple “ribbons” and lots and lots of pink balloons.

No, Brinley isn’t trying to flash the “Live long & Prosper” of the Vulcans. The Princess is informing you that she is 3, large and in charge.

We were off to Drew’s soccer game, where she opened her first present of the day. Yummm…PINK Whoppers! 🙂 …er…munch…uh…oh yeah, go Drew! munch munch munch…

After Drew’s glorious bunchball victory (hold your horses, he will get a post of his own in a bit), we headed for Asthma Attack R Us, I mean Build-A-Bear Workshop, where Brinley got her precious “Brownie” a Cinderella outfit, complete with glass slippers.

After a trip to Wal-Mart (hey, the day wasn’t ALL about her!) we came home and mixed up ice cream, crushed cookies, and anxiously waited until the ice cream was ready receive said cookies…

While the ice cream was churning, we opened presents.

After presents, we headed back to the kitchen for cake & ice cream. Here the princess awaits the arrival of her cake.

After the candles were blown out, it was time to take a big bite of the cake. Brinley was slightly nervous and made her daddy promise not to shove her face in it.

Daddy was nice enough to keep his promise & Brinley got away with a nice dainty bite.

This is Brinley’s not so dainty side. Seen all too often.

Not so sure what’s going on here. The cake was good I promise! That’s what it was, she was trying to stuff another bite down her throat to make room for…just…a…little…more…

While we were still hopped up on a sugar rush, we went outside and broke in all those new toys.

…and she lived happily ever after. It was the PERFECT family day!

Our favorite boredom buster!

It’s super cheap, not too messy and the kids love it. Warning: major picture spam ahead. I couldn’t resist…

Such a poser. Tell me that she doesn’t KNOW she is cute.

Check out the snowman in the middle. Drew was pretty proud of his “crazy hair.”

The best part is – after the snowmen bake for a little bit, they provide a few more hours of quality entertainment. Ah, the joys of bone-crushing poverty! Luckily, kids don’t know the difference.

We went from this…

to this…

From 80 degrees. To 40 degrees.

From listening to the sounds of happy kids playing together in the backyard. To listening to them whine and bicker. All. Day. Long.

From water fights. To snowball fights.

From popsicles. To hot cocoa.

From sweaty stinky kids…to well, sweaty stinky kids. Some things never change.

Not fun.

We tried to make the best of it. We played in the snow, but it was so wet that they soaked through their gloves pretty quickly. We put the snowsuits in the dryer and played outside a second time. We tried to make a snowman, but the snow was melting too quickly. We watched movies. We tried to get into the spirit and made salt-dough snowmen (more to come on that later). I think we were ALL wishing that spring would come and stay a while!