6 + 4: Pancakes and Pajamas!

Baaaah. This theme, those outfits, these babies (or young adults! Might as well be honest with myself). It was truly one of the best birthday party years yet. We really didn't mean to throw a party for them this year, but... you know. Gotsto partay in the home where you now feel AT HOME, ya know? Last year, for 3 and 5, we all felt so uncomfortable in our new town of about 10 weeks that their party was thrown at my parents' house in Mission Viejo, a healthy 30 miles away from here, so this year I was like a party here at our house is a mandatory event, even if these aren't exactly milestone, huge birthdays, you know? SO glad we threw a bash with our wonderful ol' group of people!

I wanted it to be short and sweet because... December. Everyone is so gosh darn booked during this month (including ourselves!), I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable coming to our shindig. So 10:30-12:00 was slapped upon the cutest Etsy invitation known to man, and it was to be so!

We then proceeded to make the universe's supply of pancakes and bacon, swing through Hobby Lobby for a few extra Christmas decorations, order the jump house because those things never get old, have a brief freak-out period where I got overly concerned that I hadn't specified who was wearing jammies on the invitation so therefore Chad and I would be the only two adults in regular clothes, and then clean the house. It was such a wonderful party prep process this year! Usually I'm like ughhhhh why oh why do people throw parties? They're so much work and stress! But this year I was all about it! I really think it's because of the holiday theme. I literally cannot believe that this is year 6 of party throwin' and it's the first time we've embraced the season. It was so much fun!

Because of how short the party was (which was a hit with parents! Little babies still got to nap, the whole day was not sucked into a kids party vortex and it allowed night time party-goers adequate rest and getting-ready time. Major win!), I wanted to make sure that we were moving along fast and efficiently. 30-45 minutes of arrivals, jump house jumpin', game playin' and chillin' out, next food, then onto sugar cookie decorating, then happy birthday singin', then presents (which was INSANE! Any more parties, there will be no present opening time. OMG). At first I thought my fast pacedness would seem a little rushed and crazy, but I forgot that we're dealing with 6 and 4  year olds here. Their attention spans were like 3 seconds long, so 15-20 minutes for each activity was great.

So great party this year. Our tiny, wonderful home was packed to the max, just the way it ought to be! So, so fun! We love our people!

Okay and really, I'm using this post as a big fat excuse for doing what I really should be doing right now: laundry folding, house cleaning and dinner prep - the usual Monday routine. I spent yesterday EXHAUSTED. We didn't get out of our jammies until 2:00 and then headed to my parents' house to drop off the 6' tables they let us borrow for the party and then just ended up chillin' there there through dinner time. I was so sleepy I ended up getting a headache! After we got home, I got really frustrated that the kids hadn't cleaned their rooms all day (something I was asking them to do since the morning time), so Chad took over while I angrily scrolled through Instagram on the couch (hahaha!) - what a Grinch I was being! Then Chad and I decided to complete Christmas shopping on Amazon, only to discover that my tiredness didn't really leave much room for Fun Nicole. "Wait, so why does Carter need to get a new hockey stick from Santa? He already has a hockey stick, he hasn't grown 3 inches in one year. Don't you think he'll be sad to get something he already has? He's on the verge of 6, not 15! He won't care if he gets a slightly larger wooden stick!" - clearly I needed sleep hahahaha! So today I'm trying to uphold maintenance. I know if I skip even one small thing from the to do list the residual tiredness from the party will create Monster Nicole tonight soooooo better get moving!

2015 - the year the tripod became my best friend FOREVER

As mentioned, the weighty importance of documenting the kids' years of growth is not lost upon this ol' broad. So for 6 + 4, I refused to believe that my cheapness (read: not wanting to spend dough on a photographer in the midst of spending dough on other holiday based thangs) would get in the way of said documentation! It wasn't to get in the way, I tell ye!

A few weeks ago, I enlisted my friend Nicole to take our family pictures this year. She takes frequent photos of her darling daughters and is pretty dang good at it, so I was like "YOU! OVER THERE! YOU WILL TAKE OUR PICTURES THIS YEAR!" She said yes because she's awesome, but then when "shoot day" arrived, events arose with her family so we decided to reschedule. About an hour after that text message exchange took place, I told Chad that we were going to give it a shot ourselves. After all, Tripodizzle was getting experimented with more and more, and... do I need to mention the self timer love again? So later on that day, we left our house at 3:45 (trying to be all artsy and photographer-y... golden hour was not to be missed!), drove about 3 or 4 exits south on the 15, then parked our little ol' Volvo on the side of the road near a golf course.

Going into the whole thing, I knew (KNEW) no one was going to listen to me. "Mom, shush!" - words that would would be spoken by the babes. But ho-ho! All of us got a kick out of me being like "okay you stand here, put your arm here, get Snow to sit here, smile super duper happy, say yay!" I mean, it was so cool! I literally COULD NOT believe we got pictures! And on top of that, the lighting was boss! BOSS. I was overly stoked. Like crazy person stoked.

As soon as we got home, I uploaded, did 20,000,000 happy dances, then proceeded to make our Christmas card which is waiting for pick up at Costco. The next morning, I got to thinkin'. I went onto my favorite photographer's website (the one who shot our wedding and is WAY out of our price range for yearly family photos), and started examining what it is that I like so much about her photography. Then I picked my 11 favorite pictures from the 11 different set ups we did, and got to "editing" them the way I thought our favorite photog would. Like on one tab I had her website, then on the next tab I had my uploaded picture to the free online site I was using. I kept switching back and forth and hey hey! After a bunch of playing around, I got all 11 pictures to where I wanted them to be. That's DEF not to say I'm putting that "editing session" up there with that amazing photog, but for 6 + 4 year old pictures and family documenting, I wouldn't say it's too bad!

I'm sure in a few years I'll look back and be like "wow, that's a ton of editing," but right now I freaking love all of them! I truly feel like we scheduled an appointment with a photographer, everyone participated and that was it! Except the photog was my new bff, Tripodizzle.

THE BOMB (even though I kind of messed up on the one with Carter and I - who cares! You live and you learn!). And hey! We got home at 4:40! 3:45 - 4:40. Talk about an awesome way to spend an hour!

T Day and other awesome things

^^^The thing that has made my life complete, my friend, is the discovery of our camera's (which we've had for years...) SELF FREAKIN' TIMER! That thing is the best! OMG. So here I was on Thanksgiving morning giving it a test run. Once the kids refused to join me in said testing mode, I began a series of awkward robotic movements. I mean. It is THEEE best!

But anyhoo! T Day was gosh darn great! Mother Paplia hosted, so that automatically meant extreme relaxation on ours and the sister's family's end. My brother was granted leave from 29 Palms where he's killing it at life. I mean seriously? He's so cool. In his own words, he summed up his life: "I go to school, I work out, I sleep, I eat and I drink." Can I be you in my next life, Vince? JK, I would never pass those math classes you're taking, you electrical engineer in the making, you!

Okay. So we picked up Grandma Berniece, as we are the lone IE-er's of the Paplia family, freeing my Dad up from driving to Chino then back to MV before the celebration even started. I have to say, women in their 80's are the jam. I really love talking to my grandma! She's got strong political and religious views and is very with it. So the 5 of us, Grandma, Chad, the kids and I, heave-ho'd down the 241 to the parental's home, where we arrived quite early (of course on Thanksgiving the 91 chooses to open up westward. That freeway is like the 8th wonder of the world. No one understands it). We then proceeded to eat, drink and merry-make until we felt close to explosion. It was great! Carter did as he does, latched onto the day's activity and didn't stop until the sun was no'mo (he was a bad mitten badass, I daresay). Kota cuddled up with her older cousins and Chad and I were all about hangin'.

At the end of the night, we made the drive back home, Grandma in tow. So all in all, a great holiday. On Saturday, we made our 7th annual gigantor Thanksgiving dinner at home for leftovers, and I have to say, it was one of the best yet! We had super awesome company and hey-o! They were of the same familia! Super SUPER cool! I'm still chowing down on those leftovers and it's 7 days later. Success.

Sunday we got the tree, which was great. Once we put the kids to bed, I laid down on the couch and took about 1,000 pictures of Chad stringing the lights. The next day I went to upload the rest of November's pictures to the computer and guess freakin' what? I placed the memory card thing down for one minute and who decides to destroy it? SNOW. I was fuming mad. I mean really? Out of all the things in a room to destroy, he chose my 1"x1" memory card? The only thing that was on there was Chad stringing the lights, but still! Thankfully Amazon should be delivering a new one in the next few hours. One CANNOT enter December sans memory card. THAT would be a tragedy.

2 days ago, on December 1st, I thought "hey, prooooooobably a good idea to get on planning the kids' birthday party.... just a small thought..." The reason I was postponing the process was because a) my brain seemed to be packed with Thanksgiving thoughts, and b) I seriously was having anxiety about who to invite from Carter's class. I sincerely would have liked to invite the whole lot to avoid any hurt feelings, but that's 30 kids. If even half of them showed up, the house would burst given our other people who were confirmed guests. Can you imagine if some of their parent's would want to stay? That would be a potential 60 person addition to family and other friends! I was FREAKING OUT about it. Like going nuts. My first go at the problem was to ask Carter who he wanted to invite. Mainly it was his best guy friends and a few nice girls, but then I had no idea how to get the invitation to those kids. We don't have a class roster with addresses. HOW?! Corner the parents? I barely knew some of them! Then a light bulb went off - I decided to just invite the kids who's parents I talk to regularly. I told Carter which kids that included and he was like "sure!" So all my worrying was in vain, the only thing he really cared about were that SOME kids from his class showed up. I shot those moms a text and told Carter repeatedly to not talk about his party at school because we didn't want to hurt any feelings. Success! Kota's school situation was easy. In her class, if one kid is invited, everyone must be included. That was a fast and easy "no," haha! No way.

Now that that nightmare has been tackled and resolved, I can think about how FREAKING fun this party is going to be. PEOPLE. I have not one, but TWO December children and never EVER have I thrown a holiday themed party. I always wanted to it to be THEIR BIRTHDAYS, and then CHRISTMAS. Never combined. But this year, we already have our Xmas decor up so why not embrace it and do holiday activities?! BEST IDEA EVER. Now guess what that means? The party decor shall be purchased from Hobby Lobby where one can buy endless Christmas goodies, not from Party City! Literally the party things will be real decorations for Christmas, things we can KEEP FOREVER, not throw away after the party has taken place! What have I been thinking all these years! I should have done this from the get-go!

So yes, stoked. AND, since the party's theme is Pancakes and Pajamas, the Cisneros pair will NEED legit Christmas jammies. Tears of happiness, tears! Literally the pictures from this party will be my favorite of all TIME. Wooo!

Okay, this has turned into a very lengthy post. Tonight we are going to put the ornaments up on the tree and Chad's officially going to back up the family videos on a USB thing. Pret-ty excited. Wooooooo! (What a peppy tone considering we are all sick as dogs! Well Kota and I are, Carter is borderline and Chad is okay. Tis the season!)