JP's 6th Birthday with Yoda and Leonardo

Oh month of February, how I loath you... I'm so thankful JP's birthday is over and more so that I opted not to throw a big party for him because I woke up today with the feeling of a head cold coming on. As the day progressed, my suspicions were confirmed. Here comes my dreaded birthday cold, right on schedule. Hooray. 

 Charlotte and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday working on JP's cake and cupcakes. She's such a good helper in the kitchen!

 To celebrate his birthday at school, we made these cupcakes. He wanted vanilla cupcakes, so I added a little bit of green coloring to them, because I knew he would just love that. And he did. The majority of the evening was spent making the chocolate to resemble turtle shells. I meant to take a better picture of them, but his birthday morning was chaos. He couldn't stop smiling at them!

 Before he left for school, I told him he could open one present, knowing he'd pick the biggest one. Last week I went to zip his backpack closed and the zipper completely came off so I found a Ninja Turtle one to replace it. He was super excited to take it to school!

 After lunch Charlotte and I loaded up and took the cupcakes to school while Leonardo, his favorite Ninja Turtle, and Yoda dried. Like usual, I fell down the stairs again when I left JP's classroom. Go me. 

 I really struggled to get the Ninja Turtle to stand on his own. His shell was too heavy! After jabbing a couple looong dowels through his legs, I finally got him to stay. I finished up the lettering 15 minutes before we left to go to dinner at Pizza Hut with Grandma, Aunt Kim, and King Julian. Not that I'd expect you to know, but the lettering is in Ninja Turtle font, though it's from Star Wars. You know, Star Wars meets Ninja Turtles.

 Everyone met up at our house after pizza for cake and presents. Even Aunt Bobby joined in as she was just getting back to town from taking her boards in Helena. (It'll be a long wait until next Friday for her!)

So excited to blow out the candles...

These are the best pictures I have of him with his cake. He requested a chocolate cake, and then didn't even have a piece. Go figure. I wish he hated pictures a little bit less. Just one nice smile for mom? Pleeeease?

JP's Room: Sunday and the Reveal

We had a little bit of a late start Sunday morning because church trumps room remodeling. But as soon as we got back we jump right in (so we'd have time to watch the Super Bowl!)

 My first task was to get the Ninja mask on the wall. I was going to do it in blue, since JP's favorite one is Leonardo, but I had red paint left over from the cars I painted in Hunter's room, and then the baseball stitches you haven't seen yet... 

While the paint was drying, I ran to the store to pick up a mattress pad. I knew I was forgetting something the other day... And then I made his bed up with his new Ninja Turtle sheets and the quilt Nanny made for him. She gave it to him for his birthday a couple weeks ago since she wasn't sure if she'd still be around or not. It's a good thing we told her about updating his room, because she was in the process of making his quilt, and since he was in a queen bed, she made him a queen sized quilt. Though she didn't have to, she removed a few rows and it fits perfectly now on his new twin size loft bed - complete with matching pillowcase! 

After I had couple more coats of paint on this sucker, the four of us walked down the street to go watch the Super Bowl at a neighbor's house. I was so impressed with both Hunter and Charlotte, mostly Hunter. So well behaved! And the food there was delish! I probably had too many ribs... We were only planning on staying for a little bit, but stuck around for the whole game. After we got the kids to bed, I went back to work putting one more coat of paint on the mask, and painting the eyes. I was so glad to bed done. I cleaned up and "staged" his room and then went to bed. 

Here's it finished:

 Perry built the captain's bed. When he first built it, it was a lot closer to the ceiling, and Perry thought JP would need more head room, so he cut a few inches. That was a process...

 We were hoping to put his desk under his bed. It fits, but his lamp is pretty close to the mattress, and with it turned on, it could potentially be a fire hazard, so back to the corner it went. 

 I just love his chair!

Hunter was pretty excited about the mask on the wall, so I knew JP was going to love it!

JP arrived home Monday morning before school, literally 3 minutes after I got out of bed. I had a rough night. I woke up around 1:30a with stomach cramps, then I thought I was going to faint, and then I started get nauseous... Such a horrible cycle! After puking my guts out, I was able to get back to sleep but was exhausted come wake-up time. But I was also antsy to show JP his room, so that was motivating enough to get out of bed. Here's how it went:

Don't mind Hunter's hair, he's growing it out. JP's socks are in the garbage now, and I'm surprised there isn't a hole in the ceiling yet...!

JP's Room: Saturday

Saturday morning came too quick. I wasn't ready to start working again but Perry was. He spent the morning drilling into the concrete. Way too loud for me. Luckily I had other things to work on.

Let me just pause here for a minute to say this: Perry pretty much rocks. He can do almost anything from tiling, to plumbing, to carpeting to anything woodwork related. I really scored big when I married him!

By late morning, he was done with all the drilling and had the padding laid. I made sure the green had enough paint on it and then I busied myself with the curtains. 

I thought about making my own, but I saw some Ninja Turtle ones at the store and opted to go that way instead. I didn't realize they were going to be super long so I ended up hemming them. You can't even tell they were hemmed! I felt pretty accomplished!

This was the first time I saw the carpet. The day before he just went out and bought some without my approval. When I asked him to send me a picture, the response I got was, "You'll see it when I lay it out." Ugh. But he did a nice job picking it out, I'll give him that. 

Also while I was at the store picking up a few things, I spotted this guy. For Christmas, I let the kids each pick out a little stuffed thing that I would buy them for Christmas. Hunter picked out a Minion, Charlotte picked out an owl, and JP settled on the orange Ninja Turtle since they didn't have any blue ones. We stayed at a rented house for Christmas and he slept with his Ninja Turtle and it became lost in the sheets. After we checked out, I called the owner to let him know, and he told us he remembered seeing it, but since there were other guests there, he'd have to wait to get it. And then he never got back to me and we just called it a loss. I went back to the store shortly there after and they were all gone, so I was over the moon when I found one at a different store! WooHoo!

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents house and while we were there, Aunt Bobby and JP had a little time together doing some craft projects. Before I knew it, he handed these to me to keep. I can't tell you how impressed I was! I love his artwork!  When I was done with the curtains, I painted these frames for his pictures. (I'm keeping the originals; these are pictures of the orginals.)

I left for work that afternoon, and later that evening, Perry finished up the carpet. He said he really struggled with the closet because when we made it, the dividing wood piece went all the way to the floor, so he was having a hard time trying to get carpet under it. But he did it, and was sore for the rest of the night. I was planning on painting a little bit more after work that night, but after the shift I had, there was no way. I was too mad and fired up to stay up much longer. 

JP's Room: Friday

As soon as JP left for school on Friday, I started working on his room. My first project was his desk chair. This old thing came from the Dome Home and traveled with me when I moved into my first house. In the last decade it's gotten plenty of use from me at my sewing machine or desk, and more recently from JP. With the changes we were making in his room, I thought this would be an easy project to get out of the way first.

I planned on just painting it green and calling it good, but since we're adding a few Ninja Turtle related things to his room, I got a little carried away...

I think my Ninja Turtles turned out to look more like crocodiles than any thing, but hey! Maybe I'll repaint them later... For now they'll do. I just know he's going to like his Ninja Turtle chair!

When he came home from school, he had just enough time to clean up his room and pack his suitcase before Grandma picked him up. He's been looking forward to going to Grandma's house for a while and was SO EXCITED it was finally time to go! Once Perry finished with work and we had dinner, we lost no time emptying out his room.

I forgot how horrible of a job the previous owners did installing the flooring. I mean, I'm reminded of it daily upstairs, but I forgot about this HUGE crack in the floor in JP's room. So glad we're taking it all out! While I started painting one of the walls green, Perry took a trip to Home Depot to pick up carpet and tack strips. I would just like to say this. He made me measure Hunter's room when we went to re-carpet it and he messed up my measurements and almost tried buying carpet to cover a 25'x25' room. I kaboshed that quickly (even though my measurements were wrong, it wasn't wrong by 15'.) This time he measured JP's room, and somehow figured that he would need 600 linear feet of tack strips. I don't know how linear feet are calculated, but I knew immediately when he brought these two massive boxes inside there was a lot of miscalculations going on... He actually needed about 40 linear feet... At least we can return the unused ones!

By then end of the evening, I completed the daunting task of sponge-painting bricks on the bottom portion of the walls. I am in love with how it turned out! I was even more in love with the fact that it only took maybe half an hour? Hardly anytime compared to what I had originally thought! Phew!

Lego-Star Wars Mashup Cake

Hey guys! I made another cake! This one here was for a boy that JP went to preschool with last year, and apparently he's into Star Wars. I knew he loved Legos too, so I opted for a combination of the two and here's how it came out.

The words and the stars are all chocolate. I didn't realize it until after I laid the words down on top that they were a little crooked...but that was probably inevitable since I did that part at 5am. 

I'm getting horrible with my planning timeline. When I started making cakes a few years back, I would make the cake on Wednesday and then freeze it and continue to work on the cake for the next 2 or 3 days. It was a week long process. Now I'm losing my mind when I start them the day before. This one needed to be done by Sunday afternoon, and I baked the cake Saturday morning and frosted it before work. When I came home from work closer to midnight, I power napped on the couch until 2am and worked until 6am. Power napped until 9am and then finished it up while Perry's friend Wayne and his "friend" Ashlie made us their version of eggs benedict, except without the hollandaise sauce...I won't go into details, but two tries later...

It was nice to have a crowd watching me work....hahaha just kidding! But me not being responsible for breakfast in the exhausted state I was in was amazing!

I also made him cupcakes to take to school. I'm really starting to enjoy decorating cupcakes!

Chewbacca anyone?

JP's Room: Before

Remember when we decided to re-do Hunter's room, and I posted all the before pictures and never the after ones? Yeah that was over a year ago...It's all done. Maybe one of these days I'll post it too, but in the meantime, we're re-doing JP's room. It's been a long over-due project that we're just ready to cross off our list. Plus he's turning SIX in a few days too so there's that. 

I feel like I might have touched on this before when I posted about his closet remodel, but JP lucked out a few times when the boys were young and sharing a room. I had enough of the giggling and getting out of bed so I had JP sleep in the guest room, and I liked it so much that it just became his room. Queen sized bed and all.

Originally this room was two shades of green when we moved it. It was also the last room to receive a paint job since we had a few people in and out of the room for about 2 years. If I'd have known JP was going to be *obsessed* with green, I never would have painted it. Aside from having a huge bed, he also scored the extra TV in room as well. (We have a VHS-DVD player hooked up to it and occasionally the kids will get to have a slumber party in JP's room and watch a movie.)

After lots of discussion, we decided it was finally time to get JP a bed that is more appropriately sized for his room and to get him some carpet. Before we got going on anything we made plans to have him stay the weekend with Grandma so we could surprise him. :) And he had to have his room clean before he left too. Looks like lots of work for him!