Jayden's Sesame Street Birthday Party

Jayden turned two and we celebrated with a Sesame Street birthday party!

 

Birthday Boy

Sesame Street theme song lyrics leading up to the house.

Cookie Monster, Elmo, and Big Bird footprints leading up the house. 

(Big thanks to my sister for actually doing the work of taping them down for me!)

I love the cookie with a bite taken out of it on the back of Jay's Cookie Monster shirt!

A clown came and did balloon twisting, which the kids loved, and so did the adults!

Photo props can be bought in my Etsy shop :)

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 I watched as he backed up against this poster to be with all the characters. So cute. 

Elmo veggie tray.

Oscar veggie tray.

Cookie Monster fruit tray.

Big Bird fruit tray.

Jayden's World

Balloon Wreath

Lollipop Bouquet

Oscar push up cake pops.

 Party Favors

 Don't disturb me. I'm fishing.

 

The above picture is Jay blowing out his birthday candles and below is me blowing out my candles for my 2nd birthday. I bought the "vintage" cake pan off of e-bay and made Jay the same cake I had.

 

We went back the next day to clean up and Jay loved everything just as much the second day.

 

Hey, I have a rubber ducky too.

 

Cold Turkey

My laptop and phone both broke within 24 hours of each other and I lost all my contact with the outside world. It took almost a week to get my laptop back and a couple days to get a phone. I don't have internet on my phone so even once I got that back, it was only text messages and Twitter via text message.

I always see posts from people about how nice it is to unplug for a few days and get away from all social media. For me it was more like going cold turkey off heavy drugs. Not pretty. I am a very social person and being home all day with no co-workers and no adults to talk is really hard. I love talking to Jayden, but I also need adult conversations. Even aside from social media, you don't realize how much you use the internet until you don't have it. It made me crazy to not be able to look anything up!

I've been trying to catch up ever since. I promise I will post Jayden's birthday party pictures in my next post.

Oh, and I almost forgot-- We got our tax money! Finally!! Hooray for paying bills!!! :) :)

Update Post :)

My new Etsy business is doing well and is the reason we survived financially over the summer. I now also have one school-ager and two toddlers that I am watching.

The school-ager is the same one who has been coming for 5 years. He comes at 5:45 in the morning and gets on the bus at my house. Adjusting to the early morning hours again after summer has been rough. I just hope Jay keeps sleeping in like he has been.

The toddlers are new. And me watching toddlers is a new thing. I've been doing school-agers for about 10 years. First at a center and now at home. Before that I worked with 3 and 4 year olds for a while, but that was a long time ago.

It's only mornings, which is good because it's so exhausting. Three toddlers at once is a lot. (Most days, just Jayden alone is a lot, haha.)  Just when I think I've got things with them under control we'll have the kind of day where one gets stung by a bee while another one pees in the toy closet. Things can get out of hand fast when there are three tiny humans you can't really reason with who are at all times close to total meltdown and tantrum mode.


Jayden cried a lot the first week. It was a bigger adjustment for him than I expected. The biggest thing that sets him off is the other kids using the potty and he can't. He's done it a few times months ago, but he really isn't ready for potty training. So he freaks out every time they go. I thought at first it was because they were using his potty seat, but I've come to realize it's really the hand washing. He wants to go in and wash his hands too. And of course brush his teeth too while he's at it.

He can't reach the sink, even with a stool, but that doesn't stop him.

  

He jumped up on it after one of the other boys- with his clothes still on.

I think in the long run this will be a good thing for all three boys. It's just taking me some time to get used to it. And for every tough moment there are plenty of moments of toddler cuteness and laughter. I am hoping soon we can start adding in some arts and crafts stuff. I'm sure that will be a real adventure :)

WE STILL DO NOT HAVE OUR TAX MONEY. Yes, that deserved all caps. It blows my mind. I took the advice I received from many of you and contacted our local congressperson. They were wonderful and helped us a lot. Even got us to the point where we have signed the paperwork to have our money released to us. But, for some unknown reason, WE ARE STILL WAITING!! All they need to do is deposit the money into our account and it's been weeks. We check every single day hoping it will be there. Our forbearance on our student loans ran out this month because we assumed we'd have our tax money by now.  We just keep saying any day now and try to get by. We've been doing that for months.

Jayden is TWO! Can you believe it? We had a Sesame Street birthday party last weekend and I can't wait to show you pictures. That will be my next post :)

I'll show you this one for now: