Sammy Turns Five!

I cannot believe how the time flies, Sammy is already five! (of course as I type this Chris and I are celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary so I really feel like I am in super speed mode or something). He originally wanted a star wars party, suprise suprise. But I decided this year we would only invite the kids in his class and one other special friend, which meant there would be more girls then boys and as much as I think girls would LOVE running around getting the storm troopers, well needless to say I asked Sammy if there was any other thing he loved as much as Star Wars he replied, "Creations!" Which is true, he is nuts about making stuff out of trash. I decided to class it up a bit and go with painting party. This year I didn't want to go to the effort of making an entirely new fabric birthday bunting so I made one in photoshop instead in fun bright colors, then sewed it to some striped fabric.

We ordered lots of paints

and brushes

and everyone got their own canvas, crown, whistle and mask to decorate

When I ordered the puff balls they only sold them in 5 lb bags. Since I had no concept of puff ball weight I didn't realize the enormous amount that would be. This bowl was maybe 1/4 the bag. I have no idea what we are going to do with the rest ha!

We borrowed the tables and Chairs from Liam's little school and had everything set up on our deck to keep the kids cool, in the shade and if by some randomness it rained dry.

When the kids arrived they could pick an apron color (these were soooo easy to make, at first I thought I was nuts but after a dozen you get a rhythm goin') pick up their party bag, which had some very special art supplies they could use or save for later (yes they are pink and purple and the only gift bags I could find on the island. I thought Sam would mention it but he never did! Phew!)

Then they could check out the chalkboard to decide what to do first.

Some how Abby got hold of one of the giant suckers and I swear every time I turned around she had a different one.

Sam (who refused to cover up his Star Wars shirt) had a blast "creating" with all his friends.

Briggs and Carmen, possibly Sammy's two favorite people in Timor at the same table!!

Ava is the youngest in his class and such a sweet heart. She was unusually shy at the party, I think she was a bit overwhelmed.

Raf is Sammy's buddy from Portugal and thankfully also likes Star Wars.

I got a chance to try out the amazing face paint my friend Rachel brought me back from Aus and her cool step by step instruction book.

Then the kids left their creations to dry and it was water play and snack time! (I thought it was pretty funny how one person painted a rainbow on their canvas and suddenly there were a bunch of rainbows ha!)

Sammy's one food request was "iceblocks". I think this is an Australian thing? You basically take all different flavored cordials, water them down, pour them into plastic cups and freeze them. They then literally become flavored ice blocks. They sell them at the school as a fundraiser for the orphanage every Tuesday and Thursday and the kids go nuts about them.

Sylvia and Vivian in the baby pool enjoying their blocks. I think Sylvia spent the majority of her time just chillin in that pool.

Oscar tried out the slip n slide

If they got cold in the water they could take a break and go get all sweaty on the bounce house.

Shiyon is from Korea and I swear she and her mom are the most stylish people I know I would die for some hand me downs.

After lunch it was cake time! Okay so I worked pretty hard on this cake, despite the fact that it looks so plain.

I have been following THIS blog for a while and she did THIS cake that I thought would be perfect.

I have got to learn how to ice a cake well.

I even bought one of those special paddle tools and it didn't help much ha!

Liam was pretty excited himself.

We got to hear "Happy Birthday" the Aussie way, Italian way and Portuguese way.

Sammy was able to blow out the one candle in one blow.

The kids were pretty excited when they saw the cake cut, even when the icing started melting and the cake was sliding apart ha!

I warned the parents that the amount of food coloring may send them to the hospital

Abby enjoyed the cake... oh wait no she was working on her fifth lollipop probably at that point. This one she didn't even bother having someone take off the wrapper she just muscled through it.

Sammy seemed to have a great time and got some really fun presents to remind him of Timor.

The next day on his actual birthday I made our traditional train shaped cake and we gave him the presents from us. He just about died when he opened the remote control R2D2 and do you know who else loves him? Abby.

Abby is so crazy about R2D2 that even if she is playing with another toy she will lock her legs around R2 so you can't get him. And if you try, she WILL bite you.

Luckily Sammy is a pretty darn good sharer so he doesn't get bitten too often ha!

In other news we have less then 3 weeks here in Timor! We cannot believe how fast it has gone. We are all packed for our big family vacation with the Crawford's (Chris and I are retracing the last half of our honeymoon, Disneyland then Mexico... yup I said last half, our honeymoon was legendary ha!) then we have my little sisters wedding to get ready for! Once again I will be the super preggy one hiding in the back of all the photos. I don't know if I will blog again from Timor, now that is a weird feeling. Hopefully I will gather enough energy (the stomach flu has ripped through our house hold this week) to get a goodbye party together so we can say good bye to all our friends. Just thinking about it makes me kinda tired though ha! As does thinking about the 13 hour flight we will take from Sydney to LA ahhhhhh! Prayers for that are welcome :)

Sailing for Mothers Day

To celebrate Mothers day my friend Jeanne organized a sailing trip! I was really excited because this was something I had wanted to do for a while but you have to do it in a big group otherwise it is insanely expensive. The fun group of us from over 8 countries (always love how diverse the group is) set sail at 3:30 in the afternoon.

I wish I had gotten a pic of our sail boat, it was gorgeous. But being panicky about having my camera I double freezer ziplock bagged it in my carry on and couldn't get it out fast enough. I figured the ziplock bags would give me the five seconds necessary to throw myself overboard after my bag if it went in. But here I am pushing my belly out as a joke at the front of the boat (Aft? Stern?), my friend Krista told me I needed to look pregnant, check.

We sailed through Dili harbor and out around the Christ statue

They served little Hors d'oeuvre (spelled the French way-- I gotta learn sometime!) along the way and we brought lots of yummy drinks and the conversation was fantastic! Plus I had fun listening in on some of my friends speaking French. Didn't understand a word but it made my ears excited for Paris.

krista, steve, jeanne, toby

Once we got to back beach we stopped so we could snorkel. This is a great spot, but unfortunately the sight on land was pretty sad.

We have no idea why but they were slashing and burning the mountain side.

Usually they only do this in areas they are going to farm and Back Beach is definitely not that place, so we don't really know what was up. But it was cool watching the "Bombedaros" fight it.

Some people stayed and relaxed on the boat but Chris and I jumped in. The water was gorgeous and so clear but to be honest I spent the majority of my time trying to tell myself not to think about crocs.

I tried to stay close to Jeanne's hubby Silas since he had a spear gun ha! I was a bit worried about how we were going to get back on the ship since we had simply flung ourselves over the side, but when it was time to go a ladder magically appeared :)

This was the little "dingy" that was pulled behind us and used in case any of us were taken off by the current while snorkeling, which was actually very strong. I was tempted to ask if I could sit back in it on the way back in, it sounded fun to be tugged.

But I am glad I didn't though because I would have missed the most amazing sunset. It started out just sort of getting dark

and I was a little bummed thinking we weren't going to get any color. So for a while I took some other random pictures since I didn't think I would get a good sunset shot. You know of totally weird things like a pile of rope

and lots and lots of the sails

None of which turned out all that great. Then my friends hubby said "Kelly do you not want any of the sunset?" I sat up and BAM! This was what I saw:

So of course I nearly killed myself running to the front of the boat to get a better shot

These are straight out of the camera (I have no clue how to edit a sunset anyway). The colors were amazing!!! After enjoying the sunset we sailed slowly back to port in the dark. It was soooo relaxing sitting back and talking while the boat swayed. I told Chris I think we should retire to a yacht. He told me that there is an old saying that the two happiest days of a boat owners life are the day he buys the boat and the day he sells it. I guess that is a no :) It was a lovely mothers day gift though.... even if it didn't involve the munchkins, just us two.