Fun Friday!

Today started off a little slow with a lot of indecision, but finally Aidan and I decided we wanted to go use one of my Mother's Day gifts at All Fired Up. Lucky for us, my sister Steph had off and wanted to give it a try too!

We got there and had so many choices to make, what piece to paint, what colors, what piece to have Aidan put his handprints on, how to have that decorated, what tools to use, etc. We sat down and got to work. Aidan was up first. We were happy to have Kim help us out with painting and putting his handprints on a flower pot I picked out. He wasn't so sure what she was doing to his hands at first, but then when it was time for the second one he acted like an old pro. His handprints look cute and I can't wait to see the finished product. It's going to say "Growing hands, growing mind" and his hands will be the leaves and stems and then she'll put some flowers toward the top. The great thing is that all we had to do was put his handprints on and they'll decorate it for us for a small fee. I probably could have done it on my own but since it was my first time I wasn't sure how I would make it turn out. Maybe next time now that I'm a little more comfortable with it. I think it will be a fabulous decoration for my desk at school...now I just need to figure out what kind of flower I'll plant in it. Any ideas?

Steph chose a serving plate to decorate. She chose a golden yellow color as the background color with a reddish color to put hearts and dots on with. She then wrote "Made with Love" around the edge of the plate. Trust me it looks much better than I've described. Since I wasn't decorating the flower pot I picked another piece to paint. I chose a really simple pencil holder since I needed one for my desk and I figured it would be simple enough to do even while entertaining Aidan. I picked out a specked blue for the background and then made daisies on top of that. I'm interested to see how it turns out since I have no idea how many coats I put on but know that it wasn't even! It's tough to paint pottery while feeding Aidan goldfish/puffs/juice and getting him a book/magna doodle jr./another book/paper towel. Thank goodness he sat in his seat the whole time!

Once we were all done decorating we left our mess (they clean it all up!) and our almost finished projects for them to take care of. They said it would take about a week for the items to be fired and ready for us to pick up. I can't wait! We were hungry at this point and decided we'd take a stroll to The Pop Shop to get some lunch. I had been wanting to try this place ever since I had seen it on The Food Network. After a short wait (yes, this place was packed even at 2pm!) we got seated and Aidan wore his special hat just enough for us to take a few pictures. Steph ordered the Maple grilled cheese sandwich (chicken, bacon, cheese on sourdough) and I got the Collings (cheese on country white) thinking I could share with the little guy. We split a basket of fries and each splurged for a milkshake. That was the strawberriest milkshake I've had in a while. Aidan loved the whipped cream and had a taste of the milkshake. He refused to try Steph's chocoloate one, a man after my own heart. The sandwiches were absolutely delicious! Our waitress and the environment was great! I would love to go back there again, maybe for breakfast.

Aidan fell asleep on the way to drop off Steph and slept a whopping 25 minutes. That turned out to be the only nap he had today. I was really concerned about how his mood (okay, mine) would be without anymore rest but he was so pleasant and playful! We had a great time this afternoon and finished our night out with a trip to Applebee's with Sean and his mom. I had to run into Acme really quick so I brought him in with me without a cart. He was so giddy to be walking around the store. He was pointing and talking and singing and laughing. It was hilarious. If only he were that happy on all of our Acme trips! hah! We returned home and got a little more playtime in before him hitting the sheets at almost 10pm!

Oh, by the way, we've made it TWO whole entire days without using bottles!!! He's transitioned pretty well. Yesterday was fantastic because he still drank the same amount of milk he would normally have. Today he didn't drink as much, but still did well. I'm most excited that the night time routine isn't so bad. After he drinks his milk I brush his teeth and then give him his flouride. He's got that routine down as if we've always done it. So cute.

My thoughts on life right now:
Painting pottery is fun and calming, but expensive.
Having a sister *like mine* is the best.
It's great to be able to take Aidan places and him enjoy it.
No bottles means less dishes to wash! woohoo!
Time to enjoy the weekend!