Happy Halloween!

Another Birthday Bash

G just celebrated a birthday! Here is a quick rundown of his big day:

He woke up to balloons and doughnuts. We stole a tradition from some friends of ours and hang up doughnuts and try to eat them without using our hands. (No pictures--darn it! Imagine E attacking a doughnut.) The kids LOVE this game as well as fighting over the balloons. 

G also got to open a special present at breakfast. He was so excited until he opened it to find... a pair of jeans and a shirt that I had made with the number 5 on it. 

"Oh, new clothes," he said in a monotone voice. 

Success! Thinly veiled disgust is generally what I'm going for on a birthday. 

Anyhoo, we finished up breakfast and ran out the door to preschool so for picts of the outfit look below. 

G came home from preschool with a small pumpkin and a black eye. He said he ran into another kid but that it felt ok and everyone was fine. 

"Well it's your first black eye, I'll take a picture," I said. 

"No!" he said, "you'll put it on the internet." 

And I just did. 

(Don't worry, I didn't promise that I wouldn't.)

Nothing more to report until Dinner, G picked it out so we had homemade pizza and french fries. (Again you will have to use your imagination. Whoops!)

Here is G's cake this year. He loves the movie Bolt and has been begging for it, so he said he wanted a cake with all of the characters. I did my best at making characters out of rice crispy treats and cookies, dipped in white chocolate and decorated with candy and frosting. They turned out ok; Ace of Cakes I am not. I also didn't realize the scale of my decorations, I was planning on putting a giant lightning bolt in the middle of the cake but by the time I got everything on there wasn't much room. He was happy, though, so that's what matters. 

This was the most important part to me! It was cookies and cream cake with an amazing cream cheese frosting. Don't ask how much I have eaten. I may have a problem...

He got some cool stuff, including a Spiderman web slinger (thanks Grandma and Grandpa)! My favorite gift was his back scratcher, $1.50 baby! That's a present I can really get on board with.

I think he warmed up to the outfit a little more when he realized that it wasn't all he was getting. Plus he said that they noticed it at school so that they sang Happy Birthday to him. Ha see, your mom is always right!

Can you believe he was smaller than this bear when he was born?

E wanted his picture taken too. Doesn't he look happy?

We stayed up late and watched How to Train Your Dragon (really cute!) and then had a quick visit from Hubby's Dad and his wife. Overall it was a good, and incredibly full day.

G is such a sweet kid, we love him so much. He is so smart sometimes you just can't help but laugh. We started talking about the day he was born (a tradition in Hubby's family) and I jokingly asked him if he remembered. He replied, "Yes, you've narrated it to me before." 

He's also starting to really get into humor and trying to make up his own jokes. He does much better with ones that we get him to memorize, but it's fun to see him try to understand language and timing. 

Finally, he just has a really good heart and wants to do what is right. He helps his brother and sister a ton and even used his penny at the wishing well to wish that he wouldn't fight with his brother anymore.

We sure love you G and are so glad you are part of our family!

Do we have a bit of a superhero complex?

As I was driving kids to preschool...

G: "For Halloween I'm going to be what my dad is being. I'm his sidekick."

The other day after I was giving hubs a hard time about something--probably eating Cheetos and candy with the kids when they should have had something healthy...

Hubby: "You are in charge of all of the mental and emotional areas of the family. I am in charge of the physical and medical."

(Me rolling my eyes)

G: "I'm in charge of all the superhero areas of the family."

Me: "Sure kid, you can be the head of our superhero committee. Any area that falls under superhero responsibilities can go straight to you."

G: "Yep. Sounds good."

I'm starting to understand that Jerry Seinfeld was really right when he said, "When men are growing up, reading about Batman, Spiderman, Superman, these aren't fantasies, these are career options...Every man thinks of himself as a low-level superhero."

Let's just hope a situation never arises where we have to put this sort of thing to the test, shall we?

Small things

Recently my sister-in-law had her first baby. It's been really fun watching her new little family interact and it reminds me so much of when we first had G. We were talking about motherhood and how it can be hard. There are long demanding hours and people who don't listen to you. It can feel isolating and lonely where you are dying for adult conversation. Often times you feel unappreciated for all of the sacrifices and changes you are making. I once told my mom that if this was a job that I was being paid for, I think I would quit!! 

There are those times, though, when everything seems to come together. Today we stayed home and had a lazy day. At one point I was caramelizing onions for dinner and the whole house smelled amazing. G sat next to H and proudly read her a book that he was making all on his own. She smiled and laughed at her big brother. I checked in on E and found him laying on the floor happily playing with cars. I went back and stirred my onions and listened to the happy noise of children playing and smelled home-cooking. All of a sudden I had the crystal clear thought, "This is as good as it gets. Our lives are so good and I am so happy." 

Five minutes later everyone was fighting or crying again, but I've learned over time that these short moments somehow make it enough. 

Career Day

The other day G told me:

"When I grow up I want to be a dentist and a soccer coach...or maybe a veterinarian. They're nice."

"How about a doctor," I offered.

"Yeah," he said, "or I'll just be a superhero."

Calm down

Yesterday morning I got up with the boys while Hubby snuggled with Miss H and tried to get a bit more sleep. About 20 minutes later he came downstairs alone. 

"You can go upstairs (to nurse her), she is up and freaking out." 

I quickly went upstairs into the bedroom as Hubby followed. When I walked in, though, everything was quiet. "Is she still sleeping?" I wondered out loud. I looked at her only to have her return my look with a face like this:

"Calm down, H!!" I said. "Calm down. Seriously, stop freaking out!!"

Hubby just rolled his eyes. "She was freaking out."

Yep. We better call for backup.

First day of school!

G started preschool again so we took another first day of school picture.

If you need to make your 5 year old smile, try telling them that their dad has hairy eyeballs. It works for us!

E decided he wanted in on the action. These brothers...pretty sure they cant live with or without each other!

Happy Birthday

E celebrated a birthday recently and we had a day packed with fun. Here's a quick run-down of the festivities.

A local real estate agency was giving hot air balloon rides at a nearby park. We didn't tell the boys about the rides, but surprised them by going to look at the balloon. It turned out that they were way behind schedule and we weren't even sure if we could get a ride anyway (they deflated the balloon at one point). We were really glad we hadn't promised a ride or we never would have heard the end of it. As it was, they were thrilled to see the huge "bawoon" and eat free muffins and drink hot chocolate.

As you can tell, Miss H was very impressed (and wearing the cutest boots EVER)

Then we loaded up the kids and headed to the zoo where we hung out with Grandma and Grandpa.

Grandma and baby H

Side note: E tried to climb into every enclosure. Then he started yelling and motioning for the giraffes to "Come on!"

We went on a little train ride

Pretty sure this was the only voluntary picture of the day!

We happened to walk up to the elephant enclosure just as they were having the elephants do tricks. There was a baby one that was so cute!! The best part, though, was that as we were watching the baby and mom, the trainer had the elephant suck up some water. We didn't think anything of it until it sprayed it at us and completely drenched all of us. It was so funny and unexpected, we couldn't stop laughing.

Once everyone was so exhausted they were crying, we decided it had been a successful trip and was time to go home.

We bribed E to take his now yearly picture by the bear. Then sat down to eat pizza, italian sodas, and cake.

If you know E at all, you know he loves cars and trucks. I decided to try my hand at making him a car cake and I thought it turned out pretty cute.

I just made a normal double layer round cake and cut it out and carved it to look like a car. The wheels are doughnuts and the headlights and tail lights are yellow and red sprees. Hubby gave me some advice on how to make the windows and doors not look weird. I appreciated his insight since I always draw dumb looking cars.

E really liked it, so I think it was a success.

Finally, E opened presents and received (you guessed it) cars. He was thrilled beyond belief.

What a great day! We sure love E and are so happy he is in our family. He certainly keeps us on our toes and makes sure that there is never a dull moment. He is stubborn, smart, energetic and sweet. He plays with your hair if you are holding him and growls if you do something he doesn't like. I don't know where this kid came from, but I have a sneaking suspicion he might be a lot like me. No wonder I think he is equal parts exasperating and hilarious! Love you kid!

Baby Toes

Just when you thought she couldn't get any cuter....

Having a girl is sooo fun!!