Alex's 5th Birthday

Alex turned FIVE today!  He is such a fun little man.  He adds such an important element to our family dynamic.

To celebrate, he had a party with friends a couple of Saturdays ago.  He has to be really comfortable with someone to consider them his friend, so he had a very short list of kids he wanted to invite; hence we avoided the Saturdays surrounding Spring Break, even though his birthday fell then.

In preparation we made some farm themed party games.  Here the kids are making a pig pinata.

We turned a big box into a barn for 'barn trap' (played like 'london bridges').

We made 'pin the tail on the cow'.

After two layers and a little paint and marker our piggy was ready as well.

The day before the party, I set to work making his cake.  Initially, the house was completely picked up.  The cake wasn't difficult, but it was time consuming because I had to bake two batches of cupcakes, make four colors of frosting, and put it all together.  During that time, Abby made quite the mess in our main living area, while the others made an INCREDIBLE mess of the rest of the house.  I'm pretty sure it was a new record for mess making in our house.  It took them TWO HOURS to clean up afterward (also incredible in our house), and they were working the whole time!

I think Abby was making her own cake beside me.

 After much ado, Alex had the tractor cake he wanted.  Ta da! 

Alex was excited the next morning.

We blew up lots of balloons, and that occupied our kids while they waited for friends to arrive.

Once his friends came, they played a bit, and then we took a few minutes for the games.  I was glad I didn't plan more; kids this age really just want to play!

Abby was unbelievably cute hitting that pinata.  Every time she tapped it, she'd give a delighted giggle.  We let her hit it over and over again.

Cupcake time!

 

Present time!

Afterwards we moved the balloons to a different room thinking our kids would want to keep them around for a few days.  It wasn't long before I heard rapid popping; they'd decided it was more fun to take pins to all of the balloons!  No problem...less mess for me to deal with later!

Since today was actually Alex's birthday we celebrated by going ice skating and having a little family celebration after Jim came home from work.  I made one of Alex's favorite meals (Balkan meatballs with broccoli and noodles) and it was devoured at an amazing rate.  Apparently my cooking has been rather monotonous lately!  After dinner, the Jim and the kids jumped to do Alex's dishes for him (since Thursdays are his dish night) and then we moved on to presents.

He's holding his new John Deere football while waiting to start opening them.  Meanwhile, Abby threw a screaming fit because we wouldn't let her open any.  Poor girl, she's going to go through this again next week when Annie has a birthday!  Ha ha!  It's a good thing Abby's birthday will only be two weeks after that.

He was excited about all of his gifts.  Since he always talks about becoming a farmer, my mom sent farm/ John Deere themed presents.  She sent him a John Deere tractor and wagon (which Abby tried to claim), John Deere sweatshirt, John Deere t-shirt, farm animals, and a farm book.  It was pretty cute.  He also had cards and gift money from my dad and sister, as well as the gifts we gave him; he's excited to go shopping now!

After presents we ended with root beer floats and rocky road ice cream (but not mixed together!).  Happy birthday buddy!

Spring Break

Several places in our city have $1 admission days when the districts have spring break here, so we took a spring break with everyone else and had some fun. 

On Monday, we went to a veteran's and local history museum.  It also had a little planetarium set up.

Pardon my phone pictures...  During the planetarium demonstration Alex turned and whispered to me, "Mom, do you smell blood?  I smell blood!"

 They had a tank that the kids could climb through.  Abby wanted to stay at this spot the rest of our time there.

After the museum, we had a picnic on the river walk. 

We also took a peek at the playground and splash pad up there.

After lunch, we headed over to the ice arena.  Annie and Logan have been ice skating before, but that was three years ago.  So it was brand new all over again.  Being pregnant, and Abby being too little to skate anyway, I stayed off the ice and prayed no one would have a meltdown where I couldn't get at them. 

Annie and Alex were TERRIFIED the moment they stepped on the ice, and I quickly became worried that my fear of a meltdown was going to come true.  They couldn't hear me through the glass, but they could see me and I could walk along beside them through the entire arena.  I did my best to encourage them with smiles and lots of thumbs-up.  Annie eventually relaxed as long as I was right beside her.  She clung to the wall the entire time, but she said she had fun afterward.

Very early on, Alex fell down and couldn't stand up on his own.  This lady helped him up, I thanked her through the glass, and then she motioned to ask if she could help him skate.  THANK YOU!  She ended up skating with him almost the entire time, all of her own choosing.  He had a blast, and gained enough confidence to keep at it on his own.

Logan was brave right from the start.  He stayed on the wall for a minute or two and then made his way out to the middle of the arena.  He had some AMAZING falls, but he stood up again and continued with a smile.

Logan's confidence grew quickly, so after the lady left Alex on his own, Logan helped him skate for a while.

We decided to skate again yesterday and today since it was so cheap and they all wanted to go again after the first time.  Logan made amazing progress in this short time; today he was passing all sorts of people and had great balance.  I think he'd pick it up quickly given the chance.  Annie started each session terrified all over again, but by the end of each was confidently, but very slowly, making her way around holding onto the wall.  She was pretty pleased with herself.  Alex wasn't scared after the first day, and steadily made his way around as well.  They really enjoyed the chance to skate; I wish it was this cheap all year!

I took this last picture yesterday.  Annie was literally inching her way along right at the beginning, and she ended up with a long line of other beginners behind her (there were even more at a different point).  She caused a major traffic jam!  Eventually, everyone (including Alex) went around her.

For our last day of spring break fun, we're going to have a playdate with some friends that the kids only get to see at church.  Then it's back to routines next week!

Ultrasound

We had our midway ultrasound earlier this week.  The kids were in great anticipation, and all agreed they were hoping for a boy.  Their reasoning?  They wanted to keep the pattern: boy, girl, boy, girl, etc.  SOO...after we saw that our baby looks healthy and is growing at the expected rate, the tech took a peek to determine gender.  This baby is a girl!  The kids found individual ways of consoling themselves.  Logan, "I said I wanted a boy, but secretly I was hoping for a girl." Annie, "I wanted a boy because I didn't want to break our pattern, but I like girl names better." Alex, "I made a NEW pattern!!" Abby, "Baby! Baby!"  Ha ha!  We're excited to welcome another baby girl into our family!

Abby

Abby is like a little bird; she tries to steal bites of everything we eat. 

 Once I had the camera out, I realized I had a good chance to catch her sweet little face.

More Miscellaneous

This picture is old, but it was the first time I took Abby out to play in the snow.  She HATED it.  She laid face down in the snow and threw a fit! 

Almost two weeks ago, the weather warmed up and the snow started melting.  The kids couldn't wait to go outside, and they've spent hours and hours outdoors since.

Hours later the same day, they were still out there.  I'm not sure what they were doing, but it was very creative.

Cute Abby.

I mustered up the will to sort our baby and children's clothing storage last week.  To this point, I've had almost everything stored in diaper boxes and wanted to switch it all to plastic tubs.

Mid sort, our hallway was an obstacle course of empty boxes and containers.

I spread out all over the boys' room to do my sorting.

Hours later, I'd sorted 25 tubs of baby items and clothes (not all pictured), and trimmed out a few things we no longer needed.  Phew!  That felt GOOD!

Another day last week, a couple of packages arrived from my mom.  She'd happened upon a big $1 clearance for children's clothes, so she sent us all sorts of stuff.  The kids were so excited to go through their new items.

The boys wanted to show their matching shirts.