Lincoln Turned 4!

I know I say it every year... but it really is hard to believe that my youngest is 4!! Lincoln is such a joy to have in our family. He is such a loving child, he insists on giving kisses frequently and out of the blue will say "Mom, I love you" so often. He can be intense sometimes with his enthusiasm and loves to also wrestle or play with Reuben. He uses the word "ginormous" and other words that I would not expect from a little 4 year old. He is loving preschool and has made some great friends there.

I was debating weather or not to do a party for him this year, since he is still young. In the end I decided to throw a small one with the kids in his primary class at church and a friend from preschool. He chose to have a super hero theme. (special thanks to my friend Rochelle who took all these pictures for me)

I made capes for him and all of his friends. The boys capes were reversible, green on one side with the superman logo but the first letter of their name instead of an "S" and then blue on the other side with Captain America's shield. The girl capes were reversible too, with purple on one side with a crown on it, and pink for the other side with the first letter in their name.

I forgot how the attention span of kids that age is about a zero on a scale of 1-10. We had super hero coloring sheets for them to color that I found online. They played a game where one person hid a super hero monkey while everyone else stood out of sight in the hallway. When they were ready then everyone returned to the room and looked for the monkey. We played a couple of rounds of that.

Then we had cake and ice cream. Lincoln then opened his presents and everyone played. Really a low key party.

Ryan and I had a blast working on Link's cake together the night before the party. Ryan sculpted Captain America and I did the other parts. I think watching those cake shows has paid off a little bit :)

Lincoln told me afterward that his party was the best ever, so I guess it was a success!

Eve

Eve turned the big 6 this year! She was super excited about her birthday this year. She did get confused about her "real" birthday and friends party, since they were not on the same day it end caused some tears but in the end everything worked out.

Her party was a Hello Kitty party this year. We played Hello Kitty, Hello Kitty; where one person would hide Eve's stuffed animal hello kitty while everyone else was out of the room and then they would enter the room again and try to find it.
I have to mention my score at the dollar spot. Yes, those lunch boxes were at the Dollar spot in Target! Perfect timing!

We played meow; where everyone sits in a circle and one person sits in the middle with their eyes closed. Once the center child has their eyes closed everyone switches places and then the child with their eyes closed points in one direction. Whichever child they point at in the circle says "meow, meow" and the center child has to guess who it is.
We played a couple more games and then had cake. I was a little bummed that it didn't turn out as well as the one I made on her real birthday, but she still liked it :)

Kates

I really can't believe my daughter turned 11 this year! It is really crazy and hard to wrap my head around! Next year she will be able to start participating in our youth program at church which is CRAZY!


School started the day before her birthday this year. Kates was super excited to start another year and be able to see her friends on a daily basis.

Kaitlyn's cake was not my best looking cake this year, but it sure was tasty! She requested chocolate cake with ganache frosting, she is definitely my girl!

Instead of a party this year she opted for a sleepover with her two best friends. We had to do them on separate weekends because of scheduling conflicts. Lauren was able to come spend the night on Kaitlyn's real birthday. We did a bunch of crafts and had cake!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

I love this man more than words can say!

Here is an example of what a wonderful father he is. Ryan is sporting his father's day tie that the kiddos made for him.

Lincoln is 3

Lincoln turned three this week at our house! It is crazy that my baby is 3 and not really a baby anymore. I love this little guy! He has a huge grin most of the time and loves to dish out his kisses to everyone in the family. He is all boy and loves to play catch or anything else his big brother is doing.

Lincoln is obsessed with tractors so a tractor cake seemed in order. He has been into tractors for awhile now and never really wavered to anything else. Maybe he'll be our farmer.

It was so hard to get a picture of him next to his cake this year because Lincoln was singing "Happy Birthday" right along with everyone.

Bowling

This month we were so lucky to have my parents visit for two weeks. We had a pretty low key visit, because I babysit full time from home. But we were able to get out a couple of times :)

One night we went bowling at the largest bowling alley in the U.S.A. They have 96 lanes and it is actually hard to get a lane to play on, on the weekend nights because they are full. But we got lucky to be able to play without a wait. It has been such a long time since we have been bowling that Eve had never gone before. It was so fun to see Lincoln get really excited and say "I throw the ball".

My birthday fell on Martin Luther King Jr. holiday this year so the kids had off school. If you live here in Cleveland, on this holiday every year all museums are free. We tried to go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but the line to go in was out the door and to the curb. So, instead we headed to the Natural History Museum and the Case Western Historical Society. I wish I had taken some pictures but I totally forgot to.

I also forgot to take pictures of my parents during their visit here. We LOVED having them and can't wait until we can be together again.

Pinkalicious

Evie was lucky to be able to celebrate her birthday with one of her best friends. Evie and Lilly are only two days apart which is kinda fun. The girls had a Pinkalicious Party themed after the awesome book.

We played find the pink things in the room, painted fingernails, and made pink necklaces.

For lunch our menu was: pink waffles, pink yogurt, pink lemonade and strawberries. For dessert there were pink cupcakes with pink frosting and pink sprinkles. We threw some Strawberry Shortcake cupcake sticks in some of the cupcakes because Evie really wanted to incorporate Strawberry Shortcake.

Pink and red balloons. Kids and balloons are always a hit. The boys had fun making a pile of them and jumping on the balloons.

I love these girls. I can't believe that they are five already and are in elementary school! Check out this photo of them two years ago!

Happy Birthday Eve!

It has been one big party at our house with having the girls birthday's back to back. Evie turned the big 5 this year! Eve was also able to start kindergarten this week which was really exciting! We love to have Evie in our family. Eve gives out the best smiles and one of my favorite things that Evie does is when she sings in the car. Some songs are made up while others are ones which she has learned at church or school. It makes me smile because it is super cute and it reminds me of my sister.

Eve on her birthday requested macaroni and cheese and hotdogs on the side for dinner. Afterwards we had cake and ice cream. Eve asked, "You're going to make my princess cake, right?" the day before her birthday. So, I didn't want to disappoint. I must say her cake turned out better this year than last year's cake. Let's just say I am definitely still learning... I have to say Barbie looks pretty good considering Lincoln was caught starting to undress her.

Happy Birthday Kaitlyn!

Kaitlyn is officially in the double digits. She turned the big 10 this week!

Kaitlyn is such a blessing to have in our family. She is such a kind and loving girl. She is definitely growing up and is a huge help and loves to hang out with the adults.

On Kaitlyn's birthday she picked stuffed shells for dinner and rolls. For dessert She decided on brownies and root beer floats. In this picture Kates was trying to decide on what to wish for.

Kaitlyn's big present was her own sewing machine! Here she is testing it out. She also received some fabric to make a quilt.

The day after Kaitlyn's birthday we had her party with her friends at our house. Her theme this year was Pandas. So of course we had a Panda Pajama Party!

Each girl received one of these felt pandas

For our craft each girl was given a wooden cut out of a bear to paint. After they were dry we attached a magnet strip to the back so the girls can hang them up in their lockers.

In their favor bag each girl received one of these Japanese erasers and black and white candies (hershey kisses and tootise rolls)

Chocolate Chocolate cake! Yum!

Happy Birthday Dad

Happy birthday to my wonderful Dad!

We were so lucky to have my parents here on my Dad's birthday!

We love you Dad, a.k.a. Papa!

I love this picture because Dad was counting to ten and then let the kids blow out the candles with him. He is so good to include them and always make them feel special.

Ahoy Thar Matey!

This picture is of Reuben on his actual birthday. He picked to have brownies and ice cream for dessert. Reuben was so excited that he had cub scouts on his birthday and is sporting his uniform in the picture.

This year Reuben really wanted a Big Foot themed party. Yeah, not the monster truck the legend. Ryan and I thought, okay we can make this work. We thought of having the boys go on an expedition to see if they can find any evidence of Big Foot. Ryan would dress up in costume and the boys would be able to have a couple of "sightings" of Big Foot. So we looked for the costume and found that Big Foot costumes aren't cheap (who would have thought).

So we had to ask Reuben what his second choice was for a theme. Reuben picked a pirate theme which ended up being much easier! The boys dressed up like a pirate, decorated treasure chests with markers and jewels, played get the gold in the bottle, smashed open a pinata, and played treasure treasure who's got the treasure.