5's a Crowd; 6 is a Party!

Monday, June 30, 2014

FOUR and FABULOUS!

I could have sworn we just got home from the hospital with our snuggly 6 lb 8 oz. little girl, but it appears she is now a spunky, sweet, smart, beautiful, creative FOUR YEAR OLD. Here is a look at all the four year old fun:

Grandma and Grandpa came a few days before her birthday and surprised her with this extra special Build-A-Bear creation, who she promptly accessorized and named Elsa, of course.

Elsa was immediately a member of the family. Here she is sharing our special early birthday lunch at Zoe's after our Build-A-Bear creation

Liam and Rylee both have excellent timing like their older brothers and picked the week of Rylee's birthday to get really sick and give all their germs to Mommy too, so our celebration was a bit subdued, but we still managed to party.

This girl woke up READY for 4!

...and to open presents. Here are some of her faves:

Anna, her new American Girl doll

Minnie Mouse

a Frozen blanket!!

She got a special birthday lunch downtown with Daddy...

And a mani/pedi at Salon Mommy...

And her choice of a Redbox movie.

Her big Cinderella bash was the following weekend:

Of course, Mommy had some help putting together the dishes for the party.

The royal spread

The star of the royal ball

MYO Crowns

An impromptu game of hopscotch broke out in the backyard

And, if you can believe it, there were MORE PRESENTS!

And yummy CAKE!

Aaaaaand she's already talking about her fifth birthday.... Sigh...

Friday, May 23, 2014

The Bunny Cometh

Mommy is so behind. But before it becomes NEXT Easter, she is determined to catch up. We will skip right over all the fun things that have happened since my last post, including Sesame Street Live, the tournament, meeting Coach Cal, Valentine's Day, and St. Patty's Day, in the interest of getting to the here and now. Here's a look at our fun Easter.

Decorating some giant Easter eggs for our VIPs

Mass Egg Dying Chaos

If you give a Liam an eggie...

Making hidden surprise Rice Krispie treat eggs...

...with Sous Chef Liam's help, of course

The Bunny came!!! (and Rylee was so excited she almost emptied the entire basket before Mommy even got to her camera)

Liam was skeptical... "So, this giant bunny comes and leaves stuff in our baskets? There's GOT to be a catch."

A breakfast fit for a bunny

Some of us ate with our shades on

Funny bunny

All ready for the annual Easter egg hunt at Memaw and Pepaw's

Rylee is an old pro by now...

...While Liam preferred to shake the bejesus out of each egg he found. M&Ms make a cool noise, you see.

Waiting patiently for a slice of Easter cake (read also: stalking)

The Motherload of Sidewalk Chalk

Doing Easter dinner right, Mexican restaurant style

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

A Monster of a Birthday

I tried and I tried to keep him teeny tiny forever, but my baby boy turned one last month. He's still a small fry, although to us he looks way bigger than he should be; he is still a bulldozer (prefers to go through things than around them); he is still eating us out of house and home, he just prefers a different style of cuisine now; he's still the happiest baby on the block; he's even more mischievous than ever (often egged on by his big sister); and, thank goodness, he's still a snugglebug. He's not quite walking yet, but he stands and cruises quite efficiently and walks with help very well. It seems he thinks crawling is just way faster. And we're a-ok with that. A lot of cool things happen when you turn one. Here's a peek at some of them.

All bowtied up for his big party (and showing off his Michael Strahan teeth)

No monster bash is complete without a monster buffet

Liam's siblings getting into the theme of the day

He really loved his cake, you see. Favorite part was the cakepops.

The downside of the birthday weekend: watching the Bengals bungle with Grandpa

First ice cream! "More, Daddy, more!"

Assaulting some new toys

Posing with Grandma and Grandpa

Cow's milk was another one year milestone. A big hit. Mommy has officially been replaced.

And apparently the cake at the party was just a warm-up. He was just toying with it compared to what he did to this poor unsuspecting cupcake on his actual birthday.

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

Walkin' in a Windshield Wiper Land

The title of this blog is brought to you by Christmas Carol Lyrics by Rylee. We'd like to take a moment to wish you all a very merry, very belated Christmas and a happy New Year. We had an excellent Christmas here at home with all the babes and there were lots of festivities leading up to the holiday. Here's a sampling of the Christmasing:

First, there were tree lightings and such:

No Light Up Westport Village is complete without a hug from the Cow himself!

I tried to tell her Mommy has done ice sculptures before, but she didn't seem convinced. This one was cool, anyway!

The first Christmas jammies of the season!

Mini Ho Ho Ho Hobens

Advent calendar time!

Rosebud the Elf came back again this year. Here we are reading about him and his elfen magic on his first night back from the North Pole.

Kicking off the Christmas movie schedule with some hot chocolate and popcorn.

We went to cut down our tree on quite possibly the worst night humanly possible and it was coated with snow and ice when we finally brought it out of the freezing cold and into the house, but it made for a really cute picture!