Ella's 2nd

Today Ella turned 2.

(On a side note, high five to me.  This is the 2nd time I haven't cried over one of my kids having a birthday.  That's two birthdays in a row!  Woot!)

Ella freaked out during the birthday song.  Let's be honest, it's so much more fun to see toddlers freaking out over candles than it is to watch an adult blow them out.  I know, I know.  Hand me the Mother of the Year Award.

Evolution of Thad Eating His First Cupcake:

"What is this?  Doesn't matter.  I'll stuff it in my face."

"Oh this is good.  Nom nom."

"I feel a cupcake coma coming on.  Oh this is amaaaaaaazing."

"That was amazing.  I wanna do that again.  Yep.  I'm gonna do it again."

"I can't believe I ate that much.  What. Have. I. Done."

I was busy getting lunch together and when we called the kids to the table Skyler mysteriously came in his Bumblebee costume.  I'm still unsure of exactly why this happened.

We had our friends, the Roths, over one last time before they move to Arizona.  

[Insert one million frowny face emoticons]

But I guess since they know they're supposed to go, I'll let them -- and [try to] be happy for them.

I'm 99% sure this is Awen.

Which makes me 99% sure this is Marinn.

And little Marek!  Skyler's totally going to miss his running buddy!

Sometimes at night I just look at pictures of the kids and wonder how I got so lucky to have such beautiful children.  This is one I adore of Ella.  Her sweet face, chubby legs, gorgeous hair, and infectious personality have Ben and me easily wrapped around her tiniest finger.

I had searched for months to get an Olaf doll for Ella.  Any mom who was doing the same thing knows that for months they were hard to come by unless you wanted to shell out a ridiculous amount of money for one.  So when a 1-day $10 deal popped up I knew I had to grab it.  I stashed it in my closet for months, giddy with anticipation for when she would get to open it.

She pretty much looked at it, said, "Snowman!" and went on to the next present.

Pity hugs are now being accepted.

But this little pup stole the show.  It's a remote controlled dog.  I didn't realize when I bought it that a cord attaches the dog to the remote.  I was a little bummed until I saw that Ella was using it as a leash while she was still pushing the buttons.

"Oh this is nice.  My first walk with a human."

"Wait.  She's dragging me backwards.  Save me."

"Save me!"

"SAVE ME!"

When Ben later took Lily and Skyler to a baptism I gave Ella a big bowl of ice cream as a special treat.  Note Mia watching Ella closely.  Mia is BFF's with the babies when they're eating at the table because they're such sloppy eaters and she ends up with all kinds of delicious treats on the floor.

Then our home teachers came over to bring Ella a birthday present. I think it's safe to say that we have the best home teachers ever.  They even brought me and Ben a homemade cheesecake for our birthdays (which by the way is the best cheesecake ever).  I didn't have to make my own birthday treat!  Ella is obsessed with her new bath foam letters and numbers.  She is so territorial over them that I'm currently not allowed to touch them.

Oh, Ella.  You were the only one of our four that I had to wait for.  And you are more than worth it.  Not a day goes by when you can get away without being smothered in kisses and making me burst out laughing.  You are brilliant and beyond loving.  You love your siblings more than anyone in the world.  You are basically Thad's third mom and your most common sentence is probably, "NO THADDEO!"  You think Mia's name is "Bark Bark -ia.  Awww!"  Your favorite Primary song is Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam and you beg for me or Lily to sing it to you constantly.

Oh my goodness I adore you.  I've told you a million times to stop growing because you're beyond cute.  But every day I take it back in my head because you get even cuter.

Oh the humanity.  If this keeps going on for the next 16 years, I'm a goner.

Rainy Day Photo Shoot

This morning I told Ben I was thinking about taking the kids to the lake to walk around.  I pulled up the weather on the computer and it looked like there was a chance of rain.  I was bummed.  Literally 60 seconds later it started pouring.  So we ran outside to play.

A weird fusion of Lily and Skyler's faces while they're both in the air.

"Smile, Skyler!"

You know, our house is seriously loud sometimes -- to the point where Ben and I can become really impatient.  Noise breaks us down faster than anything else.  But today was a reminder of how wonderful it really is to have all of our kids to close together in age.  Having 4 pregnancies in 5 years was truly hard but also completely worth it.  We knew from the beginning that it would be an investment and that it didn't make financial sense -- or really any other kind of sense -- but we knew our kids would be close and we thought that was the most important thing.  My kids love to play with friends, but at the end of the day they really are each others' best friends and spend the night giggling in their rooms when they should be sleeping.  Where one goes, the others follow.  When one gets a special treat or a trip somewhere they're sad that their siblings don't get the same treatment.  Our life at home really is crazy, but it also really is beautiful.  Your siblings will be your longest friends and I'm grateful my kids are off to a great start.  Even if that means my house is deafeningly loud.

Little Thaddeo

Oh my little Thad.  I wish I could describe how much I love this little guy but words just don't suffice sometimes.  He is my babiest baby and I love his tiny-ness -- even though he is 10 months old and is ridiculously huge for his age.

Thad started crawling when he was 7 months old and has been on the go ever since.  He has zero interest in walking, but cruising is a nice way to grab all the toys that Lily and Skyler think they're hiding from him.  He has 7 teeth and loves to eat everything although there's one food that I can't remember that he "secretly" lets dribble from his mouth.  Hopefully I remember what it is tomorrow so I don't feed it to him.  Ha!  Oh the joys of having to keep up with knowing everything about 4 completely different children.

Thad's favorite things are playing with Skyler at night when he's supposed to be falling asleep in his crib, speed-crawling around the church halls, getting tickled, being bounced on a bed so that he's up in the air, having all of his siblings yell, "Nigh Nigh Thaddeo!" every time he goes to bed, and eating a bunch of women's jewelry and purses in church.  (FYI look at those dimples.  Hello.)

Sigh.  He is so cute.  One thing that people ask me ALL the time is, "Doesn't he just make you want to have another?" which always makes me respond, "No, but we sure are thankful to end on a high note!"  I am thankful Thad came last.  He seems to be so chill with whatever situation he finds himself in.  I feel like after all the vaseline and paint on walls and carpet that I've dealt with, I've earned this baby.  

So Thad, that means you're not ever allowed to change your personality, ok?

At least don't get paint on our carpet.

Goo Goo Dolls

Earlier in the year, Ben and I decided that we would each choose a concert to go to this summer.  I mean, when you can get great deals on Groupon, why not?  On my birthday, Goo Goo Dolls were performing in Raleigh so I knew we had to go.  Ben used to LOVE Goo Goo Dolls and so it didn't take that much convincing to let me buy the tickets for him.  So we got a babysitter and spent the night watching Plain White T's, Daughtry, and Goo Goo Dolls.  

Now, I'll be honest, this is not a concert I would have ever chosen to go to by myself.  I'm not much of a rock person.  But I'm so glad we went because Ben had such a great time and -- get this -- this was his first ever concert.  Whaaaatt?!!  He sang along while I looked like a deer in headlights.  Ha!  I knew Iris so that's got to count for something, right?

The next morning we had our hearing back so I'd say it was a success!

Next month Ben will get his turn to stand awkwardly next to me as I'm rocking out to the One Republic concert.  

Summer Festivities

Summer is my favorite season because, to me, it's the season of playing.

We've been crossing more and more things off our summer bucket list but mostly we're just doing the typical play outside, water the plants, watch a movie, etc.  Here are some of the things we've been doing.

 My kids are obsessed with all things camouflaged.  They even have a game where they hide a few different colored items around a room so that they're camouflaged and then they have the other person find them.  So while I was watering outside the other day I came across this little bug that looked like a leaf.  It had the veins and everything.

 Remember that jello play dough fad that hit a few years ago?  One day we decided to give it a try.  We had a fantastic day of playing with play dough.  I made a rose and Lily and Skyler made Olafs.  We stuffed it in a ziplock to play with again another day when *wabam* it was covered in mold.  Two thumbs down for jello play dough.  

 Thad is my first to love baby swings!  He dies of laughter whenever he's in one.  I'm not sure what this baby doesn't like at this point...

He's mine.  :)

 Lily got a really cool water balloon maker thingy for her birthday and so I thought we'd do a chalk shape bean bag toss kind of a thing.  [Please note that I actually do know how to speak English.]

Well it turned out that we had some seriously tough water balloons because they were just bouncing away like balls.  It took serious effort.  

Grandmum and Pop Pop gave the kids a bubble gun for their birthday.  It has produced all sorts of fun and games.

 We discovered pretty quickly that the bubbles sit on the grass without popping for a while.  The kids loved running through it all.

And Ella has learned how to gently swing herself on the horsey swing!  Happy day!  I think she figured it out because she has recently become proficient on my parents' wooden rocking horse.  She's now obsessed.  I see an dangerous pattern here:

1. Rocking horse.  2.  Horsey swing.  3.  Horse.

Sorry Ella!  Happy birthday in a few days anyway!

Ben's 31st and America's 238th

I'm so grateful to have spent the last (almost) 8 years with Ben.  We, for sure, have had our ups and downs, but I'm so grateful for all the downs because they have made us a lot closer.  So on the 3rd we celebrated Ben's 31st birthday.  

Every birthday Ben has this for breakfast.  You put 24 frozen rolls into a bundt pan and put butter, brown sugar, nuts, and some butterscotch pudding on top.  Every year, we swear it gets bigger as it rises over night.  Ha!

And would it be a suitable day for Ben if bacon wasn't involved in two of the meals?  I think not.  Later for dinner Ben made his own dutch oven dinner.

For Independence Day we headed to the pool.  Lily is officially a swimmer now so that makes it a whole lot less stressful not to have 4 non-swimmers to constantly be watching.  We're so proud of all the work she has done to become an independent swimmer.  Her interest in swimming came in an unexpected way.  When life guards came up with a new rule that you couldn't catch your kids at the bottom of the water slide, Lily was devastated.  So we told her the only way she'd be allowed to go down again was if she learned to swim.  That day alone she made huge progress.  Add to that her swim lessons and it did the trick.  She can jump off a diving board into the deep end and swim to the side on her own.  We're so proud of her!

We went home for much needed naps and we had a delicious grilled dinner with my parents.  They brought some small fireworks and I was devastated to realize that my kids are still deathly afraid of fireworks.  Lucky for them, we had several neighbors in all directions of our neighborhood doing huge illegal fireworks.  It was a great show to watch.... once the kids were in bed.

Thaddeo and I on the plasma car.

I bought the kids pinwheels for the 4th, and Ella was just too precious not to make a video of.