My Girl is Ten

The big surprise bathroom was a success. Since Emily films so many youtube videos, I thought it was only fitting that I filmed the reveal. You can skip the minute after I leave and when she gets to the bathroom. She was taking forever.


As soon as I woke up this morning, she was ready to open presents.  She's been wanting the download of the Minecraft game on the computer.  This envelope told her we were downloading it today!

I think she was hamming it up for the camera.

She also got some snap circuits and nice cards from her Grandparents.

Then, she spent the entire day playing Minecraft. David took them swimming too while I napped. See, Emily likes all her favorite things on her birthday which means I barely left the kitchen.

Here's her favorite dinner, roast with mashed potatoes, carrots and rolls with lots of gravy.

We say grace at dinner, but it was getting difficult before dinner. Sometimes, by the time I fix everyone's plate, they are almost done and I'm just sitting down. So, sometimes we do grace after dinner. Tonight was after. We were holding hands and Rocko came over and got right in it. The kids held his ears. It was so cute. He's a great dog.

Then, she wanted a pumpkin roll for dessert. This is by far the most time consuming, most difficult dessert out there. But, I make it for her every year. She likes nuts on her half.

The annual Dad and her picture on her birthday.

Dad smothering her with love.

And finally, a big wish.

I'm not sure what she wished for, but I wish for her another year of happiness.

We love you baby girl.

A New Grown Up Space

My girl turns 10 tomorrow!  Yes, 10!  How did that happen?  I've been telling her for some time that we will redecorate the bathroom down the hallway since I've decided it's Emily's only.  We have three bathrooms.  The boys can use another one.  She needed a space that felt more hers.  Her body is changing and although, she is still comfortable out in the open with her brothers, it's good that she have some space that is all hers. Well, hers and her Dad's since he showers in there in the morning as to not wake me up!

I've had these tropical frog decorations for over 10 years.  Funny, I hate frogs.  Tropical or otherwise.  Oh, excuse the date stamp.  I don't know how that got on there, but when I saw these pictures, it was the first thing I took care of, date stamp...off! Plus, it's off a day?

We went with an owl theme since she loves owls and even after the owl fad is over, they are so cute that I won't mind them either.  They are cute, but not too nursery like.

I printed up these pictures on the internet and then painted the matte frames pink, so they girly up the place a little.

.
I'm trying to keep it a surprise for tomorrow. So, I'm telling the kids I clogged the toilet and I locked the door. I need Dad's help to unclog it. I'm hoping they don't realize that I've probably used that toilet 5 times in 7 years. I never go in there really. I don't know if I can pull off the surprise until tomorrow, but at least until David comes home.

It's probably a good thing too that she never reads my blog!

Bringing Home the Bacon

If you know my boys, you know they LOVE bacon. We cook an entire pack every week for waffle Sunday and they eat the entire thing. There are probably 12-15 pieces and David, Emily and I are lucky to get a piece each. Our local grocery store was doing a contest to submit your bacon art and win free bacon for a year. I noticed the entries were low, so I told Ben to come up with something. He came up with Bacon Bread Boys and even came up with the little saying. I made it into a collage and submitted it.

Fry's picked the top 15 and from there it was up to the six pictures with the most "likes" on Facebook. I solicited everyone I could think of to vote and even promoted it twice on my work's Facebook page. It worked! We came in second overall, and that means we get free bacon for a year and 2 tickets to a Coyotes game! David is excited about the Coyotes tickets. I'm excited about the bacon.

So, yea for us!!! Let's see, we can make bacon potatoes, bacon shrimp, bacon butter, bacon waffles, bacon kabobs.... We'll be like Forest Gump, but with BACON!

Staying Busy

Now that I have 7 hours a day without kids, I think I could easily get sucked back into Young and the Restless and other daytime TV.  But, the kids are starting week four of school and I have to say that I've only turned on the TV to listen to Pandora or to watch Breaking Bad reruns when I unload the dishwasher and eat lunch.  

I'm glad I have a job and it keeps me busy.  

I'm glad I can volunteer in the kids' classrooms.  Last week, I was in Ben's class and he wrote about his life.  I was dying when I got to this picture of his neighborhood.  You can tell we don't think too highly of our neighbors to the right, since Ben called them "useless neighbors".  The guy on the left is always home, has a BMW and landscapers.  I guess that makes him a lazy rich guy.   I was cracking up. 

This picture of Noah had me cracking up too.  He's a riot and so flippin' cute.  He's learning so quickly and surprising me on what he is picking up.  He's smart!

And here is how I spend about four mornings a week.  I swim 70 laps which is 1 mile.  I have to get there by 8, so I'm done by 9 when the water aerobics ladies get there.  I love it.  The first 20 laps, I think I may die.  But, then I get 30 and 40 done and I realize I'm not dying.  Then, I'm in the homestretch.  I love pushing off the wall and coasting through the blue water.

Between cleaning, work, couponing, swimming, volunteering and running errands, I feel like I don't have enough time in the day to get everything done.  But, I'm enjoying myself!

Birds to Batman

I walked into Ben's room tonight to find Noah on the top of Ben's dresser getting ready to jump. So, I did what any good mother would do and I grabbed my camera.  I think he was pretending to be Batman.


Now, this should look really familiar if you've been following this blog since 2008. I love keeping a blog and being able to look back at events easily. You can see the post of Emily and Ben doing the same thing here, but they were birds.

Some things never change...

Around Our House

Things have been really busy around here. The first few weeks of school, Grampie visiting, Noah's birthday, Emily's early birthday party, my new found love for swimming laps, volunteering at school. I haven't come up for air yet.

Grampie left this morning. He was here for 12 days. We all enjoyed his company. The kids enjoyed dinner outside with him too!



Ben came running out of school last week super excited. He lost his front tooth. I've been waiting for those ones because I wanted to see him look all jack o lantern cool. His bottom ones came out, but his big ones were already there pushing them out. Now, he looks like this when he smiles.


Whatever...


I also helped in the kids' class. How cute is Noah?

We were trying to do away with big parties for the kids. But somehow, Emily and her BFF decided they wanted a joint party. She had fun and that's all that matters I suppose.


It was an owl theme.



The girls painted owls. They each had two. Emily took so much time with hers that she only got one done.




Emily got lots of owl things.



And other goodies...




They got matching owls.


Here are the girls with one of their finished owls.


Then, I drove all the girls to a yogurt shop where they get to add their own toppings. Boy oh boy, was that a loud car ride!



And now, I'm ready to start a new week. I think...

Five

My little man turned five this weekend! Wow, where has the time gone? Seriously, this feels like the quickest five years ever. Maybe because he came into this world with so much excitement and I remember it so vividly that it seems like five years hasn't lapsed.

Birthdays are all about their favorite things.

He requested monkey bread for breakfast.


It was a school day on Friday, so I packed his favorite lunch of salami. I also sent in Lofthouse cookies for his entire class. It's his absolute favorite. When he got home from school, he wanted to open his presents, but I told him he had to wait until his Dad got home. He's never been so excited to see David in all his life!


He got right to it. Ben cracks me up in these pictures. He's as excited as Noah because really, he gets to play with all the new toys too.







We didn't have a big party for Noah. We are trying to do away with that. But, he got lots of great gifts including money from his grandparents. Our friends got him a drum set, thanks a lot! And Aunt Pam even sent him a gift. Everything was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.



See, David and Ben were super excited to play with Noah's new toys.


No birthday cake for Noah, he doesn't eat cake. He wanted more Lofthouse Cookies!


And to top off his birthday, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie came out on his birthday. We went Saturday morning first thing to see it. It was a great movie!


I can't believe my little monkey boy is growing up. He truly is such a fun kid. Sure, he can be demanding and not very patient, but he's smart and funny and loves to cuddle. We are so glad he's ours.