Happy 1st Birthday, Nora!

Nora turned 1 on Thursday and we had so much fun celebrating her!  She is my Mary Poppins baby--practically perfect in every way.  We are grateful for her happiness, flexibility, and good-natured attitude.  I love that she can give kisses now, even though she guards them and only shares them when she wants and not always when requested.  She also started walking this week, which means that if she's awake, she is most likely walking around the house.

Nora had some great sibling helpers for wrapping paper removal.

Andrew, Nora, and I went to Kidzu Museum on her birthday morning.  It was a fun little kid play space that wore us out after a couple of hours, just in time for lunch and a nap.  It was a great way to start a birthday!

I love this sweet girl!  She fills our lives with such joy and love and is the perfect addition to our family.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had such a fun week and it went by so quickly!  We had some friends come stay with us so they could check out the area and do a couple job interviews.  They have 5 kids too (ages 1-7) so the house wasn't lacking in noise, giggling, or fun.  It was awesome!  Everyone had a favorite buddy and we were really sad to see them go.  Our friends have twins who are just a few weeks older than Nora.  She taught them to climb the stairs, pat the dog, and to know the best place to find toys.  Lydia loved having more time with her friend Ella, Abby and 3-year-old Cora were best buds, Sam was the baby whisperer for Henry and Harper, and Andrew was probably the happiest kid in the world having Jake to play with.  Seriously, the boys were up until almost 11 the first night just laughing and pretending to snore.  

It's fuzzy, but these three were so cute together!

The kids got spoiled for Valentine's Day and wanted to take a picture of their treats and cards.  Right after we took this picture, Nora took the bag of chocolate she was holding and kissed it.  She hasn't kissed anyone or anything before so while I was happy she was smart and chose to kiss chocolate, I was a little jealous.  I made her come kiss me a handful of times, but made me super happy and cry a little because baby kisses are magic.  And now I try to make her kiss me, a sibling, or Roy way more often than she wants to :)  She also learned to blow kisses this week.  Such an adorable girl!

Andrew found his sunglasses and hung them on his shirt and announced he was just like Baba Z.  :)

Sam just being Sam.  He put a horse head on and we cracked up and just couldn't resist a picture.

Yesterday we celebrated Roy's 36th birthday.  We had a lot of fun eating at Golden Corral for dinner--it's a family favorite--and spent the afternoon playing together.  It was relaxing and just what he wanted to do to celebrate.

Celebrating Sam

Sam turned 9 on Monday.  He was so excited and counted down for weeks.  I decided to eat lunch with him at school, bring cookies in to share with his class, and then surprised him with having Abby bring cookies to his after-school Chorus rehearsal (where he had 65 kids sing to him).  It was a good day for celebrating with Sam!

The funniest gifts Sam got were bottles of Ranch dressing from Abby and a game he had been looking at for a while called "What the Fish", which we played that night and enjoyed a lot. Sam is such a fun kid, full of laughs and jokes, dotes on Nora, plans fun adventures and activities for everyone, and is so creative.  I love my Sam!

We threw Sam a party for his 9th birthday.  He helped with the prep and planning and was so excited.  After the party, I asked him what his favorite part was and he answered, "Being with my friends!"  Sam helped me make the party list a few weeks ago and we invited 16 boys, thinking that we would get about half here.  We got yeses for everyone (at which point I may have hyperventilated), but 2 ended up not being able to make it.  It was a lot of fun to see Sam with his friends, a lot of loud to have that many boys at our house, and an impressive amount of hugging for a group of boys :)

January in Review

Abby and her friends really want to help the animals at the county animal shelter.  They made a deal with our neighbor who runs our neighborhood food drive--they would deliver the bags to the neighborhood if she would add pet supplies to the list of requested items.  They had a great afternoon delivering bags.  I love that she has good friends!

Abby was super excited that her prescription changed and she gets to get new glasses.  She has a good system for picking the frames and it's fun to watch as she decides how she is going to create her new self :)

We got to celebrate Andrew's half birthday this week!  I can't believe he's 4-1/2.  We celebrate our half birthdays with any treat the half-birthday kid chooses.  Never one to completely follow the rules, Andrew chose frosted animal crackers on top of rainbow sherbet ice cream.  Since he's the only one without a birthday during Dec-Mar, I caved and he got both treats.  It's hard to be the only one missing out on birthday spoiling but he is such a good kid and finds ways to celebrate his siblings but still make sure he gets in on that spotlight at least for a few minutes.

You guys, Nora is 11 months old.  The kids took this picture for no reason other than the fact that everyone loves Nora and wants to have a turn to take her picture :)

Lydia's cousin, Hailey, sent her Flat Stanley so Lydia could take him on an adventure and send back a letter telling all about the fun they had together.  Lydia took Stanley to school and loved it.  Now to write that letter back... :)

We have been doing some massive spring cleaning/dejunking/reorganizing at our house, which means we have remembered some fun things we have.  The kids have loved introducing Nora to toys and costumes they loved as little ones.  Nora has gone back to the costume box, grabbed a costume, and taken it to someone for help multiple times.  She and Sam then played a strange pirate-shark game with Abby in tow as Nora's walking help.

We have a lot of fun at Walmart.  The Valentines monkeys were calling our names...plus Aunt Carla needs more pictures with crazy kids and monkeys!

Abby loves alpacas so we found a nursery nearby that has alpacas to visit.  It was freeeeeezing that day, but we did stop there for 5 minutes and made Abby's whole day.  It was almost worth it for her to spend the whole morning cleaning with us :)

Sam created the Zwahlenosaurus with input from siblings on the Jurassic World Wii game.

I love this quote!

We just felt like we all need to be prepared for the next royal wedding.  

Every time we see pigs, we have to take picture for Far Far.  Dad, I hope you appreciate the fact that it's a purple piggybank pig.  Abby thinks you need it on your shelf.:)

Escape the Party!

We threw Abby a pretty awesome Escape Room style party this year.  The girls had to solve puzzles, do an escape room game, complete challenges, and make music within the 3-hour time period in order to Escape the Party.  We even had clues they had to solve within the invitation in order to get all the details for coming.  It was a lot of fun.  Abby has some amazing friends and I only embarrassed her a little when I did a short  mom speech to tell them thank you for being her friend and to remind them to be kind and loving to each other always :)

Each of the activities we did was something that Abby loves.  They each made a journal, played Escape the Room, had to catch cheeseballs in their mouths, perform Happy Birthday on handbells, eat brownies and ice cream, perform a play using props and costumes in a bag, solve a jigsaw puzzle, and play charades.  Since I was the party planner/executor/baby holder, I didn't get tons of pictures, but here's a sneak peek at the party:

Each girl had to catch 11 cheeseballs in her mouth.  

They were working to solve a puzzle.  They were having fun, but they were definitely focused on completing each of the tasks.

Roy was the victim they had to release.  Each girl had to complete one puzzle challenge to get a key that led to the next challenge.  

The girls made journals with scrapbook paper, modge podge, and glitter.  So much glitter.  In fact, it's been a month since the party and I'm still finding glitter.  

Abby really has a wonderful group of friends.  I'm really grateful for that.  I'm also really grateful for the wonderful girls she has surrounding her in our church Young Women program.  She has surrounded herself with others who are builders--people who support, strengthen, and encourage each other.  Abby is a builder of people as well and I'm grateful she has found others who do the same.  Not only will they do great things in the future, but I am seeing them do great things right now and I am so grateful to be part of it.

Bon Voyage!

Roy's parents begin their 2-year humanitarian mission to Amman, Jordan tomorrow.  We are so excited for and proud of them!  They will do so much good in a place and for people who really need an infusion of goodness and love.  This has been something they have talked about since I met them and I am so excited for them that their dream is now their reality!  We went up to see them and say goodbye a few weekends ago and got to meet up with 3 of the cousins.  The cousins are all so fun and I'm grateful that my kids get to be part of this happy crew.

Group hug!  This is now becoming a tradition for big events :)

We did a very merry unbirthday party to make up for a couple years of missed parties.  We didn't go all out because I only have so much energy after throwing an Abby party and gearing up for a Sam party, but we did have a blast going bowling, eating Hawaiian haystacks, and having all the kids blow out candles on their brownies.  And we HAD to go boys vs girls (plus Roy).  I must document that the girls won, but it was Lydia with the decisive victory points who won the day.

Also, Nora ate her first piece of bacon this weekend.  That's a pretty big deal too :)

We are thrilled to have grandparents going on a mission.  We will miss having them around, but I know that is exactly what they should be doing with their time, energy, and love.

Sam the Wolf

Although Sam finished his Wolf badge in Cub Scouts quite a while ago, we finally had Pack Meeting for him to be recognized.  A couple hurricanes, a snowstorm, the holidays, and balancing other events on Wednesday nights can delay things quite a bit :)  He was thrilled to receive his badge, have his face painted, and collect the rest of his belt loops.  Sam is doing awesome with Cub Scouts.  I'm so proud of him!