Tag Archives: Milestones

Happy 6th Birthday Lex!

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I’m filled with emotions today, but I’m going to keep this short and sweet because my thoughts don’t often come out well through my fingers. Instead I’ll just say Happy Birthday (quietly) to the sweetest little boy I know. The boy who made us a family. The boy who changed my world forever. The boy who can make me laugh, cry, yell, and hug, all within the span of six minutes. I love you Lex. Thank you for being you. A strong, confident, silly, smart, loving little boy.

Happy Birthday!

birthday table

I like to leave a little something for them to find on birthday mornings. I was also going to make a special breakfast, that didn't happen, so instead he had oatmeal with leftover chocolate "dirt" sprinkled on top. He was happy.

early morning

It's 6:00am and this is his "put down the camera and let me open presents" face.

rubiks cube

A Rubiks cube. It's good to challenge your brain at 6am, right?

x

Lex had show and tell today and he had to bring in something that starts with the letter X. He chose to draw a xylophone with his fancy new markers. I love this boy!

I uploaded all of the birthday party pictures to Picasa. Check ’em out! (just click on the little picture below)

Lex's 6th birthday party

Tonight we are going out to dinner to celebrate. When I ask about their dinner choices they always choose “out” instead of me cooking for them. I try not to take that personally! Lex threw us a curve ball today by requesting Friendly’s instead of Panera Bread. Assuming he doesn’t change his mind, that’s where we’ll be headed tonight. I can’t wait for him to come home from school!

A birthday party sneak peek

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I’m super tired and about ready to pass out, but I wanted to post a few pics for those who couldn’t be there for Lex’s party this weekend. I’ll post more during quiet time tomorrow. For now…

monkey

The birthday monkey testing out the monkey bars. He's good at them!

eager swingers

Eager swingers, patiently waiting (kind of) for the swingbar to be ready.

happy kids

Ahh... this is what I've been waiting for all these weeks. Swing set up. Children playing happily. Life is good.

reach for the trees

Reach for the trees!

cake

Cake time! Can you believe he's almost six?! It makes me want to cry!
In a happy way. Usually.

bagels

Bagels for dinner. His choice, of course. Sandwich fixings as well. We did cake first, then presents, then dinner.

lego truck

Lego love

Hope that will tide you over for now. I promise more pictures soon to come. Thanks to all who attended. We had a fantastic weekend! Those who couldn’t make it were missed. Hopefully we can see you all again soon!

It was hard choosing just a few pictures to post! Also, I have to say, one of my favorite parts of this weekend is that Lex happily smiled for the camera. Many times! He’s so good to me.

Happy 4th Birthday to Eve

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Happy, happy birthday to my big girl today! Just four short years ago today we welcomed her into this world, forever changing our little family. Lucky, lucky us!

Today she woke to find a little birthday something waiting for her.

Birthday table

Happy Birthday Eve!!

pink eraser

A tiny pink Samuri eraser makes her say "awww"

ribbon

Ribbon on packages is kind of like torture to small children.

crown

Lex picked out a flashing "Birthday Girl" tiara for her. She loved it :)

hugs

Big birthday hugs

The chocolate cupcakes I made for her party this weekend didn’t turn out well (literally, they did not turn out of the wrappers well and made a huge mess) so last night I whipped up a batch of yellow cupcakes (thanks Betty Crocker!) and this morning we put Cool Whip, red sprinkles, and raspberries on top.  They were a big success with her friends at school.

cupcakes

Decorating cupcakes

fancy cupcakes

Like my snazzy cupcake transport system? They all made it to school, safe and sound.

After school we decorated a princess mirror, put together her new puzzle, ate lunch, and spent an hour watching videos of her first year. That was fun.

mirror

Eve's friend got her a Decorate Your Own princess mirror. Eve loves it.

puzzle

This was a gift from me, but it ended up being much harder than I had antipcated. We did it though!

This is Eve’s favorite…

This is one of my favorites (it’s hard to choose just one!)…

Now she is napping (which took some effort on my part!) and this afternoon we are off to swimming lessons again and then out to dinner at a restaurant of her choice, which is still undecided. It is a lovely day.

Sick days

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We have been dealing with an interesting sickness in Lex this week. Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning he said his stomach felt bad and he needed to throw up. He never actually did throw up (then) and he seemed fine otherwise (no fever, ok energy, ok color, etc.) so I sent him to school on Wednesday. I was wondering if maybe it was nerves more than actual illness because he kept saying his stomach was “flipping over.” He apparently did ok, but when he got home he ate a few bites of snack, threw up, then fell asleep in my arms on the couch at 4:45. Alan got home awhile later and put him to bed and he slept straight through until 6am Thursday morning. He woke up happy and ready to go to school. I chatted with his teacher Thursday morning at drop-off and she had two theories. She said on Tuesday his best friend announced that they were no longer best friends, but apparently continued to play with Lex all day Tuesday and Wednesday anyway. She said other than the statement he made there seemed to be no change in behavior. She also said that they played the game that Lex doesn’t like in gym class again last week, after not having played it for a long time. He did fine Thursday, but when he got home today he spent the afternoon on the floor saying his belly hurts and he needs to throw up. Fortunately he didn’t actually throw up this time.

I’m left wondering if he is really sick or feeling anxious or something. One thing I do know is that he is VERY tired. We’ve had several busy weeks and weekends with lots of travel and I think he (and all of us!) just need a rest. We are looking forward to a low-key weekend coming up. Eve has one birthday party to attend, but otherwise I think we are going to be camping out at home.

Wednesday night when I brought Eve up to bed we found Lex sleeping like this:

lex sleeping p1

lex sleeping p2

lex sleeping p3

Our official “throw up bowl” is in there somewhere and for a minute I was worried he was going for the bowl in his sleep and missed. I was quite nervous about what we would find under that pile. Fortunately, it was just him, sleeping. Crazy sleeper!

By the way, did I mention that he is completely out of diapers now? I think it has been a month or two now that he has been sleeping in underwear and waking up dry. Yay!

Eve’s first haircut!!

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After a few years of joking about Eve not needing a haircut until she’s at least seven years old, my definition of “need” seems to have changed. Instead of waiting for it to be in her face (well, one long piece already is!) I decided that if it takes me more than five minutes to get the tangles out each night, maybe it needs a trim! She’s great about standing still and being patient each night, but it was time for change. I also thought that instead of laughing about her hair and calling it “crazy” for many more years, I thought maybe I should be responsible and actually take care of her hair! :)

tangled mess

Eve's tangled mess

combed mess

After lots of detangling.

smiling eve

Smiling Eve :)

eve in the chair

Eve in the chair. She was super excited, but got shy and quiet when the moment arrived.

eve

She's so pretty

wet curls

It's still pretty curly when wet.

Lex

Lex also got his hair cut today. He was not as calm and cooperative as she was.

backs of heads

I tried to get a nice after photo, but got this instead :)

After haircuts we went grocery shopping. It was a busy morning! Eve fell asleep on the floor during quiet time.

nap on the floor

Tired Eve

baby eve

She fell asleep and I grabbed the camera. I love this peaceful baby face.

After quiet time / nap time we went to the dentist! Busy day. At the dentist I learned that Lex’s top two 6yr molars are coming in, which explains his constant drooling, and why we have to tell him a million times a day to get his hand out of mouth. Apparently he’s teething! I wonder if it also explains his current round of total obstinance?!

lex at the dentist

Lex in the chair.

eve at the dentist

I like hearing that I'm doing a great job with the teeth brushing. They both got compliments on their clean teeth :)

Dry nights

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I hope I’m not about to jinx this, but Lex has had 11 dry nights in a row. After five nights with a dry diaper he opted to try sleeping without the diaper. He’s tried once or twice in the past and always wet his bed pretty quickly… but so far he has been dry every morning! Perhaps he’s all done with diapers…? Not unheard of at this age :)

Happy Birthday to Me!!

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I had a great birthday today.  Thank you everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes.  We went out to dinner last night with Grandpa and Grandma, came home with fun balloons that entertained the kids for hours (well, maybe like 1/4 hour anyway!), until we opened the bag of books from Grandma… and the kids plopped right down to read.

Books and balloons

Books and balloons

This morning started with presents from mom at 6am.  They arrived in the mail on Wednesday and the kids have been dying to open them, even though I keep telling them there will be nothing fun for them.  First thing this morning we were opening presents anyway.  They had fun, despite the fact that the presents were for me :)

Lex went to school and Alan stayed home today.  We had a nice day.  Alan did lots of “honey do” tasks like hanging the memo boards in the kids rooms and cleaning the windows.  I did some cleaning (yeah, not a super fun birthday activity, but it’s sooo nice to have a clean house!) and then baked cookies.  When Lex came home we had a family snack together, which was nice.  We all got hepped up on birthday cookies then went outside to run around!  It was sunny and in the mid 50’s today.  Can’t ask for better weather for a November birthday!!

Lex up high

Lex on top of the swing set

Lex up close

Lex up close (he was adorable tonight, I took lots of pictures of him!)

Parrish and Eve

I tried to get a picture of all three of them. It took some convincing for Lex, but Parrish and Eve were all smiles.

Three kids

This the best I could get of the three of them.

When it got dark we came in for dinner.  While I was cooking Lex decided to take some pictures.  He’s pretty good with the camera.

Birthday girl

Birthday girl! The prettily packaged cookies are not for me, they are for a pregnant birthday girl coming to vist tomorrow. She should be eating many more cookies than I should!

Me and Lex

I actually took this one, at his request, because my arms are longer. :)

Eve

Eve, up close!

After dinner it was the usual routine, bath, stories, bed.  The kids were perfect.  While I was laying with Eve I whispered “Thanks for celebrating my birthday with me today” and she whispered back, “It wasn’t really your birthday because we didn’t eat any cake.”  :)  Love it!  I guess by those standards tomorrow will be my birthday.

Eve writing

One more picture. Eve made cards for our friends tomorrow. She worked diligently until she had a nice card for each of them.

I’m off now to fold some laundry and watch some 30 Rock!  Happy birthday to me!

Eve’s first day of school

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Eve started preschool today. I had serious empty nest syndrome. Is that possible when your kids are three and five? Anyway, she seems to be very happy. Alan and I brought her in together this morning. She greeted the teachers (a real teacher and four high school seniors), hung up her backpack and hat, and said hello to two kids we already know. When the time came for us to leave she gave us hugs and took off to play. Easy peasy. When I picked her up she said she had fun, but didn’t really convey much of her day (and by day I mean hour and 45 minutes!) She said she likes the teacher and she had graham crackers and juice for snack. That was it. But she was happy and says she wants to go back tomorrow, so I guess that’s a good thing. Lex wanted to be late for school this morning so he could go check out her classroom. Not sure if it was curiosity or protectiveness or what. He insisted I take pictures (um, sure, no problem!) and bring the camera to the bus stop so I could show him the pictures as soon as he got off the bus. I did just that and he was happy. Eve is always happy when the bus comes and drops off Lex. Tomorrow we do it all again, this time adding in an hour (at lunch/nap time) at the gym for me. Hope that goes well!

ready for school

Eve on her first day of preschool

classroom

Her classroom

hanging up her hat

Eve knew exactly what to do when she saw a cubby with her name on it. Hat and backpack on the hook, kitty on the shelf.

playing at the sand table

Eve was excited to see the sand table full of beans! The girl next to her is a sibling of one of Lex's prek classmates, and Eve considers her a friend.

so sweet

I don't know why, but this struck me as so sweet.

One more from Lex…

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On Thursday I volunteered to be a monitor on the bike path for the “bike/walk to school” day.  Did I mention this?  I’m sure I have.  We all hurried down the hill and Eve and I stood on the path for half an hour watching kids go by, while Alan walked to school with Lex.  Thursday afternoon when he got off the bus, Lex asked me, “Mom, how did you do today?”  I said “With what?” and he said “With watching the kids on the bike path this morning.”  It was so sweet because this is the first time I remember him ever asking about my day.  He tells me about his day all the time, but I don’t think he’s ever asked me about my day.  So sweet!