Daniel's birthday and Ben's birthday

Okay, so I was slow in getting pictures on the computer from Daniel's birthday and now Ben's birthday has passed too, so I'm just going to combine them in one post.

Daniel's birthday was back in June. He was very, very excited about his birthday. But everytime we asked him what he wanted for his birthday or what he wanted to do on his birthay, all he said was cake. I guess that's the important part of birthdays for him. We didn't do a lot during the day, except for some of the stuff I already posted about, like the trip to the veteran's memorial, but Bryce came home from work a little early and we took all the kids over to the McD's playground and let them play for a bit.

When we were done at McD's, Bryce dropped most of us off at home and he and Daniel went to the store to pick out a present. While they were gone, I finished decorating his cakes for his birthday. I had talked him into wanting my favorite cake for his birthday, which is chocolate cake with vanilla custard filling and whipped cream frosting. We also did some cupcakes with orange and white frosting, since orange is his favorite color.

Here are a few pictures from his birthay:




This one is of him and one of his presents, which was a toy orange snake. Think he likes orange?


Before we knew it, Ben's birthday came around. Ben was pretty excited for his birthday too, and when we'd ask him what he wanted to do, he'd just say he wanted it to be a surprise. Some of his siblings were pretty sick the week and the day before his birthday, so it was nice when everyone was feeling well. Still, we decided that perhaps we'd better stay home in case someone else would get it while we were out. That, and I was pretty busy getting ready to leave for girls' camp the next day.

We did decide to do a birthday activity during the day. We painted some pictures, which the kids have all been asking to do for a while. They had a good time and made a good mess, but I think that's something they'll remember doing for a long time. Ben also did get to have his friend Michael come over and play for a few hours, so I think that made the day for him, since a lot of his friends are in day care and not home during the day.

Here are some pictures of the kids painting and their finished work:






Because Bryce was taking the rest of the week off and his computers at work hadn't been working very well on Thursday and Friday before that, he didn't get home until about 7:30. So after we all ate a late dinner of ribs and macaroni salad as requested by Ben, Bryce and Ben went to the store to pick out his present and to get a few things that I still needed. Since it was getting kind of late and I was going to have to get up early the next morning, while they were gone I decided to take a quick shower. Abby put herself to bed while I was in the shower, despite being pretty excited for Ben's cake. He had wanted a BTS cake for his birthday and it was all ready to go except for the candy toppings that I had forgotten to get at the store and Bryce and Ben were bringing back.

I think it was about 10:00 by the time they got home and we were eating the cake. All the kids were pretty tired by that time and went to bed pretty easily. They usually do go to bed easily, but when they stay up that late, it's even better.

So now here are the pictures from Ben's birthday:




Happy birthday boys!

Summer Activities

So far we've had a fun summer. We've implemented our summer chores, which surprisingly, the boys do really well without complaint. Most mornings, they get up and do them before I even have to bug them about it. It's amazing how motivating it can be to get paid for their work and to not be able to play until they're done can be for the boys. Abby even does her part, but not as much as the older boys.

Since we have the yearly passes, of course we went to the zoo. They actually have a couple new exhibits, so the kids were excited to see the new animals. And I told Ben that our goal was to go there and learn something new about something that we hadn't known before. Ben spent some time at each exhibit reading the information plaques, so I'd say it was a success.

Here are a few pictures from that zoo trip:




Mom and Cindy and her kids came up for a visit for a few days last week and we had a lot of fun. I never did get any pictures though. But while they were here, we went to the zoo again (and got to see the butterflies this time), we went swimming, and ate out a lot. I'm surprised my kids aren't sick of pizza after that trip. I also had Cindy help me touch up the roots of my hair and we colored her hair too. I think the color took hold on her hair more than mine though. It's funny how using the same color can end up with different results, even on identical twins.

Yesterday I spent some time with Ben working on his wolf for Cub Scouts. His birthday is next month and he'll be moving up to the bears, so he wants to finish his wolf first. We actually now have everything except for one thing done, so we should be able to finish in plenty of time. One of the things we did yesterday to help him complete it was to go over to the city courthouse and the veteran's memorial they have there. It wasn't too thrilling for the kids, but it was interesting to see. I expected to see more names on their Vietnam memorial, but their biggest list was for WWI.

Here are some pictures I took of the kids there:









I'm sure this summer is going to go fast. Hopefully we can find more fun things to do to make it a memorable one. We do have a trip to Utah to see some family planned and swimming lessons after that, so I think we'll be able to come up with more fun things to do that don't cost too much money.

And today is Daniel's 4th birthday! I will do a new post after we've done his cake and ice cream. Happy birthday Daniel!

Preschool Graduation

After 8 months of classes, Chris graduated from preschool last Thursday. It was at the same time as Ben's pack meeting, so Bryce took Ben, Alex, and Daniel to pack meeting and I took Chris and Abby to the graduation. That's how Chris wanted it. He can be pretty silly sometimes.

It was actually pretty entertaining for a graduation like that. She kept it short, so the kids actually paid attention and seemed to have fun. I think Chris' favorite part was the dvd slideshow she made and gave to everyone. He will watch it 3 or 4 times in a row and wants to show it to everyone who comes over.

Here's Chris marching in with his class. I could tell they had practiced a little bit.


In this picture, he's leading the class in naming all the months of the year. They started out really well, but started having problems around September. :)


Here they are watching the dvd slideshow.


After every class, they would end with a class hug, so at graduation they did one last group hug. Chris didn't want to join in, but in this picture, he looks like he was sad to be left out. Nope, that's just him.


Here he is with the gift bag his teacher provided. There was a picture of the class, a school t-shirt in his favorite color, and the dvd.


They sang two songs for us all at the graduation. I recorded them both, but the one I was going to post was taking too long to upload, so I gave up. Chris cracked me up because he wasn't really singing, but was mouthing the words with exaggeration. So funny.

Congratulations on your preschool graduation, Chris!

Trying Red

For a long time, I've wished I had the courage to try to dye my hair red, just to see what it would look like. And I could never get the courage to do it. I've done highlights before and liked those, and I'm usually pretty brave when it comes to trying new hair styles, but for some reason I haven't been brave with going red.

The other night I was telling Bryce about that, how I've always kind of wanted to try red. He said, "You should get some red hair color and buy a box of brown too, then if you don't like the red, you can just color it back to brown." Seriously, it had never occurred to me to do that. I knew I could color it back if I didn't like it, but I always kind of thought I'd have to go to the store with my ugly color on my head to buy a new box to fix it.

Anyway, yesterday I was at the store with my 3 youngest kids, and since I was over by that section anyway, I stopped to look at the hair color. I picked up the box of red and asked them if I should color my hair red. Daniel got really excited and said I should, so I decided I could go ahead and buy a box. I picked up a box of brown too, just in case.

Then I got home and debated for a couple of hours if I really wanted to try it. I don't know why it made me so nervous to try. Maybe it's because I've never colored my own hair, and red is a bolder color and isn't quite the same thing as highlights, where most of my hair is still its original color.

Then I finally decided to jump in and do it. My kids were fascinated watching me, and kept coming back to check on me and see what was going on. So far I like it. It's not that much different, so more subtle. Ben and Alex didn't even notice until I asked them if they thought my hair looked different.

So anyway, here are a few pictures I took to show what my hair looks like:

Easter and changes

We've had an interesting week with lots of sickies in the house, including me. I prefer the times when the kids get sick and don't share it. But I will admit that it was fun to be 5 pounds lighter the next day, even if it didn't last.

The day I was feeling better, I was also feeling pretty ambitious, so I moved all the furniture in my bedroom to make room for a large entertainment center some friends had given us, then I moved that into our room and set it up. It makes my bedroom look a little smaller, but since my bedroom is at least as big as our living room in our last house, we've still got plenty of room in there.

Here are a few pictures:




And this one cracks me up, but it's one of Abby's favorite things to do lately. She climbs in one of the cabinets and then yells at me, "Mom, shut the doors! I'm hiding from you!"


And because Abby started climbing out of her crib this week, I decided to move the toddler bed into her room so she could start sleeping on that. All of her brothers had moved out of the crib at an earlier age, but since she's our youngest, I was keeping her in it as long as she'd stay. So far she's actually been really good about staying in bed when we put her there at bedtime. Last night wasn't as fun when she decided she needed to be awake from midnight until about 3:30 (and I finally got her to go to sleep in my bed), but she's been good other times.

With as cold and wet as this spring has been, it's nice to have some reminders at times that it actually is springtime. That's one reason I love the tulips I planted last fall. Here are a few pictures of my youngest 3 checking them out and smelling them:




The Easter Bunny came to our house on Saturday morning. The boys were very excited and couldn't wait to be able to go down and see what he brought them, but were pretty patient waiting for everyone to wake up. And Abby was very excited to go down when her brothers told her there would be candy there. The Easter Bunny morning always seems to be a bit of a let-down to me because it takes about 10 minutes for the kids to check out all their stuff and then find all the eggs hidden in the house. They do seem to enjoy it while it lasts though.

Here are a few pictures of the kids checking out their Easter goodies:




Saturday was a busy day though. Alex and I had to leave for his soccer game right after they were finished looking for eggs (they lost, but they usually do). Then I had to take Ben and Alex to the store to get a present for their friend Kyle, who had invited them to his birthday party. I totally get my mom's frustrations with kids who can't make up their minds after that trip. It took them forever to pick something out for him. Chris was feeling a little left out because he hadn't been invited to the party, so after they left, I took him on a mother/son date and we did his favorite thing to do on an outing like that; we went bowling. It is pretty entertaining to watch him bowl. But I need to remember not to pre-pay for 3 games and just stick to 2. He started getting a little bored halfway through the 3rd. But that was party because he really wanted to try his luck at the claw machine and try to get the yellow dolphin he saw there. I decided to let him try, figuring I could show him how those machines really just waste your money, then he actually won the dolphin. I think that was his favorite part of the whole day.

Here's Chris bowling:


Chris just had a busy weekend. He was really excited when on Sunday he lost his first tooth! He didn't even wait until bedtime before he put his tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. And he's been carrying his money around with him all morning today.

Here he is without his tooth, and holding the tooth in a bag:



So there are a few pictures of our week. Thrilling life, I know. :)