Mario Time

For Matthew's birthday this year, he chose Mario! I did my first attempt at a Mario man. I wanted to carve him out and do a big giant cake, but in the end I decided to just do a normal cake and "paint" Mario on the top. I realized too late that the arms didn't match but even still, I think it came pretty dang close. And most importantly, Matthew thought it was awesome!  Here's a peek into his birthday celebration!  I still can't believe I have a SIX YEAR OLD!

busy busy busy

Life is just so busy it seems. We are constantly going. Even at the house I can't sit still because a certain small person thinks I should hold him all . the . time . I'm constantly pacing between the kitchen and living room and kitchen and living room and ... you get the point. I will say though that he's such a good baby. He now has six teeth, and you'd never know it. He never cries or complains about them, he's so chill and wonderful. God knew that I needed a little calmness in my life and gave me my sweet Micah bear. Last week, Micah had a playdate with "cousin" Katherine. (translation: Mommy and Laura went walking but you know...) It is fun to watch him watch her. Here's a little before shot.



Also over the weekend, we celebrated Papa's birthday. Check out my cool golf cake I made. I am loving this one! Matthew helped me crush up vanilla wafers for the sand trap (thank you Publix for the BOGO sales!) and decided where the water should be and such. It was really fun to make this cake with my assistant Matthew. Matthew is such a joy these days. He's gotten "grown up" seemingly overnight. He helps empty the dishwasher and other small chores with supervision. He's able to help pack his own lunch and it's fun to send him to the store (stockpile storage room) for things the kitchen is out of. He's so very helpful! We made a trifle for church Sunday, and he helped me layer all the cookies between layers. It's neat watching him be such a big boy. And Mark is so chomping at the bit to help out too. It's fun to give him tiny tasks and watch him execute them. (Ah, I got distracted bragging on my boys... we were celebrating Papa's birthday, right?!)

Papa even took the flag out, lined up the putter (knife), and hit the ball in the hole!

We really had a nice time. The cake was after a super yummy birthday dinner, if I do say so myself. It is so neat to have Jamie's parents close by now. Saturday, after cake and after the boys went to bed, we enjoyed a game of Spades together. Sandy has been joining me for Bible Study and is able to keep the boys some which has been such a neat blessing. Mark got to spend a whole morning doing puzzles and games with Grandma one on one last week and I just love it. And so do the kids.

Mark's Gator Cake

There a things you just never thought when you were little, dreaming about being a mommy some day, that you'd find yourself saying or doing (or hearing, for that matter!)... I never knew that I'd be so obsessed about making the boys' cakes each year. But I am. I'm a little crazy about it. And seriously, since Mark's very first cake -- which I think was my coolest one -- I just try to keep bettering myself. So far he's had a giant snowman cake, last year's decent size Blue's Clues cake, and then this year.... Alligator Cake! The conversation about a month ago went like this:

Me: Mark, what do you think you'd like to have on your birthday cake this time?
Him: Well... I do a Percy Cake.
Me: A Percy Cake?! Why? You want a Percy Cake?
Him: Yup.
Me: Why?
Him: Matthew had a Percy Cake.
Me (thinking... grrrrrreat.) : Mark, you don't even like trains, honey. Why do you want a train cake... wouldn't you like to have something else? Anything else?
Him: Oh. I like cake for my birthday.
Me (thinking... good. we're getting somewhere. let's talk about Mark's likes): You like animals.
Him: Ohhhhhh Yeah!
Me: What kind of Animal do you want on your cake? (I'm so thinking he'll say Cat or Dog)
Him: Well Momma, .... .... .... I do like a Alli-Gator.
Me: (blank stare)
Me: Huh?
Him: (nodding)
Me: Alligator?
Him: Yup I dooooooo like a Alli-Gator.
Me: Alligator.
(I'm thinking GREAT. Just great. What the heck did I just do? I could have made another Percy Train cake, and been done but nooooo... now I gotta figure out how to make an ALLIGATOR CAKE?! SHOOT.)

Later... at Thanksgiving we repeated the story and my sister, who was trying to guess his cake, goes "Do you want a Giraffe cake?" I about smacked her! Don't make it any harder! ... he goes "Ohhh YEAH!" Fortunately she got him to want his Alligator back... ha! Can you see me making a giraffe cake? I know I don't have the counter space for that thing!

Anyhow... so, here we are... we celebrated Mark's birthday a little early this year and he got to enjoy his very own Alligator Cake. Here's a few pics from his party...

10 on Tuesday

1. How did this happen? Micah is two months old today? Life continues to spiral away from me some time. Now is one of those times. When the pediatrician's office called to confirm Micah's two month appointment, I sort of sat there on the phone thinking, "Huh. Really?" How is he two months old already? But look at this face!! He's so stinkin' cute. I can't stand it some times. My blondie with blue eyes. He's so pretty. I just took this tonight, so it's accurate. Two months and bright eyed.

2. You see that child there, in the next picture?
The one holding his baby brother...

Yah, we just signed him up for Kindergarten.... I have such mixed feelings about this. I know he's ready to go. But given our food history, it's hard to release him into the wild, I mean... let him go off to "big" school by himself and do lunch every day and and and... He's ready for it though. He keeps asking if it's August yet. HOW do I have a Kindergartner?


3. Speaking of food issues... Matthew has done really good lately. I was so concerned that bringing a baby home into the mix of things would really hinder or make us back track and truly, that hasn't happened. Matthew's done a great job lately of trying new things and eating the foods we've already established. We do have bad moments, but they aren't all bad. The biggest thing is being able to make a sandwich for lunch. AND he doesn't seem to mind what kind of jelly/jam we use with it. Which is neat. I was STUCK on grape jelly as a kid and I'm happy to report that I now like other kinds.


4. With our picked strawberries, I'm really tickled proud to say that I actually made my very own strawberry jam (with the help of a sweet friend, thank you L) and I'm so pleased. It turned out really well. I plan to give a few jars away, but it's really nice to have something on the shelf that I MADE for my family to eat. And with the amount of pbjs I see in my future for school lunches, these jars will be eaten up. I'm hoping to go picking again just for the objective to make batches of jam.


5. I have made a post about Mother's Day in years past but this year do you know what... I didn't have Jamie take a picture with me and Micah. OOOPS. I will say though that his dedication day was Sunday and I have some pictures of this. They aren't great but that's okay. The important thing is that we stood with our church family and pledged to raise Micah in the eyes of the Lord, training him up to know his heavenly Father as best we can.

Here's Micah getting his diaper changed before the
dedication at church. Look at him as if to say
"Here fine. Here I am. Do you have to keep taking pictures of me?"

Please notice the cute bear pjs. Sigh. Mommy forgot the dedication outfit at home. Good job Mommy. Honestly, I know it doesn't matter in the long haul and it was fitting that his pjs the night before were bear ones. Our little Micah Bear.

The whole family after he'd been dedicated.

And here's what it looks like after such a long and busy day....

6. Family night--- Mother's Day night, we put in the movie Tangled and popped pop corn and shared in really our first ever "family movie night". And you know what? It was fun. Sure we had to stop the movie 4 times for Micah's fussiness and once for Matthew to potty... Mark wanted to eat Matthew's popcorn and and Matthew didn't handle that very well, but all in all it was fun. We enjoyed the movie together and it was nice just being a family.


7. My first "girl cake"...

Here's Kate's version of Tinkerbell. You could tell that, right?

8. ChuckEcheese AKA KIDS VILLE. We went to this very fun place for one of my friend's daughter's birthday party on Friday night last week and wow. there were kids EVERYWHERE. But the boys had a ton of fun. Micah was passed around and survived a bottle out in public instead of me nursing. Matthew found a little independence running around all over. Mark really had a blast with the games. He didn't care (or maybe understand) about the tickets, he just wanted to play the games and ride the car rides. I loved watching them have so much fun.







9. Have I mentioned on here lately how much I love my stockpile room now? Well I do. I love it. I actually went out there and organized a little more today after Mark and I took a publix run spending less than half of what we saved. Coupons rock. I had my first "How do you do that?" conversation with a person behind me at Kroger yesterday. That was cool. I spent 30 something and saved 79 with their Mega Deal event this week. Free is so fun.


10. I'm blanking on a ten so here's just another picture for you...

all three of my boys

Tomorrow he'll be TWO.

How did another whole year pass me by? Tomorrow by baby boy, my beetle bug, my snowman, my Markie will be two. Two. TWO?! How did that happen? Wasn't he just born? Wasn't it just Christmas night and we were bringing him home from the hospital? Do you remember the little bump in the road at the hospital we had to overcome?

(Mark with his IV in for meds)

What a sweet precious gift it was to come home Christmas night with our most blessed present in our arms... My sweet baby boy, you are so wonderful. I love being your mommy. Do you all remember this cute (messy) face from last year's cake experience?

Mark, you continue to floor me with your cuteness. How can one little boy be so cute? Even Matthew will tell him he's being cute from time to time, Mark really is just a cutey pie. I love you to pieces. I was thinking about how you wont be the baby soon the other day when I was rocking you to sleep. Soon you'll be the "middle child" but you will always be my baby. My sweet darling baby. For now you can be the baby and I'll continue to rock you to sleep as long as you like.

Here's a few pictures from his party Monday night,
the theme Blue's Clues if you can't tell from the cake: