Little Slugger

We're not officially having Bladen's 1st birthday party until next week (due to postal stoppage due to the Iceland volcano) so that some of his presents can come in. But we did have our present to him as well as his present from his sisters. So we let him open his 2 presents on his actual birthday. He seemed to know what to do & got them unwrapped amazingly well for a baby. Go Bladen!

The girls gave him each a little wooden car (police car, ambulance, & fire truck) & Trek & I got him a little baseball & bat toy. He looks so adorable with a bat in his hand. He LOVES his toy. He played with it all day long today. He knows he's supposed to hit the ball with the bat, but can't quite do it, so he holds the bat in one hand & pushes the ball around & around in circles with his other hand. The toy lights up & sings "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" which throws him into smiles & giggles. I'm glad he likes it. I guess we hit a "HOMERUN!"

Bladen's Birthday Breakfast

Well, a year has passed & Bladen is one year old. I can't believe how fast they grow up. We woke up bright & early on his birthday so we could celebrate with a birthday breakfast! He was kind of upset at first because we put a ding dong in front of him instead of his bottle, but once he got a taste of the ding dong. . . that bottle was long gone from his memory. He was SO funny. He literally INHALED the ding dong & then cried when it was gone. He's definitely his father's son. Happy 1st Birthday Little Man!

Did I mention I love the Ice Cream Man?

Every Saturday at 3:00, the ice cream man drives his truck through our neighborhood. He knows my kids by name & parks his truck at my front door & rings his little bell. It's our weekly splurge. I can't NOT buy some. This is my creation for this week. . . . a erdbeer cup. (Strawberry Cup) Mmmmm. Is it Saturday yet?

Having Fun At School

Taya & Bladen love to visit their sisters at school. Bladen likes the slide at Lorien's German Kindergarten (which we go to every day) & once a week I take Taya to eat lunch in the cafeteria with Cadence. She loves eating a big girl lunch with all the big kids. I love that my kids love each other.

Taya & her "Popcorn Song"

It's just too cute not to post. I love this age where they can't quite say "everything" but they can say just enough.

BCG's

If you are active duty military & require glasses, the military gives you standard issue glasses. They are known as BCG's or "birth-control glasses." Basically nobody is gonna come anywhere near you if you're wearing them. You can pay yourself & buy NORMAL glasses, but they are required to give you a pair of BCG's as well. So Trek has them, but never wears them. Taya found them the other day & now they're her favorite toy. Isn't she a cutie?

Camp Yardsofun: Day 5

We mostly had fun on our last & final day of Camp Yards-o-fun. We slept in because Daddy had the day off of work & we had a big lunch outside on our table. It's so nice to eat outside in the sunshine! The yard looked so nice & clean. It was WONDERFUL!

After lunch I took the kiddos inside to do a craft: fingerprint flowers. We just made flowers by letting the kids stamp their thumbs on construction paper. They loved it! Taya even did a great job all by herself.

Then we put the fingerprint flowers in a vase on the table outside. Cadence was especially proud of the purple tulip she made with LOTS of fingerprints. They turned out really cute & made an adorable centerpiece.

Then Daddy whipped out the trusty lawnmower & let the girls have a push. They loved that! And the yard looked GORGEOUS once the lawn was mowed. We weed-eated the edges & together we moved the swingset to the other side of the yard for a change of scenery. It looked perfect.

After mowing the lawn I gave the kids their treat for the day. "Thank you for helping with the yard this week. You definitely have a 'green thumb!'" They got little fun dips with green candy sticks inside (green thumb. . . get it? ha ha ha)

All the work we did this week really paid off. Look how beautiful our back yard looks now!

We promised the kids they could do the slip'n'slide for a job well done, but it was still a little chilly to do it outside, so we decided to take them to the indoor swimming pool instead. But I had to get a picture of all four of them together outside in their swim suits. Aren't they adorable? I actually found MATCHING swim suits in London for SUPER CHEAP. I only paid 4 Pounds per suit. I couldn't NOT buy them.

We took them to Cascade Pool in Bitburg. Swimming here is fairly expensive for a family of 6, so we don't do it very often, but we love it when we get the chance to go. The kids LOVE it.

Taya & Bladen hang out with me in the kiddie area. I love the kiddie pools. They're not deep at all, but they have slides & toys & all sorts of things for babies there. Cadence & Lorien actually swim alright so they go in the big pools with Daddy. They also got brave this time & went down the huge black water slide ALONE! I can't wait to be in Monterey & have swimming access everywhere. They need to get into some lessons so they can be great swimmers. They'll love it.

Camp Yardsofun: Day 4

Today's big project was cleaning out Daddy's SCARY corner shed/shelf on the patio. I don't think that thing has been opened in YEARS! I knew that we were going to encounter all sorts of bug life including our friends - THE BIG SCARY GERMAN SPIDERS! The girls were terrified when we opened it up & immediately families of spiders came crawling out!

But we managed to at least pull everything out into a huge pile & then after mommy killed off a few Spider colonies, we got down & dirty & wiped the whole thing down.

We found all sorts of fun gardening tools & gloves inside, as well as 2 pairs of old boots (filled with spider eggs), some sprinklers that needed to be thrown out, & some extension cords.

It took us about an hour & a half, but it got done & it looks FABULOUS if I do say so myself. The girls were AWESOME!

Then I gave each of the girls a note that read "You guys did a BEARY good job at cleaning out the SCARY shed!" They each got a bowl full of teddy grahams.

For our afternoon craft, we painted rocks like bugs for a rock garden in the back yard.

And for dinner we had Cadence's favorite food: Taco Salad & Orange Wedges!

Bladen learned that he LOVES oranges!

After dinner for our family activity we went out & played water balloon volleyball as a family. The kids LOVED this! We love water balloons at our house.

The girls threw the last few balloons & got daddy soaked, so he took off & started throwing balloons at them. It was HILARIOUS!

Lorien was upset that daddy would have the nerve to throw a water balloon at her. I had to laugh at this picture. She is so funny!