Craiger's All Star 1st Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Little Craiger.

I can't believe he's already one year old. Where has the time gone? First birthday parties are fun for us. We don't invite friends or anything, but we hang out as a family & have a BLAST with the birthday boy. Craiger LOVES balls so I made him his

VERY OWN BASEBALL CAKE.

He was SO excited.

Then I made cupcakes for the rest of the kids. It was an ALL-STAR 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY.

First we let him open up all his presents. He was NOT interested in opening, but he would cry every time we'd take a new toy away so he could open something else. Kids are SO funny.

He got all sorts of fun things. He got some cute outfits from Nancy & Auntie Char & Uncle Jay. He got some money from both great-grandmothers. He got a truck & car toy from Mimi & Baba.

He got a cute little play phone from Uncle Justin & Auntie Cari.

And a big farm playset from Opa & Oma.

His brother & sisters got him a magnetic farm toy to play with on the fridge while mommy makes dinner.

And mommy & daddy got him a toy bus. He was pretty EXCITED about it.

So was Bladen.

Then it was time for cake. We stripped him down to his diaper & let him go to town. The first thing he did was grab the candle as soon as we started singing. . . bad parents. :-( He burned his poor little hand pretty badly. He's just too quick for us.

But once we got his poor little hand taken care of, he dove right into that cake & loved every second of it.

Once he was a mess, he started moving around the tarp to try to escape the frosting that was hardening all over his body. It was scaring him. (We were laughing SO hard.)

He couldn't get away & laid down to cry. Poor baby.

But then he started to roll towards my floor & I started getting jumpy because the last thing I wanted was a mess on my floor. ha ha ha. He could see I was nervous about it so he, being the BOY that he is, started going towards the edge of the tarp just to see me panic. He would laugh every time & pretty soon we were all giggling.

Pretty soon he had had enough. He crawled over to his daddy's leg & laid down on it (making Trek's pants a total mess.) He was done.

Okay, maybe ONE MORE BITE.

We had SO MUCH FUN. Happy birthday Monster. We love you SO MUCH.

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess

Happy Birthday Dr. Suess. March 3rd is Dr. Suess' birthday & I love that the schools celebrate it every year. I wish there were more days dedicated to the written word. The girls wanted to celebrate by dressing up for school so I had them wear red shirts & I made them round pieces that said "Thing #1 & Thing #2." I even did their hair up with blue bows since the classic "Things" had blue hair. They LOVED it. They both said their teachers were taking pictures of them all day. SO FUN.

We read all day long. My little 3 loved reading stories with mommy. And I did let them all watch "Horton Hears A Who" too to celebrate Dr. Suess. It was a fun mommy/kiddo day. I love days like this.

Craiger's 1st Birthday Breakfast

Craiger is our last birthday for the month of February & it was his FIRST BIRTHDAY so we HAD to make it extra special. He got his very own birthday breakfast with his favorite food: strawberry oatmeal. . . & a ding dong of course.

He couldn't figure out why we were making him get up at 5:45 in the morning. He's our sleeper & will normally sleep in until 6:30 if we let him.

He was SO fascinated with the candle.

Cragier loves oatmeal, but as soon as he took a bite of that ding dong for the first time, the oatmeal went bye-bye. He LOVED the ding dong.

I can't believe he is already one year old. It seems like yesterday I was still pregnant with him. Where does the time go? Why can't they be babies forever?

Happy Birthday Little Monster! We love you SO MUCH.

Mardi Gras

I'm one of those people who like to celebrate just about anything. Mardi Gras was on Lorien's birthday this year, so I waited a week before we actually celebrated it (because I was sick of making cakes). But once I was ready, I had a LOT of fun making a

Mardi Gras KING CAKE.

It's not really a cake, it's more of a giant cinnamon roll/donut thing, but it was fun. And I decorated it with green, yellow, & purple sprinkles & mardi gras beads.

We had a full family home evening dedicated to it & the kids had a BLAST. The "cake" was delicious & we all loved the beads. Thank you Nancy for sending us the fun cake mix & the beads. We had a LOT of fun.

3 Pretty Princesses

Nancy bought each of the girls a pretty dress for their birthdays. They look SO beautiful in them. I love my 3 little princesses SO MUCH.

Crazy Kids

So I have crazy kids. I love my crazy kids. There is never a dull moment in the Potter house. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Just the other day Cadence & Lorien were . . . let's say "dancing" (although that's not what was really happening). Cadence swung Lorien into the side of the piano & BOOM,

instant black eye.

After that happened there was lots of crying & hugging & "I'm sorry" being said. I love that they know when what they are doing is wrong & love each other no matter what. However, Lorien has a nice shiner to show off to the world. The best part? Lorien's teacher asked her if her mommy or daddy gave her the black eye. PERFECT. So the teacher thinks we would do something like that to our kids. Lovely. Luckily Lorien is our frank-matter-of-fact kid & told her teacher EXACTLY how it happened. Now poor Cadence is embarrassed because she knows it was her fault & so does everyone else.

Craiger, aka angel baby #5, has turned crazy child since he's become mobile. He's sweet as can be, but boy can he make some trouble. His FAVORITE things to do are empty the pantry & fridge. Bladen tends to leave the fridge open & Craiger goes right to work. I usually find milk, ketchup, mustard, etc. everywhere. Craiger's favorite things in the pantry are the napkins & the marshmallows. I wonder how he gets them sometimes, but he always manages to & makes a mess of it. But what a cutie pie right?

Craiger is also starting to climb. So we had to install a baby gate on the stairs. Now he climbs up onto the baby gate & shakes it as hard as he can to try to pull it down so he can go upstairs. What's a mommy to do?

Grocery shopping has been an adventure in & of itself lately. A few weeks back, Craiger pulled the bottom can out of a 6 foot display of pork & beans. The entire display, cans & all, crashed to the floor. I was MORTIFIED. I can't believe his arms are long enough to reach out of the cart now. That SAME TRIP we were standing in line to check out & Bladen & Taya both start screaming "SCARY PIRATE. SCARY PIRATE." at the top of their lungs. I turned around & there was a little old man with a cane standing there. He had an eyepatch over his eye. I about DIED. He laughed & told me he lost his eye in Vietnam. That made the whole thing even worse. The kids were still screaming "SCARY PIRATE" so he turned to them & said "Aaaargh" which scared the tar out of them & they cried. The man got a good laugh out of that.

And then just last week, Craiger managed to get his hands on a red pepper & launched into the face of the produce manager. Ugh. Then Bladen somehow triggered the silent alarm while I was putting the food on the conveyor belt. The cops were alerted & drove straight-away to the store thinking a robbery was taking place. The store manager tried to call them in route to tell them it was just a 2 year old that pushed it, but then the cops thought the managed was under duress & that the robber was telling him to tell the cops to go away. Needless to say, it was a HUGE mess & I was to blame for the whole misunderstanding. Good times, good times. Now I cringe every time I walk into a grocery store.

I'm amazed at how quickly my boys play off each other. They are both so young, but they both want to be like the other. Bladen LOVES climbing the ladder when it's out & I'm okay with it so long as I'm right there with him in case something happens, but I had no idea that watching Bladen do it would possess Craiger to want to do it too. I turned my back for one minute & when I turned back around Craiger was half way up the ladder too. BOYS.

But out of everything that's happened over the last couple of weeks, this one takes the cake for sure. We're trying to potty train Bladen right now & we try to REALLY congratulate him every time he goes in the toilet. I had Bladen on the toilet & then Craiger had a diaper blowout so I went to change him in the room next to the bathroom. While I was changing Craiger's diaper, Bladen walks in holding. . . . you guessed it. . . . POOP.

"Look Mommy. I did it. I got it out of my bottom."

I really know I shouldn't have taken pictures, but how could I not? It's TOO HILARIOUS. I was just proud of him for going potty like a big boy. (Not proud he dug it out of the toilet to show me, but proud he DIDN'T go in his underwear.) I guess I have awesome pics to show his future wife someday right? ;-)

There's Nothing Like Hanging out with Family

While Trek's family was here over Lorien's birthday weekend, we were able to have TONS of fun hanging out here in Seaside. Oma & Grandma Kinsfather LOVED taking the girls to school in the morning & picking them up in the afternoon.

Auntie Marc & Oma bought about 6 magazines for us to read over the weekend. It was hilarious how we'd all just sit on the couch, each with our own magazines, & then we'd read during the kids' naps. I actually read all 6 of them cover to cover by the time everyone left on Monday morning. Is that awful or what?

While I made the cake for Lorien's birthday party, Oma, Grandma, & Tarrish took the kids to the park to keep them away from the cake. They had SO MUCH FUN.

We had SO MUCH FUN during Lorien's party. Everybody was such a good help to me & took good care of the little guys so I could take care of Lorien & make her day extra special.

The best part of the entire weekend was sitting together as a family telling stories & just loving one another. Those are always the best & most memorable moments for any family. I LOVE talking with the Potters. They are WONDERFUL.

And no visit from Opa would be complete without bedtime storytelling. All the kids climb up into the tallest bunk & Opa tells them their favorite stories: The 10 Little Goslings, The Magic Fish, Billy Goats Gruff, etc. It's the highlight of the day.

Most of the weekend was dedicated to Lorien of course, but Opa, Pete, Tuhk, & Trek were able to start building our triple decker bunk bed for the girls too. They got it close to being finished. I'll dedicate a whole blog entry to the beds as soon as we get them finished & in the girls' room. Thanks for coming FAMILY. We love you all SO MUCH.

Smores!

Trek's sister Triskin had his name for his birthday this year & she bought him the coolest little outdoor fire pit for our backyard. We haven't had a chance to use it yet because of the icky weather we've been having here, but while Trek's family was here, we broke it out & had SMORES. It was SO MUCH FUN. Trek's dad even made a DING DONG SMORE.

We had a BLAST. Thank you Triskin & Phil.