a doggone fun birthday!

we celebrated my sweet flower girl's 8th birthday tonite! natalie is a bonafide dog-lover, so no one was surprised when she wanted to have a doggie birthday party! and this was a special night out for mommy and caroline, since natalie wanted it to be just girls (besides her brother and one boy cousin) at her party.

when the party guests arrived, kristie drew doggie faces on the girls... so cute. they were all so excited to transform into puppies.


after getting their dog noses, they also all wore dog ears and personalized collars. here is the birthday girl with her sweet friend. aren't they just doggone cute!?


claire sure knows how to flash a smile when she sees that camera! she had fun at her sister's party!


these bowls of puppy chow were addictive... until i saw one of the girls eating out of one of the bowls like a dog. suddenly, i didn't want anymore!


i guess my poor dog has fleas. :)


the best part about this party for natalie's mom and dad is that someone else was running it! most of our birthday parties around here are homemade, but the little ice cream shop where they had the party had a steal of a deal and took care of so much. with mom 36 weeks pregnant and dad running a congressional campaign, time and energy are golden these days at natalie's house. we all gladly watched the party lady tame the barking dogs!


pin the tail on the puppy!


the dog pinata finally crashed after the birthday girl decapitated it! here's caroline giving it a little love pat.


caroline and claire! little cutie pie puppies!


i just loved natalie's dog bowl cake! didn't tammy do a great job with it!? natalie got a big kick out of eating out of it like a dog.


by the time i got a picture of caroline and her "pup"cake, she'd already started on the icing...


so here's what my cute "pup"cake looked like before i started on the icing.


i could eat this boy. he is pure sugar. especially after the party!!


natalie is such a thankful birthday girl. she thoroughly looked at every single item in every single gift and got the biggest smile on her face about everything. opening presents took quite a while, but i was so happy to see her genuinely appreciating what she got... vs. ripping into each package, glancing at it, and moving on to the rest of the loot. her daddy would've preferred that method at 8:30 PM, but i was proud of her. :)



all the dogs took home a little bag of puppy chow to enjoy (and share with their mommies). and we are going to the beach with kristie tomorrow, who made way too much puppy chow for this party. darn. i imagine that she and i will enjoy a nice big bag of this stuff in the shade of her beach umbrella... and as we snack, we will no doubt hear the bark, bark, bark of ten little puppies who seemed to bark for 2 hours straight!


happy birthday, natalie! i cannot believe you are 8. i think i tell you that every single year on your birthday. i am so thankful for you and the precious little lady you are. you are a wonderful friend to my children, and i am so glad we got to celebrate your birthday with you tonite. God is growing you into a young lady with a heart for others and most importantly, a heart for Him! happy, happy birthday! we love you!

girls

i snapped these shots of caroline and her partner in crime, lola, on our camping trip back in march. it's kinda hard to think back that far to when it was freezing (thank you, God, for our gorgeous weather lately!). anyway, i meant to share all our camping pictures awhile back, and i just can't bear to let 'em fall through the cracks. so before it gets any warmer around here, enjoy the purplish pictures of these two hams.

"lola, our moms wants a picture of us. you know the drill... just do it real fast and maybe they'll leave us alone for a minute."


"LO-la! TURN a-ROUND!"


then i whipped out the "ready, set, go" trick. you snap away on ready and set---the kids will stand perfectly still, looking right at you in anticipation of "go"! it hasn't failed me yet!

rrrrrrrrreaaaaaaaaadyyyyyyyyyy....


sssssssset....


go!



be back soon with more camping adventures!

happy new year!

we had a wonderful new year's with jonathan and tammy and kids. we love ringing in the new year with our dear friends! and as the kids get older, it gets even more fun. we arrived at their house after dinner, and the kids got right to playing. before long, natalie, joseph, and ethan went crazy on the couch-- i don't even think anyone got hurt!


caroline thrilled on playing with natalie all evening. i told tammy that i need a 7 year old girl at my house!! at one point, the boys headed back to the kids' room, and they came back quite dismayed at what was posted on the door. i am chuckling thinking about joseph explaining the sign in detail: "and there was a picture of a boy on it with a line through him!"


the girls had made a hideout in the bottom bunk. my daughter was loving it! and it looks like natalie didn't mind entertaining a three year old!


so the boys were determined to make their own sign. joseph was so so cute in his striped pjs, writing so intently. ethan stood nearby coaching him on how to spell "no girls allowed", but they of course needed some help after "no"!


tammy and i quickly constructed a hideout for the boys, and ethan and joseph were prepared to defend their camp!


the kids scrapped their hideouts in time for the ball drop. here they are in anticipation as we counted down! (and according to joseph, 2010 is the year of the monkey???) :)



and here's the gang in their pajamas. (sorry, ethan... your cute pjs were in the washer. and my girls' pjs have owls on them, which i thought was fitting since they were night owls this night!)

ethan- 4 1/2, joseph- 5, claire-2, natalie-7, amelia-11 mos., caroline- 3


"check it out mom! weeee're smiling!"


natalie has obviously let her guard down in the whole baby's-gonna-pull-my-hair department (and she'd better brush up on her skills because there will be a new baby at her house this summer!). as you can see, caroline has become an expert in fleeing amelia's hair-pulling grip!


here we are in 2010! man, i was really slacking with my "0" this year. i have been a "0" every year... you'd think i'd have it down by now!


i still laugh every time i see this picture! jonathan didn't get the memo that we were doing the kiss shot. :) maybe this will be the next "mac vs. pc" commercial!


jonathan goes and goes all day, and when he crashes... he crashes hard and fast. here he is after the inevitable hit. i think i have a picture like this for every new year's! his daughter was not too far behind him!


before i go, look at these cute glasses that natalie and joseph made on new year's day. we were all going to make them on new year's eve, but with all the hiding out and the ball dropping, we just never got around to it. i am hoping to make them with my kids before january is over, but just in case we never do.... here is my precious flower girl in her 2010 glasses!


hope your 2010 has gotten off to a wonderful start!

another caroline to love!

it's time to crank out my fifth and final post about my june trip to nashville. (i know--i estimated three posts... so i was a bit off. i had more i wanted to say. shocker.) this post is dedicated to the second sweetest baby caroline i know. she belongs to my dear dear friend rachel. rachel and i go way back to summer orientation before our freshman year in college. she was from nebraska, and i was from the south. nebraskans apparently don't really hug strangers. southerners will hug just about anybody. i met rachel. i hugged rachel. she didn't know quite what to do with me. but we became friends anyway. :) and the rest is history. we buddied up for most of our speech pathology classes during undergrad, we ran together at night (i used to run!? and i liked it?!), and i even let her think that "pen" and "pin" were pronounced differently. (she wasn't from the south, remember?!) rachel was one of the smartest people i'd ever met. if i made an "A" on a test, rachel made a higher "A". everytime. but she was so humble about it, and i don't recall it ever even striking my highly-competitive-nerve. rachel and i never lived together during undergrad, but we made up for that by sharing a room during graduate school. this girl has the patience of job. she endured my sleep-talking (as if i don't talk enough when i'm awake!) and the life-size picture of brian's face that was plastered to the wall on my side of our room (though rachel did think he was such a fun guy-- get it, rach?!??). rachel surely humored my cheesy jokes and c-l-u-t-t-e-r-e-d desk, neither of which i managed to abandon after those grad school days. rachel was a rock. she came through the most challenging therapy assignments virtually unscathed, and she even passed our dreaded comps though she was incredibly ill the week of (including the day before) the big exams. most importantly, rachel was grounded in the Word. i was so blessed to live with such godly girls during grad school. we did share a good number of tears together during our school years, but we also shared the promises of God, the blessings of being in Christ. praise the Lord for that!

so all that to say... i really really love my friend rachel. since we graduated with our masters degree in 2003, our visits have sadly been few and far between. the last time i saw rachel was the summer of 2006, so when we were planning this trip to nashville, it hit me that it would not be out of the question for rachel to drive over to visit. i was beyond excited when she agreed to come to nashville for a day. yay! i knew i could squeeze in one more visit with one more loved one. :) and oh, what a blessing that day was. it was worth all the squeezing in to get to hug her neck and to see her precious baby. i loved seeing rachel as a mom. it was so fun to talk about motherhood with her and to just share that day with my friend. it made me wish we lived closer so that we could spend more time together more often. before i get too sappy and teary-eyed, here is a peek into the day with my friend:

caroline was eating when amelia woke up from her nap, so this is the babies' first time to see each other.



all four kids together



the carolines :)



caroline and amelia were so sweet to look right at the camera!



aaaaand they're done.


rachel sent this adorable outfit to amelia, so i had to get them in a picture together. looking at this picture makes me realize that i never got one of me and baby caroline. aw man! i guess i didn't have an extra pair of arms for that picture. well, rachel is gonna have to bring caroline down here soon so i can get a picture with her. ;)


so by the time rachel arrived, ethan and caroline were getting a little stir crazy in the house. it was blazing hot outside, so i refused to take them out in the backyard. instead, we went to mcdonald's to the indoor playground. (which ethan refers to as "old mcdonald's had a farm".) the kids played and climbed and played and climbed while my mom, rachel, and i sat and chatted and played with babies.


caroline got the hang of climbing up but was a little timid about the climbing down part. since she knew how to climb up, she just kept climing higher and higher and higher. she pretty much took on the role of the kitty cat stuck up the tree. (this picture was taken when she was just getting started.)


and what role did i get to play? the nice firemommy who climbs the tree to get the cat down. the firemommy told the bystanders that they were not allowed to take pictures, but they did anyway.


it surely was a wonderful visit with rachel and baby caroline. rachel, thank you so much for making the drive over for the day. i know that was a lot of time in the car, but it meant so much for me to get to see you. we need to do it again before these girls get too much older! i love you, friend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (all those exclamation points are just for you!)

a quick visit

my time with my college friends in nashville in june was just not long enough. we squeezed lots of catching up and chasing children in that 48 hours, in addition to christie's wedding festivities! i took lots of pictures, but i am trying to get caught up around here... so this one's gonna be (relatively) short and sweet.

lynsay, christy, and i had the pleasure of staying with cary, ashley, and baby noah for the weekend. they have worked so hard remodeling their beautiful home--it was such a cozy place to relax and talk till 3 in the morning. cary went above and beyond the call of duty on thursday night when he babysat ethan & caroline while the girls had dinner with the bride-to-be. i meant to get a picture of cary and the kiddos, but that never happened. cary did survive the evening, thanks to pizza and bolt! (and his superb fathering skills, of course.)

the next morning, ashley treated us to a delicious breakfast, complete with monkey bread. and here is our hostess adding my favorite part... powdered sugar!



ethan was ecstatic that sifters don't come with lids.


after our morning sugar rush, kim's family came over and we all headed out to a really great discovery center in ashley's town. it was worth our admission fee just to get this shot of all of our busy kids in one picture! (L-R: caroline, noah, ethan, paxton, lorelei) (christy's sweet girl sadie was back home with her daddy, and amelia was snoozing in her stroller)



my kids loved this little market area.



the girls stayed busy doing girl things.



and the boys stayed busy doing boy things.





and nobody had to tell them what to do. it's like they were Made that way.
after a busy day at the discovery center, we came back to ashley's for a quick lunch. after we scarfed down our sandwiches, ashley brought out a cake for my birthday the week before! (remember, this all happened way back in june!) her bundt pan really saw some action that weekend! :) you know i am not one to turn down cake, especially this cake! thanks, girls, for remembering my birthday!


the rest of the weekend, we pretty much ate, talked, and kissed on each others' babies. here's kim's husband, josh, meeting amelia...



and while he kissed on my baby, i gave my kisses to this precious fella...


isn't noah so sweet!? he was so tolerant of my kids invading his space for the weekend! noah was just an infant last year, and it was so fun to see him growing so big!

this post does not really do the weekend justice. even though it was a busy time with wedding activities and kids in our faces every 30 seconds, my friends and i found a way to squeeze in little conversations here and there. and then after the kids finally fell asleep, we'd dive right in to our heavy late-night chats. i love these girls, and i am already looking forward to next summer's reunion!!