ethan's 7th birthday

it has been a while since ethan turned 7 (july 2), but i can't let august arrive without sharing our little celebration for ethan's birthday!

we started off the day with his birthday muffin... i think the days of waking up our kids on their birthdays are over, though. when i walked down the hall a few minutes before we went in his room, i could hear him exclaiming, "iiiiii'm seven! iiiiiii'm seven!" he was just a little excited...


this boy is surrounded by sisters! ethan opened his presents from us that morning.


he was so thrilled to get his very own Bible!


and he was just a little bit excited to open this...


the lego master builder academy teaches building tips from the master builders... the books are full of ideas, and each kit is a 3-in-1 build. after building the first two spaceships, ethan used what he had learned and built his own creation.


after spending all morning learning from the master builders, ethan was visited by gram around lunchtime. she gave him a really cool "book of sevens", where each page had a 7 made out of pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters, and then dollar coins. cha-ching!


that evening, we had a little family party for ethan out at a go-cart/mini golf place on the beach. but first things first... cake! ethan requested a mint cake, so gram made a chocolate 7 with mint buttercream icing. yummm yum! here's karina and ethan hanging out before we lit the candles.


blowin' out the candles...


i got my corner piece. :) and kristie's leftover icing!


ethan was so excited to open this card! gram ordered the next set of master builder academy kits! so ethan will get a kit in the mail every other month for the next 8 months!


i had to laugh when i saw ethan's present from brian's parents...


pappy is known for writing out explanations on the outside of gifts to us. there's usually a printout of the gift he has ordered for us that is in an envelope covered with disclaimers and directions. i tease him unmercifully about this... so when i saw his handwriting on the wrapping of ethan's gift, i laughed out loud!

ethan could not believe his eyes when he unwrapped his very own bb gun!!!


caroline reminds hallie, "this is not a toy!" ha!


pappy was so proud to give ethan this gun!


we had been talking about what they were going to give ethan, and i guess i missed the minor detail of "this thing looks like a machine gun." i was picturing more of the classic-red-ryder-bb-gun look, so my momma's heart sank a little when i saw my baby boy unwrap this mean-looking machine! ethan tried out his new gun with pappy and daddy just a couple of days later and was on top of the world.

next, we packed up the party and headed out to the go-carts.

i love caroline's face in this one after going down the big hill!


all smiles!


nana drove slow for amelia (you can see the other cars almost lapped nana in the background).


daddy with his birthday boy


we also played in the arcade for a little while... ethan loved this little bowling game.


brian having a little quality time with his girls...


amelia was just a little giddy about her ticketttts!


it's been awhile since i've hung out in an arcade-- this ticket machine is quite a smart invention! it may as well have been another game to amelia.


gotta love the junk you end up spending over $10 for... but it's the fun that counts, right!?


caroline picked out these mini handcuffs for her dolls. niiiiice. and they were broken less than 24 hrs. later.


after the arcade, we continued the party at the black-light mini golf course.


what is so special about this, you ask? one word: indoors. which is the only way i want to play mini golf in july. plus, the black lights gave us some really rockin' teeth...


and look at my glowing baby!!


i spent most of the golf time either holding hallie or taking pictures... so brian had the honors of helping all of our children play golf. :) i think he needs a few more putters in his hand, don't you??


pappy and caroline both made a hole in one on the last hole! this was amazing, considering the fact that pappy could not see the hole to save his life. way to go!!


the birthday boy got to go on one last go-cart ride by himself... hope it was worth the 30 minute wait, kiddo!!!


we had so much fun celebrating ethan's birthday with our family! happy birthday, buddy!

usa! usa!

we're all geared up to root for team usa!

the girls and i made this olympic flag cake this afternoon, and i must say that it is a little more complicated than it looks. ya gotta get those m&ms just right to make the rings hook together!

ok, the opening ceremony is just about to start... yay!

splish splash!

the kids and i met up with some friends at a little water park this week... i am thankful that we chose the ONE day this week that it did not rain! this park is the perfect size to let the kids play while the moms sit and chat. this may very well be the only moment that my kids were standing still all day...


the kids loved playing with lily, jake, and grace. it was so crazy bright... they really were having fun, i promise!


lily is right in between amelia and caroline's ages, so she is the perfect playmate for the girls. jake and grace are who my kids think of when they think about getting older... you know, like when you say, "you can do that when you're older"... my kids will say, "when we're jake and grace's age?" they are such an example of servant-hearted teenagers and always show great care in talking to my children, so i have no problem with the fact that my kids think they are the best thing ever! this little water park is not exactly geared toward teenagers, but jake and grace were super sweet and played with my kids or sat with hallie so i could get in the water a little bit.

so speaking of my kids looking up to jake and grace... when we got to the water park, jake asked me if ethan would go down the big water slide. i laughed (ethan was not around) and said, "i'll give you $10 if ethan goes down that slide." (his mom quickly told him he would not take any money from me.) i told jake there was no way ethan would go down that thing. well... 5 minutes later, ethan and jake come walking up, and ethan is ready to go down the slide! it only took his favorite teenage boy bribing him with $5...


once he'd climbed the stairs and headed into the slide, it seemed like forever before he emerged at the other end! and emerged is the best word... he didn't fly out or come swooshing down.... he came out verrrrrry slowly! he scooted to the edge of the slide and plopped in the water. it was very anticlimactic, but if he was happy, i was happy! (this picture must be from a later trip down because he's going a lot faster here.)


ethan loved the slide and went down it over and over, eventually figuring out how to go faster and faster. i reminded him that he was not getting $5 for every trip down that slide!


thank you, jake, for encouraging ethan to try something new! he was so glad that he did!


while everybody else was splashin' around, hallie slept in the breezy shaded picnic area. i brought her out in the sun to get a quick picture, and woooweee, was it bright! i bought this little sundress at a consignment store when caroline was a newborn, knowing that she'd probably never wear it (she was a november baby). i was right. then amelia was born in january. nope. she didn't wear it either. finally, this summer baby gets to wear the little dress just made for a trip to the pool! (and wow, doesn't amelia look gigantic?)


isn't it a sweet lil' dress? and hallie says, "enough already... get me back in the shade, please!"


i really didn't take a lot of pictures of the kids playing because they were on the move the whole day... and when i wasn't feeding hallie or reapplying sunscreen or getting amelia another snack, i was enjoying every moment of visiting with my sweet friend, dawn!

after dawn and her kids left, we stayed a little bit longer, and caroline made a new friend (which she was hoping to do that day, she told me on the way out there). this girl can strike up a conversation with just about anybody, and before you know it, she has a new friend!


i hated to make caroline leave right as they were starting to play together, but i wanted to make it to sonic before happy hour ended. the kids could've stayed until closing, but the minute i mentioned sonic, they were fine with calling it a day.

this was before the sonic sugar rush...


and this is after!


"wook! my tongue is bwwwue!"

smilin' girl

here's a little video of hallie "talking" tonite. she was so happy and chatty before bedtime! pardon the shaky video-- i was trying to hold the camera away from my face so she'd smile at me.


i ended the video when i did because i wanted to snap a picture of her smiling so big... but of course, i couldn't capture it. it's amazing how she can be so smiley one minute, but as soon as i pull out that big ole' camera, she's done. i did manage to take a screen shot of the video... not great quality, but you sure can see my girl and her smile. :)


i saw this smile this morning at 7 AM after hallie slept twelve hours! she woke me up with her giggling and talking-- such a pleasant way to wake up!

red, white, and belated!

well july is just a flyin' by! seems like we were just celebrating our country's independence the other day... but it was almost two weeks go! can someone just please slow this summer down a little? i didn't take a ton of pictures this 4th of july, but i did manage to snap a few in between relaxing and letting brian have the camera for his technical-on-the-tripod-fireworks pictures.

our children are not hurting for patriotic clothing. (it seems like just yesterday that these cousins were this little...)

i love how amelia always runs to get in their pictures :) she is not bothered in the least by the fact that she is not matching them or that she is the little one...


so i saw this cake on one of my favorite recipe blogs, and i thought that'd be fun to make for the 4th. my sweet mother agreed to "help me"... in other words, she agreed to cut the layers and completely ice the cake for me. my contribution was periodically testing her amazing almond buttercream icing to make sure it was indeed still amazing. it was. anyway, she did a fabulous job, and the kids were quite excited to see the plain white cake turn into a flag...


it got a little messy when we were slicing because we were trying to cut little slivers for the kids... we should've just given them big honkin' pieces so that the pictures would've turned out better! but you get the general idea...


after our cookout and dessert, we headed down the street to watch the fireworks. what did we ever do before our sit-n-stand stroller?!


brian's brother and dad went down a little early to find a spot and set up all the chairs... well, we got down there, and brian's mom and i both vetoed their set-up because it was behind a ditch, and we were sure we'd get eaten alive by mosquitoes. so we set up a little more to the left, and as soon as the fireworks started, we realized they would not be high enough to clear the trees. so we enjoyed the show with the tops of the trees in the way. (hence, no perfect fireworks pictures making it on the blog this year.) so jeff and neil, for the record, YOU WERE RIGHT! here we all are, just waiting for the show of lit-up trees to start...


right when the show was about to start, we saw some familiar faces walking toward us! ethan's buddy, drew, from classical conversations and his family were setting up right next to us! it was great to see them!


we failed to have a radio playing all the patriotic music this year, and we realized that the music really adds a lot to the show. kristie and i belted out our version of "God bless the USA", but it just wasn't the same. so the kids were not frozen in awe of the fireworks like they usually are... but they kept themselves entertained with pop-its...


(did you know that those things also make a great prank? put a couple of them under a toilet seat and wait to surprise your next potty guest... or so i've heard.)

amelia loved waving this thing around in our faces while we tried to watch the fireworks light up the trees... you can tell this was just a memorable experience. :)


gram and nana with their grandson!


i meant to get a picture of hallie sitting with pappy to watch the fireworks, but i got distracted and forgot. so here i am with my little butterball on her first 4th of july.


hope you all had a wonderful 4th!