the birthday girl

Birthday preparations! We always make a pinata!

And, since we made a pirate ship for Dennis's birthday, we wanted to make a castle for Zola's.

But I only got a few cardboard boxes... It wasn't what I had imagined but we made it work with a bunch of white fabric. Dennis and Zola played for hours in it the day before but nobody wanted to play in it at the party. I couldn't figure that one out.

The party bags...

The pinata

Making the cake with my friend Mindy, who taught us how to make a fondant cake. And it wasn't that hard! Just very time consuming.

My little princess. She was going around saying how beautiful her wand was and told me over and over how "cool" it was... which she pronounces like "cooah"

Waiting for her guests to arrive!

Her guests were Madison, Camryn, and Norah... Later came Ellie and Calvin.

It was pretty fun to see Zola hit her pinata. At most it was a tap tap tap.

Camryn was so beautiful in her gown.

tap tap tap. Dennis wanted to hit it so hard! But I made him wait until all the girls hit it several times since I only put one layer on. It was built for a tap tap beating not a pow pow beating.

Oh, the story of Dennis. We had that party during the school day and Dennis was not going to be able to attend. But during the party I got a call from school. Dennis was pushed in the lunchroom into a table and was bleeding pretty bad on the back of his head. He didn't have such a good day. But he did get to partake in the pinata goodies. :)

Happy Birthday to YOU!

It was super fun.

Dennis & Zola

With new toys around from Christmas it sure is hard to get our reading done. Sometimes we just lay around doing nothing for hours... waiting for our reading to magically get done so that we can play. 

The boys... They sure love each other. 

Zola has a pretty big head. She has a hard time getting shirts on. 

This girl loves her baby. Sometimes she hangs onto the swing and goes for a ride with Andrew.

even when he is sleeping..

The haircut. I sure love having short hair. It looks good on me and is way easier to take care of.

Dennis: I know what Dads are for... 

Me: What? 

Dennis: Love.

This cute boy just lost his second tooth! 

Dennis is getting to be a pretty good Hockey player. It's amazing how much he has improved since the beginning of the year. It seems that he is so much better every single week. He now plays in the most advanced group and as they scrimmage he always gets a stick on that puck. He is number 18 in black. In one of these videos he circles around his friend Jaxon who is number 4 in blue. Jaxon is in his class at school so it is fun for the two of them. Here are a couple of videos.

the check up- 2 months

Yup! He is a CHUNK. He was born in the 15th percentile or so (true to form for our family) and we expected him to stay right about there for his entire life like his brother and sister. However, at his two month check up he was 13 lbs which was the 65-70%tile. Cowabunga! The Doctor actually had another nurse come in to double check this weight to make sure that we didn't make a mistake. This boy has been growing like crazy. He has some big cousins to catch up to I guess. Baron and Bode are both heavy weights so Andrew is chugging right along with them (almost).

Movie time: Need to go to the website to view... not in email.

Andrew has started playing with his toys. He sat there one day for a couple of hours just playing with that lion. I bet that feels great to be making connections and seeing your own growth. 

the blessing

We were so blessed to be able to have Kevin (Ryan's dad) and Kristen (his sister) come out for Andrew's blessing on January 11th. His mom was planning on coming but got sick and we really missed having her there. 

Papa and Andrew together for the first time! We just hung around at home for the weekend enjoying each others company. Papa was so good and held Andrew a lot even through the fussies. I was grateful just to have another person around to hold that little guy. 

Zola was entertaining us with her fast running. This is how she would start every time while we said, "on your mark..." The arms are really important while running fast!

Kristen had some homework that she had to do which was great because that was enough motivation for Dennis to do some reading (really hard to do with company in town). Since Kristen wore her earphones (listening to music) while doing chemistry, Dennis had to wear his (listening to nothing) while doing his reading.

The center of the festivities! This little Andrew was soooo adorable in the cutest knit outfit that Nonnie sent with Kristen and Papa. I just want to snuggle that chubby boy in that knit forever!

The crew: Owen, Chrissy, James, Randy, Bode, Zola, Grandma, Grandpa, Andrew, Me, Papa, Dennis Ryan, and Kristen. How lucky are we to take up a whole middle pew!

Zola loves babies! Hanging out in the afternoon... I am sure that Zola pulled Bode up on her because he doesn't move yet.

the smiles

Ever since grandma got that first smile out of him right after christmas, he has been showing it off more and more. And they are soooo rewarding because he had so many bad days that to see him smile means a lot. His bad days are getting fewer and farther between and it is nice to feel like we are getting our energy back to do fun things.

He is also growing some chub. Such a cute chubby boy. Maybe some of those tears were growing pains.

Here he was smiling at himself in the selfie camera.

The picture on the right reminds me a little of Baron when he was a wee lad.