Singing to Josiah

Here's a little video from Josiah's party:

Birthday Fun

As you know, we had Josiah's fifth birthday party on Saturday, but his actual birthday was this Tuesday. When we told him "Happy Birthday!" that morning, Josiah asked, "Am I six?" He was so confused! Then he insisted on telling everyone he was six all day, but has since accepted the reality that he is still five. :)

Our friend Laura planned a group trip to The Children's Museum in Portland for Tuesday, so the boys had a fabulous day! They can't wait to go again, and I can't wait to take them! All together, there were 20 in our group. Although there were two floors with all sorts of activities to do, Josiah was fixated on the fire truck. Benjamin was a blur the whole time, darting from one station to the next, experiencing as much as he could. It was a challenge to keep my eyes on both boys when they were both doing their own things the whole time, so I appreciated all the staff that were monitoring things. Our group also got two private workshops, one on winter animals and one theater workshop. Thanks to Laura for having such a good idea!

When we got home from the museum, the boys were thrilled to find a package filled with toys and new clothes sent from our family in North Carolina! It was really nice to have some gifts for Josiah on his actual birthday, and the boys LOVE getting something in the mail. Everything was opened up in a minute flat, and then the rest of the afternoon the boys were busy with their new toys, puzzles, and art projects. Thank you, Grandma, Papa, Great Grandma, Aunt Emily, Uncle Barry, Aunt Marcia, Rebecca and Jared! :)

Fortunately, we had some leftover cake, so we sang to him and Josiah got to blow out his candle again. He's sporting his new 3D glasses. :)


And it's time to post more pictures of Abigail, who is growing like a weed. Not the best pictures, but she always looks cute, even when Mommy can't capture the moment too well. :)

Josiah's 5th Birthday Party

In no particular order, here are some pictures highlighting the fun we had yesterday at Josiah's 5th birthday party! Thank you to all of our friends and family who made it out for the festivities.. Josiah had a blast and we sincerely appreciate all of your gifts. A big thank you to my mom as well for bringing food, and to Melissa and Laura for helping me tie everything together at the last minute!

Abigail Rolled Over!

Here is a little video of Abigail this evening. She was laying on a blanket by my feet while I was cooking dinner (she is teething big time and wants me to be right there with her), and I looked down and found her flailing around in shock. Pretty cute, but as you can see at the end, the experience ended up being a little traumatic for her. I'm wondering if she'll work up the nerve to repeat the performance.

Weekend Update

Our weekends are always busy with fun activities, but this past one was especially so! Saturday morning, Lisa invited us over to make cookies: Benji's tongue foreshadows all of the taste-testing he did in the process of cookie making.

Kole made a dough pear! Can you tell he plays with clay down in his father's studio?

Miss Lisa has the patience of Job. I was so impressed.

When we got to icing, Benjamin was cranking them out while Josiah was being oh-so-careful. He's our first-born perfectionist.

Meanwhile, Abbey was conveniently low-maintenance as usual.

I think they made 7 or 8 dozen cookies!
The minute we got home, Josiah started trying to remove this snow pile. We have free snow if anyone is interested.

Then we bundled everyone up for some ice skating:

When Daddy's back started to hurt, he sat in the car with Abigail.

Saturday night, we hit the House of Pizza with Mom and Dad:

And Sunday morning Daddy cuddled with Abbey in the pew:

Maynard, Sandra and Pam had us over for lunch Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed our afternoon with these dear friends:

I love the expression on Abbey's face in this one! After this pic, my camera battery died, so that ends the weekend update. Yesterday, the boys were soooo excited about Valentine's Day. They got a special package in the mail from our North Carolina family, and had a playdate yesterday morning with some girlfriends, so it seemed like a big day for the two of them. Next weekend will be busy too, with Josiah's 5th birthday party on Saturday. As you can imagine, he is very excited. I have to figure out how to make a John Deere tractor cake before then. :)

House Cleaning

Today's "Quotation of the Day" should be on my house cleaning marketing: "I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me."
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965). Anyone want to pay me to clean your toilets? Life is just too short. :)

Four Month Check-Up

Abigail had her four month check-up yesterday, and she is doing fabulously! She was very cute the whole time, smiling and cooperating. My little princess is a healthy 99% for weight, and was "way off the charts" for height, so they put down 100%. Her pediatrician just had his own daughter a couple months after Abigail, so he said she could be his daughter's bodyguard in kindergarten! :) She had to have a drink she wasn't too impressed with, then got two shots. The first one made her look irritated, and the second one she cried for half a minute. She got the "Bravest Baby of the Day" award! I guess she has a good amount of padding when it comes to getting shots. :)

Isn't she beautiful?

And More Sledding

We're having a snowy winter!!! As Jenn noted on my last Sledding post, Logan and I don't usually wear winter coats. Logan is just a Southern anomally, because he's always hot, year round. I gave my coat up when I started having kids as just one more thing to lug around. Since I haven't been wearing a coat, I've noticed that I'm not as cold anymore. We keep our house at 67 degrees, which would have felt arctic to me several years ago. My college room was dubbed, "The Sauna" because I always had my heat at 75 or higher! However, I was FREEZING cold Saturday when we went sledding, so this time I wore one. :)

Sunday afternoon, Logan climbed up on our roof and shovelled off two feet of snow while Benji napped, then we all went back to the high school for some more sledding. Here are the pics, starting with the boys on our snowbank at home: