Gavin's Birthday

Happy Birthday to my amazing, dangerous, flexible, strong, sweet, funny, handsome, smart, crazy, adventurous, sensitive, speedy, and amazing 7 year old.

We asked Gav what he wanted for his birthday, he said he wanted his two front teeth, and a car of some sort.  He also wanted a party with friends instead of a big present.  And he wanted chocolate or maybe white cake, with lots of colors for the frosting.  

"Oh, you want a rainbow cake?' I said

"NO! not a rainbow cake."He emphatically replied.

Not a rainbow cake, just one with lots of colors.

We decorated with lots of streamers and balloons.

Pinterest said you could color your own ceramics with sharpies, and them bake the ink on FOREVER!

(Pinterest lied a little)

We colored the plate, we baked it.  Half of the colors came off when I washed it with soap.  The other half came of when I put it in the dishwasher.  :(

Gavin requested french toast for breakfast.  We woke up early so we could all have breakfast together, something that hash't happened since Ethan started Jr. High.

It was maybe a little too early for Gavin, but we was still in good spirits.

For dinner we when to Pizza Pie Cafe because they have 2 of Gavin's "favorite things rolled into one, pizza and dessert!"

We had second desserts, because there was cake at home.

Dave bought me a bundt for Christmas, this is my second ever bundt cake.  I think that bundt cakes are my new favorite.  We opted for only blue and green frosting.  This cake is special, because there is a surprise inside.  

 Any guesses what the surprise is?

Presents?

Squirrels? 

Presents, hmm, no but that could be fun next time.

Squirrels, really???

SURPRISE!!

 IT'S A RAINBOW!

See, I had you all tricked with the 'colorful' blue and green frosting.  If you ask for a colorful cake for your birthday then you get a colorful cake.  And if you ask for not a rainbow cake, then sometimes you still get a rainbow cake.

We finished the evening playing Gavin's current favorite game - Apples to Apples. 

We have an unspoken-pseudo-family-Rule when we play Apples to Apples; the red 'shark' card is the trump card.  Because sharks fit just about everything, they are scary, crazy, intense, speedy, snappy, distinguished, friendly, weird, etc etc.  Pirate are the second place trump card, mostly because they are awesome.

Happy Birthday Gav!!  Thank you for 7 beautiful, wonderful, crazy, fun, exciting, joyful, dramatic, hilarious, awesome years!

Sundays with Sam

Holding up that head!

He is making a funny face here, he doesn't look like himself at all.  I think he looks like a baby Josh Brolin. (Josh Brolin, does that date me?  Yeah that dates me.) Also, did you did you notice that Halle photo bomb?

Jan 13th - 20th

This last week was pretty exciting.  Cooper is growing fast.  He is holding his head up  pretty well.  He will grab things that touch his hand like fingers, clothes, toys, eyeballs...  We put the "newborn" sized clothes away this week.  (sigh) I suppose a month and a half in in little teeny clothes is a pretty long time for most babies, but I just with they could stay tiny forever. 

These next pictures are a little montage I like to call "Sunday with Sam"

Cooper likes to look at the light, or at my hair, or anywhere but at me.

For family night we played a game I found on Pinterest.  I don't remember the name but the idea is that you fill a tea cup with flour, tip it upside down. pull the cup off and put a candy on top of the flour.  Then with a butter knife take turns slicing away some of the flour.  If you make the candy fall when it is your turn to slice, then you have to fish the candy out of the flour only using your mouth.  :)

 We started by using Andie Mints, but they were two easy to get out of the flour, so we switched to using 2 skittles - 2 so you had to put your face in the flour TWICE!

It was AWESOME!

 (I don't have a normal picture of Moey this week.  This is one that Halle took.)

Moey had a fun week. On Tuesday her class got to go Skiing at Solitude.  And yes, it was below 10 degrees all week long.  Then on Wednesday she had a 'Battle of the Books' meeting at school.  They had a drawing and she won the first Michael Vey book!  Battle of the Books is a new program they are doing in our school this year.  Any student who wants to participate is put a team and they are given a list of 20 books to read - as a team.  In March they will have a have a quiz show type "battle" answering questions about the books.  There are 4 girls on her team.  They all decided that they would read all 20 books each.  20 books in 6 months!  I told them they should try for 10.  With out any prodding from me, she has already read 16.

On Sunday. Dave and I were called to works with the Bears in Cub scouts.  Thursday was pack meeting.  It was a magic show.  Everyone was invited to prepare a magic trick.  So Gavin and I prepared a few tricks.  First we made a quarter disappear using a magic paper.  Then my scarf started to bother me and Gavin helped by pulling the scarf off.  He pulled on both ends looking like it would choke me.  We got on audible gasp as the scarf popped off my neck!  Gavin was so adorable.  I asked him to help me with my scarf and his eyes brightened and twinkled and his smile was huge with excitement.  Don't tell him I called him adorable.   Lastly we practiced our levitation.  We didn't get a picture of the actually levitating, but gavin is under the blanket, and he levitated.  Dave said it looked pretty cool, I guess you will have to take his word for it.

Oops

Oops, I left the Nutella on the counter. And this is her 'princess smile.'

Burrr!

Today I sent my kids to walk to school in sub zero temperature because my car is in the shop.
I feel like I should get the mother of the year award.

I knew this day would come!

It is official, Ethan is taller than I am. I feel oddly proud and sad and short all at the same time.

Cooper (For Mary)

Well, I have a goal for 2013 to post to my blog more often.  (Once a week? Yeah we'll see if that actually happens. :) ) Honestly, I felt a little guilted into blogging again, but it's a good kind of guilt. 

Any who, Mary requested more photos of Cooper, so this is for you Mary! <3

  

This is Cooper at 4 days old.  And Sam the Lamb.  (Sam has a long and involved history which is not appropriate for this post,)

Here is Cooper at 2 1/2 weeks.  He has grow a little.  Sam looks like he has put on a little weight too.

And again at one month, somebody pudged out!

This is the notes from our doctors visit at 2 weeks.  (I really thought his head would be in a higher percentile.  Only 17%?) 

Cooper with the sibs.  Wow he looks teeny tiny.

This is Cooper in his carseat for his first excursion.  Not that you can tell that he is in the carseat from this close up shot.  Mostly I wanted a picture of the hat, that is for a 6 month old, and is too small already. (17% yeah right.)

I don't have a snarky comment for this one, just cute.

More cute.

So, nursing has been a bit frustrating, so we started him on solids a little early.  The only down side so far is that he is a little messy.

 He has already learned the half smile....

.... that drives the girls crazy. 

He started dressing fancy, he is just growing up so fast.

Oh yeah, there was the time I dropped him down the stairs.  I was trying to multi task and juggling the baby and the toilet paper didn't work out so good this day.

I think maybe he has hit puberty already.  In retrospect, maybe we started solids too early.

Then he and Halle decided to run away and join a biker gang.

 

He came back but he had sold Halle for a monkey!  Needless to say he is grounded from solid food, for at least a couple more months.