Look what I built!

A green house! I'm hoping to keep my tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries warm and safe from the deer. So after 3 designs and 4 trips to Lowes for PVC pipe, duct tape, and plastic, here it is:

Jonas' big day

So his birthday was twelve days ago, but I promised my mother that he'd get his own post. So here he is sporting his new Mario shirt and cowboy hat on the day of his 4th birthday.

We'd already had his party but I wanted to do something fun on his birthday so I picked up his best friend, Sawyer, (and Sawyer's mother, Brittany) and we took the boys to lunch at Red Robin. Where they were wild. But, hey, it was his birthday.

He got the requisite birthday song from the waiters and the free sundae, of course.

Then off to the park to burn off some of that energy! Happy Birthday, Jonas!!

Jump for joy - Quinn is 7!

When the first three kids were little, we went to storytime, the zoo, the park, we had playgroups, we fed the ducks, we had birthday parties every year. It was a memorable childhood for them all. I have always felt a little guilty and concerned about Quinn's and Jonas' memories of their childhood - I'm tired of storytime, dread going to the park, never feed ducks, don't have time for playgroups, and avoid all birthday parties. However, my guilt got the best of me so I geared myself up for Quinn's 7th birthday party. I spent a month considering all the possibilities for a party and tried to come up with the least stressful party with maximum fun. Here's what we did:


Five hours of bounce house fun! Now, five hours is way too long to have 15 squealing 7-year old girls (no boys allowed) at our house and since we were doing this party and since Jonas' birthday is only 5 days after Quinn's we split the time and did two birthday parties on the same day. I know, sounds crazy, huh?

Here's the birthday girl on the morning of her birthday: (Thanks to my SIL for the banner and shirt idea.)


She probably doesn't even know what a radio is, but this is the cake she picked. (It reminds me of the radio my mother kept on the kitchen counter and listened to Paul Harvey on every day - only hers was black, not purple.)





Then Jonas' friends came for his party. He spent literally hours jumping.


His train cake:

After all the friends and the bounce house left we tried to have some dinner. However, Jonas just couldn't take anymore so he curled up on his barstool and fell asleep.



They were fun parties and I'm sure they'll both have great memories of it, but I realized that of course they don't have the same childhood that the older kids had. They have a big brother and two big sisters who love them and play with them and help take care of them. They have grandparents and great grandparents who live nearby and we see often. They also have a mother who might be a little bit wiser and a little more relaxed about rules of dress or appropriate breakfast foods. So good-bye guilt, I'm done with you.

And Happy Birthday, Quinn! You have been a joy to have in our family these last 7 years!