Anna is Five!

Dave has decided to start taking the kids' birthdays off if they fall on a weekday. So we spent Anna's birthday together as a family and had a blast! Anna is such a joy! She is so full of life and so happy and gets along with everyone. She was so very excited to turn five and have her birthday!

She picked going to a bounce house and it was great fun (as you can see below).

Eva wasn't sure what all the activity was about, but had fun eating and getting lots of snuggle time with Dave and I.

It continues to amaze me how social Anna is. Anytime we are in a place where other kids are she immediately makes friends. This day was no different as you can see she had two friends and her two brothers following her everywhere she went.

It was a real blessing watching her run around having so much fun on her special day!

The boys had fun being buddies and did almost everything together.

Collin asked me to play with him. He's finally in a huge Mommy phase and is so in love with me right now which is a big deal b/c he has been obsessed with his Dad for several years now. He even tells me that he's going to marry me. :) I couldn't resist his sweet request, so I went on all the inflatables with him and we had a bunch of fun together.

Family shot on the way out after hours of fun and surprise visit from Grandpa with a new outfit for the birthday girl.

We went to a restaurant after that was only about 3 minutes away, but Collin crashed hard! Dave carried him in and he was still asleep so we put him on the booth and he got a good nap in. Eva was sleeping too, so we had a fun time enjoying our two big kids for a bit.

Anna commented on the flowers on the table and how pretty they were when we came in. The hostess overheard us talking about it being her birthday so she went and put together some flowers for Anna to have. She loved that!

For dessert we got a monster cookie and they put five scoops of ice cream and five candles for our birthday girl.

She was a fan! (Collin was too, pretty good deal getting woken up just in time for dessert)

When we got home it was present time. I found lots of little gifts for Anna so I decided to be sneaky and wrapped them all and then put them inside of a box and wrapped it so she thought she just had one present. She was so tickled when she saw inside!

So happy with her Peter Pan.....

....and Wendy

....and her Peter Pan charm bracelet.

The kids had a great time playing with the new Peter Pan toys....

....and the girls played together with her new princess little people.

She was so excited to go to bed with her new stuffed animals and new matching jammies for her baby.

We love out sweet five year old cupcake so very much!!!

Tiger Cub & Wonderlab Fun

Benjamin's Den did the flag ceremony for his Tiger Cub advancement. He was so serious the whole time!

Getting his Tiger Paw print put on his face by Dave.

 Excited to be a Tiger Cub!

Writing a story for school in his new workbook.

Anna was proud of her difficult accomplishment that morning too!

We were all so tickled that one of Benjamin's word problems had Anna and Eva as the names. What are the odds?!?

Had another fun day in Bloomington and enjoyed the Wonderlab. Can you spot the boys playing?

Hi Collin!

Eva and I were up on the stairs watching Anna climb, climb, climb!

The littles checking out the lizard.

Check out Eva's cute snowgirl shirt!

We enjoyed a fabulous lunch at one of the vegetarian restaurants. While everyone else was taking a bathroom break, I put Eva in Collin's chair and she thought she was big stuff sitting in a chair!

She loves her Benjamin!

After lunch, we headed back to the museum and Anna helped Eva on her first slide.

Super Dad lifted each kid (while holding Eva) to do this ball bounce!

This was the funniest thing....they had mirrors that made you look funny and we all had the best laugh when we looked short!

Looking for birds.

Fun, fun times!

7 Month Old Eva

Over 1/2 year old now! Growing so fast!!

Eva loves hugging toys/our hands/us into her face like this.

She loves to smirk. Check out her gorgeous eyes!

She is as sweet as I can imagine any baby being!

Here is what Eva is up to this month:  She sways back and forth as if dancing especially when there is music, smiles with her tongue out and smirks a lot, likes to hold onto her toes in the car seat or when getting her diaper changed, has started babbling - mamama mostly but also says bababa, really enjoys chewing on cold teethers even though she isn't teething yet, loves baby food (even the green ones!), picks at her poor ears a lot and even makes them bleed, hates bath time, makes raspberry sounds with her mouth (which makes for messy meal times), shakes her head back and forth (like you do to say no) and then smiles really big when she sees you're watching or if you do it back to her, is a really good car rider (compared to her siblings as babies), is starting to explore with movement - she does little push ups when on her belly, pushes herself backwards some, gets onto her knees a little bit from a sitting position and tries to reach for things or move but always falls onto her belly, so we're getting closer to being mobile but not quite there. Overall she is a wonderfully happy girl and makes everyone in this house smile everyday!

Super Post #2

More to catch up on.....ready....set....go! :)

Eva loves playing with her toes now! Every time I snapped the picture, she let go here.

Benjamin did his first pine wood derby race with cub scouts. He had a great time!

Watching his car race (his is the orange one).

After quite a few races, he averaged out to come in third place. He was so proud!!

Good job guys!

Eva moved on from just cereal and is loving baby food!

Hmm, what is this new flavor?

The big kids did a sleepover/camp out in the basement with Daddy. I surprised them by sneaking Eva in Anna's sleeping bag. They were all so tickled!

While the big kids were falling asleep, Daddy was being silly with the camera with me and my Evie.

Love her sweet hugs!

The boys love wearing matching shirts!

We went to a super hero day at our library. Here they are making masks and capes.

Super Collin jumping over buildings.

And going through the obstacle course.

Daddy tried to get Eva in on the super hero action.

Super Benjamin to the rescue!

Eva preferred watching (there was a lot to see!).

Captain America and Spiderman even came!

Sweet Valentine girls!

Gobbling up more food!

She made faces the first time she had green beans but still ate them and has gobbled everything she has tried since then!

Benjamin and Anna went out for some afternoon snow fun while Collin napped. The flakes coming down were huge and they had a great time!

Snow soccer!

Love this picture of my big kids who seem to be older and older by the day!

That evening we tried our hands at snow painting.

They loved it!

Benjamin had a great season of basketball. I loved how he cheered on his team when he wasn't playing!

Having fun during the game.

Doing his best to get the ball.

Since this was the last game, there were trophies afterwards!

Benjamin's picture of Angry Birds.