Happy Birthday Lily!!!

Lily turns 2 today!! We still call her "Baby Girl" and I think she will be that for some time to come. We also call her "Miss Sassy Pants" since she is just that. Her new favorite thing to do is order the boys around by telling them to "Hurry up", "Shush it!", and telling them "Enough boys!" (I can't figure out where she's getting these phrases....) =) While she is a bit bossy and clearly thinks she is the princess of the house, she can also be very sweet and loving. She hates when the boys are upset and will sit with them and kiss them. She gets so excited when they wake up and come downstairs. And there is no question that she is a Daddy's girl. Two years has passed so quickly. Here is a video of pictures from the first two years of her life.

Happy Birthday Lily!

10th Anniversary!

Today, Jeff & I celebrate 10 years of marriage!!! I can't believe how fast time flies!! I love you Jeff! Thanks for 10 great years. I am looking forward to many, many more great years together!

To celebrate, Jeff & I are leaving for vacation (with no kids!) tomorrow morning. We are going to St. Martin, where we went for our Honeymoon. I am SO excited!


***I will have a post for Lily's Birthday tomorrow, since it's her actual Birthday, so come check it out! =)

# 2 Playing Cards

This week we crossed off playing cards on our list of things to do this summer. The boys favorite card games? Go Fish and Uno.

and this is how Lily likes to play cards.....

...the boys don't let her play with them.

Recent Art Projects

We have done a lot of art projects so far this summer. Here are some of the ones the kids liked the most!

Car tracks

Stained Glass

Marble Painting

Paper Plate Dinosaurs

Regular Painting =)

Some Assembly Required.....

We gave Lily a play kitchen for her Birthday. The box said some assembly required. Sunday morning, before we left to go to see my dad and Jeff's dad, I thought I would put it together so Lily could play with it when we got home. Jeff looked at me and said, "That's going to take you a long time, you shouldn't start that now." How did he know? I hadn't even opened the box! Granted, I am not the one who usually puts stuff together, but since Jeff fractured his leg, I thought it would be easier for me to sit on the floor putting it together. Besides, I could do it, right? It didn't look that hard. Well, I didn't actually even open the box until Monday afternoon. I have to admit, I was pretty overwhelmed when I looked at ALL of those pieces!!! I almost put it back in the box so Jeff could do it. But no, I was going to show him I could do it too. =) After about an hour and a half of putting little pieces together, this is all I had done:

And these aren't even all of the pieces, there were several laying all around me! I had to quit so I could fix dinner, but later that night (after Jeff graciously asked if I wanted him to take over), I started back up again. Some assembly required??? This thing took me about 4 hours to put together and I am really not that inept at following instructions. There were just so many pieces!!! Really, some of those couldn't have come already put together? =) It was worth it though. Look how cute it was after I finally finished!


Poor Lily couldn't play with it until this morning, after watching me all last night. She was happy to get to play with it today though. (So were the boys!!) She got a lot of the food and dishes from family for her Birthday, so it was nice that she has stuff to put in her kitchen.

Here she is cooking some cupcakes!

My little chef!

SO, while it was a big pain to put together (have I mentioned that yet?? ha ha) Lily loves her kitchen & I am pretty proud of myself for putting it together.

The Best Daddy Ever!!

If you ask the kids what they think of their Dad, they will tell you that he loves them, that they love him, that he is funny and plays silly games with them. That he brings special treats home to them when he goes out of town, and that he is the best Daddy ever! I couldn't agree more with them. I really couldn't ask for a better Dad for our children. He is a dad who takes off work to go to the first day of school, field trips, and school picnics. He is a dad who took turns getting up in the middle of the night with the baby even though he was working and I was not. He kisses boo-boos, cheers victories, and gives out an unending supply of hugs. From playing with race tracks with the boys and drinking "tea" with Lily, he is a wonderful Dad. We love him SO much!!!

I stole this idea from this blog. This is what the kids got Jeff for Father's Day, along with a coupon book that they made themselves. I put the pictures in a frame for his office. He loved it!

Happy Father's Day Jeff!!!

Lily's Birthday Party

Lily's actual Birthday is next Saturday, but we had her party today. My nephew, Ares, was born exactly one week before Lily. This year, we decided to have a joint Birthday party. The theme was Sesame Street with Elmo and Abby Cadabby. Here is the very cute cake my sister Mary made:

We started out the day by letting Lily open up her presents from us.

Here she is playing with her new tea set. She's such a girly-girl! =)

Lily liked the balloons.

The Birthday kids!!

After lunch, it was time for presents!!

Jeff is a big chief's fan and Lily LOVES bracelets and necklaces (which she calls pretties). So, my brother Tom bought her some pretty bracelets and this Chief's necklace. She and Jeff loved it. =)

(Tom's wife, Carla, took credit for all of the cute clothes they gave her, but would not take credit for the necklace. Ha Ha!)

Then it was Ares' turn to open presents. He wasn't too excited about it until he opened this Micky Mouse table from his Aunt Karen. He was SO excited!!!

We moved right on to the cake before we had two really cranky 2 year-olds who were missing nap time.

How excited do these two look?? =)

Lily was so excited about blowing out her candle, Jeff had to re-light it because she blew it out before we even sang. The song was barely over when she blew it out.....

....she even tried to bow out Ares' candle....

....finally his Mommy helped him.....

....and it was time to eat cake!

Thanks Ares for letting Lily share your Birthday!

Water Balloons!!

Yesterday, after days of begging (the boys, not me), I filled water balloons up for the kids to play with. They were super excited! Lily wasn't quite sure what to think of it though. She knew it was a balloon....

.....but wasn't too sure what to think when this happened.

These pictures crack me up because I was trying to get a picture of them throwing balloons at each other & spraying water. Except the balloons did not cooperate with me. They would hit the boys, but they wouldn't break until they hit the ground. The boys were a little disappointed by this.

They did have fun trying to break them over their own heads though. Silly boys! =)

Puppet Workshop

Tuesday, I took Zach and my niece Taby to a puppet workshop at the library. It was for ages 6 - 11, so I had a mad 4 year old, but he got to play with his mad 4 year old cousin, so hopefully, they stopped being mad together. =) Anyway, We got there and they got to choose between a hand puppet and a sock puppet. Zach and Taby both chose hand puppets. When they got to their table, they saw all of the things they could use to make their puppets!!

Then they got ready to work!

The colored, glued, and cut.

They worked so hard on their puppets!!

Here are Taby & Zach's finished puppets.

After learning how to move their puppets correctly, and looking over their scripts, all of the kids got a chance to put on a puppet show!

Both Zach and Taby had a lot of fun and have their puppets to remind them of their fun day.