Nine!

Friday, May 10 we celebrated Luke's 9th birthday. 

We took the day off from school and enjoyed a day with a few friends and family. 

The week prior to Luke's birthday, Ethan was insistent that he wanted to buy a gift for Luke. He counted his money in his wallet ($7.65) and repeatedly asked to go shopping. Although, we've never done this before, we made it happen. I suggested several low price items that Ethan could buy so he wouldn't spend all his money. However, he was not swayed by my suggestions. He insisted on buying a lego set that cost $7.34 with tax. It was really such a sweet moment (that I NEEDED to see!) -- Ethan so delighted with giving his gift and Luke realizing what a sacrifice Ethan had made by spending all his money on him. I couldn't have planned it better. 

The week before, Darin and I had fun making a "Luke 9" sign out of legos. 

What a great surprise for our lego lover Luke!

Luke requested ice cream cake, so I kept it simple with a homemade strawberry/vanilla ice cream cake. No crafty creations for me this year. It was a bit of a relief!

Of course, wearing the traditional "9" shirt! I love this tradition!!!

 After lunch and cake, we relocated to mini golf with a few special friends. Our plan was to try out a new mini golf course. We had scoped it out, looked at pictures online and gotten really excited to try it. Unfortunately, this Mommy never considered calling since we had such a small group. Imagine the disappointment when we pulled up to find it was CLOSED for a company picnic!!! We had one sad 9 year old on our hands. I'm so thankful he bounced back and made the best of a change in location to a less exciting course. (Too bad his brother didn't change gears nearly as maturely! bummer!)

9 year old at the NINTH hole!

Golfing buddies and friends since 2004!

We finished up the day with gymnastics class and dinner out with all the grandparents. (So fun to have Grammy, Poppy, Grandma and Grandpa join us for our traditional birthday dinner.)

Phew! What a marathon day. Boy, do I love this 9 year old and the fine young man he is becoming.

Celebrating!

We have been doing a lot of celebrating this past month! We celebrated my parents 45th wedding anniversary. My brother and his family joined us for a family lunch and an adults only dinner out. We had a great babysitter who watched all 5 boys (ages 8, 6, 5, 4, and 3 years old). K.A. did a great job and got them all to bed while we enjoyed our dinner out. Hooray!

A few weeks later, we traveled to Maryland to surprise my brother and celebrate his 40th birthday. 

The crowd waiting for Jeffrey. 

Surprise!!

Three happy boys with bellies full of yummy food and cake!

My sister-in-law planned and organized a great party for my brother. I'm all partied out. ;)

Birthday

Last month, I was blessed by my family and enjoyed a great 38th birthday. There were signs...

Remember this sign from last year? It came back out for the month. :) 

There were flowers...

Special lunch and ice cream parfaits with Grammy & Poppy...

(a perfect birthday dessert since I don't like cake)

And then the boys enjoyed an overnight at Grammy & Poppy's so Darin and I could go out on a date. 

After some football in the front yard with the boys and my parents, 

I drove off to meet Darin footloose and fancy free.

If only I could have slowed down the time... it was morning before I knew it!

We were very glad to see our little cherubs at Luke's basketball game in the morning. :) 

The Call

I was born at 7:07am on February 8.

For as long as I can remember... maybe 20 years (?), my parents have been calling and singing "Happy Birthday" to me at the exact time of my birth. They have to set their alarm clocks so they don't miss it. I'm an early riser and I look forward to it every year. I love it!

My mom is a fabulous singer and my dad has had 20 years to practice. He has come a long way. ;)

This morning, after their call (which I put on speaker phone so the boys could hear)
Ethan said: "I love how when Poppy sings on your birthday he makes animal noises too."
To which Aaron said: "Yeah I heard a cow and a horse."
Ethan replied: "Today, I heard a frog."

Hilarious!!

Coordinated

One of the treats of having my parents closer is that they can join us for birthday dinners. 

 Ethan specifically called and asked Poppy to match him by wearing a gray shirt. 

 It was a coincidence though that everyone else was wearing blue. 

Although, it's not all that shocking if you look in our closets. We have a LOT of blue. :)

I was the odd one out in coral. :) Luke was determined to sneak in 

the picture on this side of the table too. 

We were quite a silly bunch celebrating birthday's!

Backyard Olympic Games

We celebrated our birthday boys with a little backyard olympic games on Monday. 

The boys were very eager to help me decorate. 

I would have loved to invite more friends and their kids, but we kept our numbers at ten and let the boys choose who they wanted to invite. It was just the right number of kids. A very sweet bunch!

 Getting ready to process for the opening ceremonies. 

 Birthday Olympians wearing their new olympic shirts. 

Super easy to make with a circular stamp and fabric paint.

The pledge and National Anthem.

 The torch relay race

 The standing long jump

We also had soccer relays, discus throw, shot put, and an obstacle course.

We were a sweaty and happy bunch!

 Homemade pizza, veggies and fruit! yum! So thankful that my mom could be here to 

assemble and bake the pizza for us while we were outside competing.

 I have to say... the cakes were a bit lame this year. 

And the funny thing is that the boys DON'T EVEN LIKE CAKE! 

 They just love the surprise of how I choose to decorate it. We sadly end up throwing most of it away. Anyone want some delicious homemade cake? Come on by...

Ethan's gold medal ... lame, I know. I was grasping for easy ideas.

This yellow food coloring is radioactive! He was excited though. :)

 After the obstacle course, the tunnel became the "Olympic Caterpillar." 

 Closing ceremonies and the awarding of gold medals

The kids had a blast, but phew... I'm tired. Whose idea was it to have two kids born a day apart?? 

Oh, that's right... it was a happy little accident all in God's plan. :)

I love these boys!
* Thank you to Carla for taking pictures for me while I led the games!

Difference

The difference between 3 years old...

and 4 years old!

Celebrating Aaron's 4th birthday today! Can't believe my baby is 4!!!

Darin

Today was a day of celebrating Darin's 37th birthday! 

And yes, he married an older woman. ;) (by four months)

We certainly couldn't compete with the amazing decorations Darin made on my behalf in February, but the boys were eager and excited to make some special signs to show Daddy how much they love him.

While Darin was still sleeping this morning, we got busy hanging streamers, 

hanging up our sign and adding some colored lights (Darin's favorite)! 

Darin was surprised and happy to walk through the streamers 

and find 3 excited boys and a hot breakfast. 

 We wrapped the gifts in brown paper so the boys could add their special touch with markers. One of Darin's packages contained three baggies with three puzzles the boys made. We had some blank puzzles and the boys wrote words, drew pictures and colored them. (This was a very fun project this week. The two older boys were busy creating for over an hour!) Then Darin had to put them together to find the messages or discover the pictures.

I've been thinking a lot today about God's sovereignty and plan. He chose Darin to be my husband and the father to our children. He has made Darin who he is and I think God uses Darin's strengths to sharpen my weaknesses. Here are just a few things I love about this guy and why I'm thankful that I've had the privilege to celebrate the past 15 birthday's with him. 

Darin is...

* a child of God

* cheerful and optimistic

* extremely loyal

* handsome

* very detail oriented

* neat and organized

* great sense of humor

* quick to laugh out loud

* very smiley

* generous gift giver

* hardworking and thorough

* lover of God

* musically gifted

* roller coaster lover

* good Daddy

* kid at heart!

(frozen strawberry and mango sorbet cake with cookie crust)

Happy Birthday Darin! We love you!