My Birthday 2014

I was thoroughly spoiled with tons of love (in the form of hugs, kisses and time together) on my birthday. Starting with a yummy breakfast, time with my awesome kiddos, and then a little bit of time with Milayla while I took her to the doctor. 

I particularly loved the birthday banner - so colorful and beautiful! 

taking pictures at the doctor :)

love that smile! She was such a brave and happy girl at the doctor!

Jason took the day off so that we could head to a little museum at McGill that is only open during the week. I love exploring museums with the family!

Then we had an afternoon together complete with a great dinner (homemade indian! yum!) and gf angel food cake (it's been a long time since I have had that!). I was so touched by how hard Jason and the kiddos worked to make it a nice day for me. I feel pretty blessed to have such a loving family. They're awesome. They all worked especially hard to make the incredible angel food cake. We all LOVED it. Soooo good. Made with so much love and enjoyed by everyone.

I got plenty of cuddle time in with the kiddos and even a few gifts before Jason swept me off to see my first ever Cirque du Soleil show. It was great, but I couldn't help wish the kiddos were there because I know they would have been absolutely entranced by it. I so genuinely love getting to spend time together as a family. We've been eagerly looking for (and going to) theatre type things with the kiddos since (more to come on that!).

The show was great. So creative and unique. I simply could not pick my favorite part of the show. Though, I would say enjoying the show with Jason was definitely the overall best part. I sure do love being married to my best friend :).

When we returned home, I immediately went and checked on the kids who were sound asleep in their beds (and a report from the babysitter that they did great). I love those kiddos so much. And I love that they just giggle about the fact that they have a mom who takes pictures of the cute faces and positions I find them sleeping in when I check on them. 

Such a great day. Feeling overwhelmingly blessed and grateful for this family. They are each so special and unique and I could not imagine a better way to celebrate my birthday than with them. THANK YOU for making it such a lovely day. LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!

Atticus is 5!

We have had lots of fun celebrating around here this weekend. Celebrating because this little man turned 5! Oh, I know it's cliche, but how did that happen!? How did he go from an eager-to-learn little baby to this super thoughtful 5-year-old?

We sure do love having Atticus in our family. He is such a hard worker, great helper and so thoughtful of those around him. He is so determined to always be helping that he gets a little down when there isn't any way for him to help. And he thinks verrrrry far into the future. He really thinks things through; even thinking about how many children he would like to have when he is married and what vehicle would be best to drive. Yep, that's our 5-year-old. And he is a fierce friend.

The most recent accomplishment that we have been celebrating around here is that Atticus is full-on reading. I'll post more about that another time, for now, I will just say that he thoroughly enjoyed getting to read all his birthday cards himself. And he has been practicing away at the piano; knows the names of the keys and can play both Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Hot Cross Buns. He's been asking about learning the violin next so we will hopefully be able to get that going soon as well.

Atticus declared this morning that it feels pretty good to be 5. More details about his birthday celebration soon. The birthday outing was an all around success and the birthday boy announced at the end of the day that every part of the day was his favorite. Above all, I just hope that he felt an outpouring of love, regardless of all the extras. We showered him with even more hugs and kisses than usual and just had fun celebrating him! We sure do love Atticus!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ATTICUS!!!

More photos to come soon!

Milayla's 3 Year Birthday Photos

These are the photos that we took for Milayla's Birthday Photo Shoot. We had a lot of fun letting the birthday girl choose where to get her photos taken around our home. And the boys had lots of fun giving me moose ears to get big smiles from the birthday girl. I really love all the facial expressions she gave us, which made it hard to narrow down the photos, so enjoy them all! Love this girl and her awesome personality and smile so much. More about her birthday celebration soon!

Oh, and yes she is sporting bright green rain boots. It had just rained and we had some fresh mud out back that I knew the birthday girl could not resist playing in so she was equipped accordingly. I think it makes the outfit that much more fun - particularly when paired with the windmills and lighthouses that are on our little dutch baby's dress (not sure you can actually see those in the photos though). 

3 Years Old - Milayla

Our little Holland-born Sweet Heart turns 3 today. We celebrated her birthday on Saturday and had so much fun getting to celebrate her and all the wonderful ways she is special and blesses our family. We are pretty lucky to have this sensational girl in our family. We love her so much! 

We did a surprise outing, had a lovely birthday menu of the birthday girl's choosing, took birthday photos and opened a few presents. We just had a lot of fun seeing this girl enjoy her big day and got to enjoy it right along with her. 

I will definitely be posting some more birthday stuff once I get the photos all sorted out, but in the mean time, here is a little sneak peak of that beautiful smile and eye sparkle. We really are just so blessed to have this vibrant, loving, hard working, smart, thoughtful and beautiful girl in our family! 

Birthday 2014 - Jason

I feel like this post would be more appropriately named if it were titled, 'How Many Ways You Can Botch a Birthday'. Because I certainly managed to do that in so many ways.

I am not a big fan of my birthday; a sentiment that I hope Jason or the kiddos never feel about their own birthday. So I work pretty darn hard to try to make Jason and the kids' birthdays a nice experience and that they fully realize just how much we love having them in this family. And when all that planning and working to make it a nice experience goes horribly awry I just feel plain awful about it. Thus it was with Jason's birthday. Right down to forgetting how old my own husband is turning (yep...I messed up his age...I'm an awesome wife...), forgetting to cook rice to go in the requested birthday dinner of bean and rice burritos, and having our Plan A outing fall through AND our Plan B outing. The day just oozed awesomeness, can you tell?

Things that did work out; the kids did a great job with the decorations.

The birthday boy quite enjoyed his new socks, and all the hugs and kisses, and the cards.

Atticus picked the card and decided that if we made Milayla the little baby then I could be the girl and then we would all be in the picture. I think he did a great job coloring it!

And, for the first time in my life, I made decent pancakes for breakfast. A fact that everyone was very happy about!

And the snowstorm that we were greeted with in the morning made for some fun in the snow in the afternoon.

Love this picture. Jason had just told the kids that he was going to get them with a snowball and they both looked at him at the same time, unsure of whether to trust the claim or not. 

The kids made a snow slide and stairs.

So while my birthday planning skills need some serious help, I am grateful for two little kidlets who just didn't care and were happy to celebrate with balloons and brownies. And a husband who did a decent job pretending not to care; though I think he's just happy that I didn't burn the brownies (like last year...). And that Milayla was an awesome kitchen helper and made sure that those brownies were loaded in chocolate chips. I kind of love when positive attitudes outweigh negative experiences and fun is still had by all; particularly when that was my hope all along - that we would enjoy celebrating Jason and his unique part in our family.

So here is to Jason getting to enjoy un-burnt brownies with tasty vanilla ice cream and getting to turn 31....again...

*sigh*

Happy Birthday Jason!

I'm grateful that you know how to laugh at things like this...enjoy your extra year!