Brooke’s Birthday Party

Just mention the word BIRTHDAY…and Brooke has one response…“Birthday Cake.  My HAPPY CAKE!” Every single time someone wished her a birthday, on the phone or in person, she thought it was time for BIRTHDAY CAKE!

Just imagine me at Costco, with ALL 3 kids, a cart full of groceries…trying to convince Brooke she HAD to wait to eat her cake.  It was epic!!!  Every time she saw it…she wanted to dive RIGHT IN!

But alas, finally the day of the party came.  And it seems like 99% of the pictures I took…were of the cake!!! How very fitting…

   

And in case you’re wondering, she did enjoy her cake very much!!!

Once again, Quincy and Brooke had a joint birthday party.  These two are inseparable…

When Brooke wakes up in the morning, the first words out of her mouth, “Go Quincy House.  And see Chelsea too!”  Every single day.

And one day, I was putting Brooke to bed and reminding her of all the people that love her.  “Mommy loves you.  Daddy, Tanner, and Rylee love you.”  Brooke’s first response -- “And Quincy too!”

Brooke LOVES her Quincy!  They play awesome most of the time, except when they don’t.  And then it’s bad.  Usually you’ll here the word MINE yelled followed by epic fight.  MINE is now a bad word in our house.  It’s not allowed to be said.  And I’m thinking of renting Pocahontas and reinforcing the idea that THINGS are NOT ours to OWN.  Even if Pocahontas was talking about the trees and the water…the same should apply to TOYS.  Obviously!

Back to the Party!!!

We were planning on having an outdoor BBQ at a fun neighborhood park…and it worked for about the first 30 minutes.  Then we saw some dark clouds heading our way…and made a mad dash for the cars, but weren’t nearly fast enough.  It started POURING!!! And hailing.  And the wind was crazy!!! It’ll be the party we never ever forget!

Thankfully, we could head over to my house to finish up with cake and presents. Brooke is really into dress-up and baby stuff…in which she scored BIG TIME!  And Tanner was kind enough to showcase the “puddle jumper” floating device, which quite possible will save her life this summer. 

 

Note to self, make sure to get Q a modest-princess dress for next year…no more of that cleagave :)

And while I didn’t get any pics of the two birthday girls together, I did at least capture a few more of the birthday girl with her sister…TWINSIES!

    

And with these two little girls…every day is like a party!!! 

Easter Celebration

Each Easter, I’m always wondering what we can do to celebrate Easter.

Yes, we do all the typical things.

And this year, tried a few new things too.

 

 

Of course, we wear our Sunday’s Best to church, and immediately change, we changed.  So sorry folks…no pics :)  Just a naked baby, I mean the Easter Bunny.

And dye Easter Eggs.

My favorite…Mr. Humpty Dumpty.

And the Easter Bunny delivers hidden Easter baskets full of goodies.

Of all the many goodies, these cheap Dora pens that had stampers/bubbles were the star of the show.  Thank you, Target clearance.  I mean Easter Bunny! 

And go on Easter Egg Hunts. With the entire family.  It’s better that way!!!

Brooke was hilarious.  Nothing was coming between her and her candy. I mean nothing!!!

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the winner, who spotted the Golden Egg, won a fun surprise – a remote control helicopter :)

But surely Easter is more than this. And we try to teach the true meaning…

• by doing a picture storyboard of Easter along our walls.
• teaching the kids about the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ using the cute resurrection eggs.  Or even better,  having your kids teach it.   
• 
• and baking “resurrection rolls” as we tell the Easter story.

And this  year, we tried something new and planted a mini-resurrection garden.   Tanner re-told the story using our our pretend Jesus, Mary, and Donkey from our Noah’s Ark set.  And the best part is seeing the grass grow…and seeing these two kids hug each other.  

April’s Daily Musings

Our life captured by the measure of what we do one day, one moment at a time.   It’s the small things in life…captured.

Just discovered by new favorite app, Collect App (free on my iPhone)!  I first heard about it here…and thought…I can totally do this!  One picture a day, right a small caption, and a reminder for me if I forgot!  Great way to record all of life's small moments…all from the comfort of my iPhone.

Except don’t let your kids delete it…accidentally.  Or all your little stored photos/captions will be gone.  And you’ll want to cry!