Owen is ONE!!

Then: 

Now:

Dear Owen, 

Honestly I never thought I would have a son.  After three girls I figured that you would be a girl too.  I was shocked when they told me you were a boy.  I honestly didn't really believe it until they put you in my arms after you were born.  

I'm so happy the Lord chose to send you to our home.  I am so thankful to have the chance to mother both girls and a boy.  This year has been such a joy.  You are such a joy.  I can't believe that you are already a year old!  It has gone by much too fast.  

We love you so much my dear boy!  I love your darling grin.  I love how much you adore your daddy.  And your sisters.  I love your little nod when you when someone says "hi" to you.  I love that you growl and roar.  I love your crazy bed hair.  I love that you cuddle with me so much.  I love that you and Beckah get into trouble together.  I love that you are starting to stand up for what you want, even if it means you throw a bit of a fit.  I love your nonsensical chatter.  You talk as much as the girls do and I am confident you will be able to hold your own with them.  

I can see a bit of the boy and young man you will become one day in your sneaky little smiles and full bellied laughs. I look forward to watching you grow.  Feel free to take your time doing that though, okay?  

Happy Birthday my sweet boy!  Here is to many, many more!

Love, 

Mom

Beckah's 2!

It's hard to believe that my baby girl is two!  It's been a crazy couple of years but I am so glad that she is a part of our family!  She is so spunky, funny and full of life.  She brings so much laughter to our home.  I love that she still loves to cuddle with me and that she is huge daddy's girl.  I love that she is our best sleeper and has always been our easiest to put down for bed.  

She LOVES all her little friends cars so we decided to get her one of her very own.  She is very territorial about it too.  If Rory or Owen look at Beckah's car she gets cross with them.  Cadence gets off scott free for looking.  I think it's because Beckah knows Cadence can't fit in her car.  :o)

Grandma Suzi sent her some dress up clothes in her size!  She LOVES her "Brave" dress and wore it for two days straight. 

She also got some new clothes, a doctor kit and her very own LaLa Loopsy doll from Grandma Viv.  

She was also very sure she wanted a Rainbow cake.  It wasn't hard to make, just time consuming since I only have one 8 inch cake pan.  :o)  It was very yummy though!

Beckah I love you so very much!  You have always been so much fun and I love your budding vocabulary and crazy laugh!  I love that you think you can do everything your sister's do! I love hearing you say that you "lub" me and your big fish-lipped kisses!  Happy Birthday baby girl!

Cadence's Birthday Videos and Pictures

Here are pictures of Cadence's Cake and us singing to her!  

We also have some video of her bowling (her activity of choice for her birthday!). 

Cadence is 7!

My oldest baby is 7! Time is going by much to fast.

Cadence wanted to spend her birthday with just family.  When I asked her if she wanted a party she told me that she just wanted to spend the day her family.  She said, "It doesn't matter if you get presents or not, just that you get to spend time with the people you love."  She is such a good kid.

So we spent the day together.  Cadence slept in and then we went bowling.  I made home made strawberry cake with vanilla frosting and it was super yummy.  She did get presents.  She has been asking for her own Minecraft account for a while (it's a computer game Brady plays...like Lego's on steroids on the computer). She also got a Furby and a big remote controlled HexBug from the grandparents.  She had an awesome day, despite Beckah getting bit by the cat and having to go to the ER that afternoon.

My computer is down or I would have new pictures of her for this post.  Once we get it running again I will put new ones up!

Happy Birthday to my Cady girl!  You are wonderful, sweet, responsible, and amazing!  I love how much you love to be with your sisters and brother.  Thank you for being such a wonderful daughter and here is to many more awesome birthdays!

My Darling Husband

Happy birthday to my dear husband!  I feel like I should have thrown him a big party for this birthday.  Thirty is a milestone that should be celebrated.

Brady I hope you know how much I love you.  I hope that I show it as often as I say the words. I am so thankful for you.  Thankful for how hard you work for us.  I know that it can't always be easy being the bread winner and bacon bringer.  It means so much to me that you continue to do it for us, that your hard work allows me to be home with our children.  

I know that you, like me, often feel like we are in a rut.  Everyday the same things over and over again and it gets exhausting.  It gets to be mind numbing sometimes. Some days are easier than others and some are just down right awful. I want you to know that there is no one I would rather share this rut with.  No one whose random quirks I would rather deal with.  I mean, if I have to pick up random dirty socks from places I would never dream of leaving a dirty sock I am really thankful they are yours.  

I love our life together.  The ups and downs and the ruts.  I'm just as happy as the kids to see you when you walk in the door after work.  I hope you know how vital you are to our happiness.  I hope that you can feel it in how we treat you.  

Thank you for dealing with my frustrations as often as my excitement.  Thank you for being a voice of reason when my ability to reason has run out.  Thanks for not always making me be the bad guy with the kids.  Thank you for loving our kids in all their wonderful, exasperating glory.  Thank you for being a wonderful dad with out even trying.  

I am grateful you picked me to spend eternity with.  Happy Birthday honey!  May this year be the best one yet!

Beckah's Birthday Cake!

 We didn't have a big party for Beckah's 1st birthday.  Just some cake for the birthday girl!

My super awesome decorating job!  I know you are all amazed at my wicked skills. 

We sang and let her get started.  She was sure what to do at first.  We had to put some frosting in her mouth so she would know it was yummy. 

It wasn't long before she was stuffing it into her mouth like there was a time limit. 

Then we started to have a problem.  She had so much frosting on her hands that she couldn't "un-stick" them from themselves.  She doesn't like this.

So she tries to use frosting glued fingers to just pick up the whole cake.  I'm not sure if she was going to try and eat the whole thing, or just dump it on the floor.  My bet is the floor.

In the end she started fussing to have her hands cleaned.  :o)  lol

It was a fun night for us! The big girls got to decorate their own cup cake to eat (Rory just ate the frosting lol) and Beckah went to bed shortly after getting a bath.  Brady and I had some left over cake! 

Happy Birthday to Cadence!

We had Cady's party at the Amazing Pizza Machine this year.  It's like Chuck E. Cheese only better.  It's like the Pistol Pete's of my childhood, with the mini roller coaster, bumper cars, go carts, mini bowling, miniature golf, and of course ALL the games/arcade you can imagine. This place is HUGE.  We choose and awesome package (many thanks to Grandpa Mike for the surprise of picking up the tab) and had a bunch of her friends come enjoy their all you can eat buffet (not that awesome, but not awful) and play, play, PLAY! 

Probably the best part of this place is instead of a million tokens you have to keep track of as well as all the tickets your kids win you get a card that you swipe instead.  You load credits onto the card and then swipe till they are gone.  Then you feed your tickets into the ticket eaters and when you get a full count you swipe that card again and the winnings are now on your card!!!  You can redeem them that day or hold onto your card and keep adding tickets each visit to save up for a big prize!  So much better than that drawer full of tickets my brother and I had as a kid! 

They all had so much fun!  And many thanks to all the parents that drove out there for the party!  Best 6th birthday party ever!  :o)

Six years ago...

Six years ago today I had my first baby.

I remember the long night of labor where I tried my best to rest, but I was to excited to sleep.  I remember Brady having to wear a blue mask because he had the flu.  I remember two very awesome nurses, who during my 4 hours of pushing, kept telling me I was doing just fine and that I was very close!  lol

And I remember when Cadence was born and they had to wisk her away for a moment to suction her lungs.  I wasn't scared.  I trusted the Drs and nurses.  I remember that Cadence didn't cry.  She just had those HUGE blue eyes wide open taking in the world around her.

Holding her for the first time was one of the best experiences of my life.

And that little baby has continued to be one of the best experiences of my life.  She never ceases to amaze me.  She is so smart and compassionate.  She is very responsible and loves helping.  She is the best big sister.  We are so proud of how well she does in school.  How easily she makes friends.  She is truly a blessing in our home.

We love you Cadence.  So very much.  I hope that we show you how much every day. 

Happy Happy Birthday Rory!

My sweet little baby is ONE today! The time has really flown by and I can't believe how much she has grown!

Here is Rory at about a week old...

And here she is at 1 year!!

She is amazing! I love her silliness. She thinks that she can do everything Cady can do. She walks part time these days. I can't wait for her to be a full-time walker! She thinks just about everything is funny and in addition to "woof woof" and "daddy" she now says "uh-oh" and it is the cutest thing! I have been trying to get her on video saying it but she is stubborn about the camera. It sounds like "eh-ooo" and I get the silliest wet eyed smile when she does it! I love her to death and I can't wait to see what kind of toddler she is.

Look at the height different here! lol My Giant and my Shrimp!

I adore this picture. It is so Rory.

We aren't doing much today since we are having her party on the 19th with Aidric. Plus Cadence has chicken pox so that puts a damper on the day! I wanted her to know how much I love her and what a perfect fit she is in our family! Happy Birthday Rory!

Cadence's 2nd Birthday!

Better late then never. I meant to post this much sooner, but the days have just been crazy.

First things first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU CADENCE! I cannot believe that she is 2 years old already! Her birthday was Saturday and boy did we have a blast of a party. Friday night I was busy getting food ready to put together on Saturday morning and baking Cady's cake. We woke up early the next morning so I could decorate the cake and start the Chicken, Apple, Grape, Super Yum Salad (It doesn't have a name that I know of so this is what I call it). The Salad then went on Crousaunts and then we put together the veggie tray and the fruit platters. It was a really Yummy party. Here is a picture of Cady's completed cake...no making fun of my cake decorating skills...

It was a beautiful day outside and all the kids played outside for about 40 minutes before we herded them inside to either eat cake or open presents. Cady picked open presents first and actually did open a few before it degenerated to this:
It was awesome. Totally the most fun I have seen a bunch of 18 month to 3 year olds have in a long time. This is what the floor looked like when they decided to move on to other things:

Then we had cake and ice cream. We of course sang to Cady. I don't have pictures of her blowing out the candle, but we got it on tape. The cutest part was that Cady's older cousin, Saylor, insisted that she sing happy birthday to Cady by herself. IT WAS ADORABLE. And she got pretty much all the words right! We got it all on tape. Then everyone sang and Cady blew out her candle (after Saylor told her too when the song was over...thank goodness someone knew how it was supposed to work! We love you Saylor!). Anyway here is Cady enjoying her cake!

Brady and I got Cadence a couple of Princess Dress Up Dresses for her birthday (she is obsessed with the Disney Princesses and insists that she IS one. We agree whole heartedly!). She of course wanted to try them on and dance around. Then she found the bubble gun that Uncle Kyle got for her and this was the fun that resulted...

Yeah, there was bubble juice all over the floor but she was having a blast and got Avery to grin...


As you can see, Cadence had a really good time. So did everyone who made it out to celebrate with us!
Cadence also had her 2 year check up with her doctor on Monday and was actually chatty with the Doc for the first time ever. She kept asking her what she was doing and telling her that after the Doctor we were going to eat. I never said we were going to eat, but Cady had apparently decided that we were. The Doctor was very impressed with her verbal skills. Once again she was 75th percentile for weight (30lbs...my darling little tank) and was above 97 percent for height (she is now three feet tall...insane...people think she is 3 not 2). I then explained to her that she had to have two shots and that they would hurt but that she would get a bandaid and a sucker for getting them. She was all excited until they actually stuck her with the needle. She told the nurse, "You hurt me! I need kisses!" and bawled for about ten minutes. As we were paying and checking out she told me that we were going to eat and that she wanted Mac and Cheese because she got an owie and she was sad. So I took her to Denny's where she proceeded to order pancakes and eggs...go figure. She ate it all though! :o)
The rest of the day she milked the owie card for all she was worth. It was pretty funny.
Anyway, Happy Birthday Cady! We love you and can't wait to see where you are at next year!