Mikey turns 6!

I can't believe my little Mikey is 6!

As you can see, this year's superhero was the Incredible Hulk. I had large doubts about my plans for this cake, but it just might be my favorite cake I've made to date. (And actually ended up being one of the easiest after I had the fondant made.) 

 Mikey loved Classic Skating so much last year that we came back again for his birthday this year. The kids all had so much fun.

 Mikey just loves everyone and wanted to invite every friend he's ever had, but we had to limit it a little so we stuck with only kids from his school class this year.

 It was a fun group

 And Mikey got some pretty fun stuff

Happy Birthday, Mikey! 

It was really fun to see my little Joey having so much fun, too ;)  Man, he's a cutie!

The first month of Elise

I can't believe Elise is over a month old already! These are some of my favorite pictures from her first month.

 I love her little hands when she sleeps like this. So cute!

 In this one, she was sleeping in the swing peacefully when I left her. When I came back, her new Easter Bunny was nestled in there with her...I don't know which of my sweet little boys put it there, but it was cute :)

 Luke just loves holding her. He usually only holds her for a minute, but he asks all day. And every time he says, "Oh wait! I haven't washed my hands!" Then he runs and washes his hands.

 I know, her hair kind of resembles a certain doll.... I don't want to say it, but it starts with a "t" and ends with a "-roll." :) Just the hair, not her darling face :)

Happy Easter!

Our Easter Celebrations

 

Annual Awesome Neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt

 There is the amazing lady who does it all!

Mikey with his spoils

Luke just getting started

And Joey is just learning the ropes of Easter egg hunts

Luke sorting his winnings and helping his brother

Egg Dyeing

Oh how kids love egg dyeing. The hard part is the week after when we have to start eating their beautiful creations. It never goes over well.

 Easter Morning

The Easter Bunny came!

Yes, we put carrots out

So excited!

Mikey was very anxious to help Joey with the whole Easter thing. (Church was at 9:00, thus the half dressed Mikey. He was supposed to be getting dressed at this point.)

 

We The Easter Bunny put some special eggs in a separate room just for Joey's own little egg hunt. He loved it!

The Post-Church Photo Shoot

This is what happens when we try to get a nice picture of all of our kids smiling--they are never all smiling together

I think this one comes the closest

But one at a time, they have the best smiles around :)

 

Daddy and his little lady

I must have 10 pictures of Luke and Elise like this. Luke just kept kissing her and telling me to take another picture. He is so enamored with her. It's really cute :) 

Elise's first Easter :)

One final (failed) attempt to get all the boys smiling together

Hey, at least they're all looking at the camera!

Happy Easter!

Curious Joe, Part II (aka my full time job)

Well it seems as though I just wasn't finished with all of Joey's adventures. He is at it again. I swear, he never stops!

Let's start with rice. As I mentioned before Joey found a little bag of rice and dumped it all over the family room...that was nothing. On Monday, I came into the kitchen to find this:

You will notice a few other smaller buckets in the background of the first picture. Those are buckets of sugar. He managed to drag each bucket out of the cupboard (and that bucket of rice is not little!) The sugar sprinkled throughout the rice was nice. And even nicer was the rice IN the bucket of sugar. The rice was also not just all over the kitchen floor, but it had spread into every piece of adjoining carpet. So I swept. Then a few hours later I managed to vacuum, which flicked lots more rice back onto the hardwood floor. Tuesday morning I finally got it all swept again and vacuumed and cleaned up.

A little later that day, I walked by the kitchen. All was calm. ONE minute later Luke came running to find me, "Joey is making a mess!"  Sure enough, I ran out just in time to Joey flinging handfuls of rice as far as he could. So I stopped him and set him aside. I set the sugar on the table so I could clean the rice out of it later. I swept up the rice. I turned to put away the broom. I turned around and Joey was up on the table with his hands in the sugar and throwing it on the floor. "Ahhh!" I grabbed him and cleaned off his hands. I turned to move the bucket of sugar from the table to the tall counter. I turned back around in time to see him pulling over a full glass of milk on the table.... *sigh*  That cute kid! Such a handful! But he is so cute and innocent looking that I still just want to kiss his little face all over!

And a few other cute things he has done:

• A a little later that same rice-filled day, I was in the bedroom feeding Elise. I thought Joey had gone downstairs a while before where all the kids were playing. Luke came upstairs and I asked him what Joey was doing. He said, "Playing."  A minute later, there was a knock on the door. Luke answered it before I could run out. I overheard someone say, "is your mom here?" I ran to the door. Luke and Joey were there in the entryway and my neighbor was standing in the door. Then she told me that she had just found Joey wandering down the street. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  I can't believe it!  Of course I felt HORRIBLE! But also wasn't surprised that Joey was the first of my kids to ever escape.
• The picture below is of Joey wrapping up a Wacko stuffed animal in one of Elise's blankets like a baby as he is quite enamored with babies now. So cute! What wasn't so cute was how he then stuffed that blanket, Wacko doll included into Elise's white and pink filled laundry basket when I wasn't looking. I then washed it all.... See that red nose and hat?  Elise's white blankets and clothes now have a nice pink swirled/spattered look.

 

• We had just brought home a giant bag of animal cookies. They were freshly opened on the counter that Joey couldn't reach...or couldn't reach until that day. He managed to reach the bag and moments later we had a kitchen floor covered in cookie.
• A half an hour after the animal cookie incident, we had just finished mixing up the Easter egg dye to dye eggs. We turned away to gather the eggs and turned back around in time to see him pull over the blue cup. So we had blue egg dye all down our white cabinets and wood floor (note to selves, Joey can now reach the kitchen counter top.)
• A few days ago, Lance's Easter candy was up on a ledge that Joey couldn't reach...until that day. A moment later I heard a very large crash and Lance's whole basket of candy was all over the floor. (I basically never put the vacuum away last week.)
• I've heard many a horror story about kids removing their own diapers and creating giant messes. Guess who just started taking his own diaper off... We've never had a child who did this regularly. But it's no surprise that Joey is our superstar to do it.

That's our boy!