Jed's Birthday!

Happy Birthday, Jed!  He turned 33 last weekend! We had our celebration in the few precious hours we had with him before he went to the SICU for a night shift. We sure love him!

The kids gave him a little picture book featuring lots of pictures of all the fun things that he does with them.  I love this book - it illustrates just perfectly what an AWESOME daddy he is.  

He got to blow out some candles (not quite 33) :) on his favorite cake, Coconut Cake. Actually, I take that back. When it was time to blow out the candles, Ben blew them all out before Jed had a chance to inhale a breath! I guess when Ben asked if he could help blow them out, he meant he wanted to blow them ALL out! 

The night before his birthday we went out on a birthday date. He told me he had an activity already, so I was only in charge of dinner plans. Well, guess what his activity was?  Going to a Broadway play, Beauty and the Beast, at the downtown Fisher Theater! He had bought the tickets months in advance. Isn't he so romantic and sweet?! We had a great time!

Charlotte's Baby Shower!

 My good friend, Sarah Romer (in the yellow on the right), hosted a triple baby shower last week, for me, Jen Johnson (far left, due in July), and Cindi Sabey (holding her newborn).  Sarah made the shower absolutely lovely with lots of cute paper garlands and the most decked-out refreshment table I have ever seen! Look at this darling idea she had - she made tartlette shells, brownie bites and sugar cookies and then had all the fillings and toppings separate so guests could put together their own mini desserts. There were bowls of white chocolate mousse, chocolate pudding, lemon curd, whipped cream, cream cheese frosting, truffle and raspberry sauces, toasted coconut, and a tray of berries and kiwi to boot! It was so pretty and fun! 

I snapped some pictures of my friends who came to the shower - 

 Jenny Balmforth, Anona Davis, Annie Christensen, and Stephanie Thomas

Sarah Romer, Jen Johnson, Anna Wilson, Courtney Child

Emily Park, me, Britni Hamblin

 Bonnie Lepage, me, Tyona Davis (she is 16 and used to be in my Young Womens), Valeta Manor

And before the night was over, we had to get a picture of all the "Baby Bumps" at the shower together. :)  (I'm due in a week and a half, the other three are due in July.)

Jen Johnson, me, Emily Park, Anna Wilson

Feeding Froggy

The other day I gave Sam some leftover enchilada for lunch.  A little later I noticed that he was feeding his rubber frog the enchilada.  It was so funny that I snapped a few pictures. :) 

Although enchiladas are one thing Sam does eat, he is otherwise what I would consider a picky eater! He always likes breads and cheese/yogurt, usually likes meats, but no vegetables and only select fruits. If he suffers from malnutrition, it truly isn't my fault! :) 

Spring Break: The Zoo!

 On Ben's last day of Spring Break, Jed and I took the kids to the zoo.

We got to ride the train, which was pretty exciting. :)  (And yes, Sam actually DID enjoy it too!)

Spring Break - Imagination Station

 We went to the 'Imagination Station' Children's Museum last week while Ben was on Spring Break.  I went with three other moms and all our children. It was a lot of fun!
Sammy and Ben got soaked in the water area, but they didn't mind. :)

 Eliza and Sam had fun in the 'grocery store' area.

And Ben spent a long time engineering a building that would not fall in an earthquake. And yes, the foundation does rumble and shake like a real earthquake, and his building stood straight and tall and withstood the test! 

 

On our way home. :)

 

Easter 2012

We dyed Easter Eggs with Jed the week before Easter. We had a lot of fun!

The Easter Bunny usually comes on Saturday morning; however, this year Jed had to work on Saturday, so we did all our festivities on Sunday.   After church, we had our Easter Egg Hunt where the kids searched for all our hard-boiled eggs hidden in the front room.

During the Easter Egg Hunt, they discovered their hiding Easter Baskets!

After the search was over, we all just sat on the carpet and gobbled up all our treats. :)  After Sam had one candy and got it on his Easter shirt, Jed just took his shirt right off for the rest of his treats. Consequently, Sam is shirtless in these pictures. :)

The next day we played "Crack the Egg" game with our hard-boiled eggs. I always laugh and laugh when I watch the video of this tradition from two years ago... (Easter 2010 Video)  This year Eliza's egg got crunched a few times, although she still might have had the least amount of breaks. Sammy did pretty well holding up against Ben. Sam really liked smacking his hard-boiled egg against Ben's egg, and when Ben would put his cracked egg down to pick out a new one, Sam would just start smashing his egg into the innocent eggs waiting in the carton!  So funny!

Sam's 2nd Birthday!

Samuel turned 2 years old in March!  He is such a joy to have around.  He is in the cutest stage ever!  Jed and I can't help but say "he's so cute" all the time. :)  Ever since his birthday, he has been trying out new words every day and communicating through words more and more. It is fun to hear him expressing himself through those darling babyish words. Eliza is sick today, as I write this, and just now she woke up and started to cry a little and Sammy ran over to her and said sweetly, "don't cry! don't cry!" in his baby talk... "uh cry" shaking his head 'no' and shaking his palm softly by her face. It was his sweet effort to try to comfort her.
When Jed comes home from work, Sammy gets SO EXCITED!!  He yells, "Daddy!" and practically leaps into his arms. It is so cute! Yesterday afternoon the mailman left a package in between the door and the screen, and when Sam heard the screen open and a knock on the door, he ran to the door saying, "Daddy!"  Unfortunately, it wasn't Daddy, but it was cute that he thought anyone at the door would be his Daddy. :) 
It's darling how he gets so excited about things. When he is hungry, he gets super happy when I ask him if he wants something to eat. :) Sometimes he will whine and point to the fridge and if I say, "Do you want a drink?" he instantly smiles and nods his head happily. (He still hasn't remembered how to say 'drink' again, even though it was one of his first words! Crazy how he just forgot it!) If I say "bath" he gets really excited and says, "YES!"  If he brings his shoes to me and I put them on him (in other words, I am telling him 'yes, you can go outside') he gets super happy. Yesterday he woke up from his nap just after I had pulled some muffins out of the oven. When I brought him down to the kitchen, he saw the muffins and his face instantly lit up and he happily exclaimed, "YES! YES!" while nodding his head enthusiastically and laughing a little in his excitement. Apparently he was hungry. :) 
Sammy loves being read to. He has names for some of his favorite board books, like "ooh-ooh, ah-ah" for the monkey book (Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb - which is probably his all-time favorite), and "oops" for another silly board book that has that word in it.
Overall, he is such a happy, easy child. Even at mealtimes and bedtimes, he is so sweet. When I lay him down for a nap, he doesn't cry. He just holds his stuffed monkey and starts to suck his thumb and watches me leave. Today I turned on a CD of children's music, and he bounced around the living room, making animal sounds with the animal song, and dancing to the other songs. His happiness brings so much joy into our home. He is such a sweetheart!

The night before his birthday, while the kids were asleep, I decorated the downstairs with different colors of streamers and balloons.  Boy, have those balloons been a hit, even for weeks afterward!

He opened some presents....

Sometimes he got help...

Unfortunately, in the late afternoon, he got whiny and sick, and later had a fever. He was NOT feeling good by the time we had cake and icecream! He did not want any of it, and he did not want Mommy either!  He was only happy if Daddy was cuddling him.

That night, Jed and I had to go to a regional fireside. We got the kids ready for bed, and while we were waiting for our friend to come and babysit, I read to my sick little birthday boy.  Poor little sweetie!