7 years old

How did this happen?
How did I get a 7 year old!

7 years ago was one of the scariest of my life, as my baby boy had to leave me and go into an operating room (not right away, but that is what it felt like). I was so afraid we would lose him after just meeting him.

Now his is 7 years old! He is the most loving and caring boy I know. He is obsessed with Star Wars and Avengers which he plays all the time. He loves his sister and is a ladies man, with lots of girl friends at school.

He is shy at ...first but once he warms up his personality comes out. And it is quirky and funny and he loves making you laugh. He is so full of love and laughter with a touch of trouble maker

Happy Birthday to my baby boy. I love you so much!

Happy Birthday Party!

Nick had his first school-friend birthday party!

He decided that he wanted to go bowling for his birthday.
This is something that he can do (with a ramp) and has fun.

Not all of the kids had been bowling before, but they all had fun

We had 3 different teams

It was a little complicated trying to decide who would be on who's team. But I think everyone was happy in the end. (And there wasn't any crying like at Katheryn's bowling party)

We had an hour of owling, and then an hour in the party room for cake and pizza.

This is Nick's Star Wars Rebels birthday cake. I think it turned out great!
And he really wanted a Star Wars Rebels Birthday

All of the kids had face masks in their look bags. So we got a group photo (lots of kids wanted to be Storm Troopers)

The birthday boy was very happy!

He got a little bit nervous when everyone sang happy birthday

But I think he also liked the attention

His friends were so cute, everyone wanting to show him what they got him.
I think that everyone had lots of fun. They each left with a loot bag with Star Wars goodies (and their face masks) and some token for the arcade (there was no way I was going to be in charge of 10 kids in there!

We spent a little bit of time in the arcade afterwards. Kyle and Katheryn had a fooz ball game

And somehow the kids talked us into going to Boston Pizza after the party

Nick said he had a great birthday party and can't wait to come back!

Birthday Party!

Katheryn has been looking forward to her birthday party at Chuck-e-Cheese
Apparently she put it to a vote in her class. The choices she gave were Disney Cruise, Great Wolf Lodge or Chuck-e-Cheese. The class voted for the Disney Cruise, but Kyle and I vetoed all of the other choices.

This is the Birthday Girl showing off her new nails... Rainbow of course.

Katheryn got to invite 10 friends from school.

I was much more organized with this friend party then I was the last party. I had a list and wrote down contact information for parents who left.

We had containers of coins that I gave to every kid and then paired them up to just go wild (with an adult). And that is what they did.

The only thing with this, is that instead of everything having fun together, they had fun with their partner. But the important thing is that everyone did have fun.

We came back for some pizza and birthday cake (Rainbow of course)
They had the Chuck-e-Cheese character come out, but Katheryn didn't want to have anything to do with him.

She also had a ticket grabber. Pretty much she get put in this wind tunnel with tickets and tries to grab as many as she can

She wasn't too sure about it

And I was really glad she had pants under the dress.
But she had fun in the end

Because we had lots of fun, we didn't have time to open any of the presents before everyone left. I'm not sure if this is how people are doing it anymore, but we have been to other parties like this.

Katheryn was very thankful for all of her presents. (And yes we made her pose for this picture)

And even though Kyle complains a lot about my picture taking. He still goes the extra step to take some shots!

And now she has to get started on her thank you cards

A Birthday Girl

This little girl turned 8 this week!

This smart and sassy girl knows exactly what she wants and will do it with a smile. Especially if she knows she isn't supposed to do it. I see more than a little bit of myself every time I look into her big brown eyes.

She has so much energy and is always on the move. Her favorite colour is rainbow. Actually the more colours the better!

She can also be very serious and shy when she wants to be, but it usually doesn't last very long.

She is brave and compassionate, and more than a little funny. She loves to sing and dance and sometimes just likes to be LOUD!

She loves her Daddy and her family! She wants to know that I'm thinking of her at work, and always requests me to draw her a picture.

She very often will complain "Mommy, not more pictures" Or "You are always taking pictures". But she will also pose and say "Mommy take my picture" if she is doing something really cute or funny

I think that she is growing up much too quickly. While I just want her to stay my little girl forever, I also look forward to watching her discover herself and grow!

It's hard to image what life was like before this happened!

6 years old!

Someone turned 6 today!

On another lucky Friday the 13th

 

It's hard to believe that this little guy has grown up into the strong, brave, talkative, funny boy we have today.

I still remember driving into the hospital the morning he was born and everyone was talking about it being Friday the 13th. And being so nervous and so worried and just wanting him to be safe



 

 

And look at him now!

 

 

The kids knew that we had a surprise for them and they would miss the day of school. But they didn't know where we were going...

Until Kyle and I woke them up with Wolf ears on!

 

They were very excited to go to Great Wolf Lodge and the pool!

 

It was nice and small. Just the 4 of us. But we all sang and Nick had his own cake. And he got free ice cream every hour for the entire stay!

Nick says that he had a great birthday! The best one yet!

Birthday Party

Katheryn had her birthday party this weekend.
She had a number of choices and picked Neb's Fun World and bowling. (She originally wanted swimming like Nick's party, but I didn't feel comfortable watching kids I don't know in the pool.) It was my first... I mean Katheryn's first... friend birthday party.

So she picked 5 friends from school (which turned into 9 friends from school) and family and friends and we had 16 kids for bowling. We had 3 lanes and so divided everyone up.

Family stayed in one lane and then friends were in the other 2 lanes. We had girl friends and boy friends and there were some friends who didn't want to play together (my first clue that there might be drama)

I assigned adults to every lane. One parent stayed and everyone else dropped their child off. It wasn't until the last parent asked about leaving a phone number that I realized that if anything happened to any of the children I had no way to get a hold of anyone.
I also had my list to keep track of who was there, and then cross kids off after they got picked up.

I was in charge of the girl team, and the girl drama. I hadn't realized drama would start at such an early age (thinking more teens). But we had tears and it's not fair and she won't let her and she's not sharing. I think that I did well with the drama and everyone had fun.

Because it was a girl and boy party I also had girl themed and boy themed loot bags (and left overs for Nick's party in November).

Katheryn had a great 7th Birthday! And smiles all day

Hoppy Birthday

Katheryn had a special 7th birthday today. It fell on Easter Sunday. So it was sharing the special-ness of Katheryn's birthday with an Easter Egg hunt for both of them.

So that tricky Easter Bunny hid all of Katheryn's presents around her room. She was very excited

Nick got into the fun as well and was right into the action while Katheryn opened her presents.

Everything kind of stopped once Katheryn opened her big present. A DS3. It was attached to her for the rest of the day

Then it was Easter Egg hunting.
Katheryn made up a note for the Easter Bunny asking if all of the eggs can be paired together. One for Katheryn and one for Nickolas.

 Katheryn is an Easter egg hunting machine! Nick is significantly slower, so it evens it out for everyone.

We have Katheryn's birthday party next weekend, but wanted to do something special for her. So we headed off to the zoo

She told everyone we saw that it was her birthday and she was 7 today. And she had a big Princess Birthday pin.

The zoo wasn't that busy, considering it was a holiday. There was a scavenger hunt set up by the zoo to visit different animals and get stickers.

We had to visit the polar bears, which is an old time favorite of Katheryn.

Nick liked the sea otter ("just like Marlene" from Penguins of Madagascar)

My favorite was the Komodo Dragon. We waited to see if it would start to breathe fire, but it didn't. The kids were not convinced that it was an actual dragon.

We got together for some photos.

And there was a Parks Rec beaver mascot for pictures.

After the zoo we went back to the house for an inpromtu party.

Complete with some purple hair chalk!

I didn't take any pictures, but we had family come over for a pizza party and cake.

Katheryn had a great birthday! (And the both enjoyed their Easter)
(Easter Sunday doesn't fall on Katheryn's birthday again until she is 18 years old, so I am glad that we made it special)