Spring Fever

This morning it started snowing again. It has been a long long winter and we are really needing to get outdoors! My brother Jeff sent me this youtube video and I thought it was perfect for how we are feeling right now.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrqF7yD10Bo

A Cowboy Birthday

We started the day with Jake's favorite breakfast, eggs with salsa. He loved blowing out his 2 candles and had to do it 2 times.

Jake is a huge fan of balloons. He loves the movie "UP" because of the balloons and whenever we are at the grocery store and he sees them he NEEDS one. So after my early morning exercise, I stopped at the store for a bouquet of balloons. Jake was so excited and carried them around most of the day.

Another one of Jake's favorite things is suckers. The balloons were weighted down with 5 suckers and Jake enjoyed each and every one of them.

While Jake is passionate about ballons and suckers, his greatest passion is horses. He loves them. Cannot get enough of them. He loves cowboys and cowboy hats and everything that has to do with horses. So naturally we needed to have a cowboy birthday.

"Helping" decorate his birthday cake. I had great plans for a horse cake masterpiece. But decided the 2 year old would not appreciate all the hard work and really only cared if he saw horses somehow involved. So I made a chocolate cake, frosted it with green mint frosting, made the frosting look like grass on top and added some toy horses. He loved it.

We had a cowboy dinner of burgers, beans and root beer in a bottle. Everyone was given a cowboy hat to wear for the night.

Jake loved opening all of his presents and has loved his new toys.

I have noticed with Jake that whenever I get the camera out and ask him to smile, he does this thing where he tilts his head and makes a scrunched up nose face. I can't get him to stop. When I was looking at pictures from his birthday I was laughing out loud because he is making this face in almost every picture. I hope he grows out of that soon. I love his real smile.

Honorable Mention

Noah entered a writing contest online and his story, "My Haunted Mansion," earned Honorable Mention! You can read his story online at www.adventurewrite.com/kids/my_haunted_mansion.html

Some Messes Are Worth It.

After trying for hours to make this little boy happy this morning, I finally resorted to handing him a spoon and a jar of pb and walking away.

Nice to see him smiling again.

Farewell

Today we said goodbye to 3 sweet girls who have been living with us for the past 3 months. The past 3 months have been full of happiness, sadness, stress, love, anxiety and compassion. Our family has learned a lot about service and unconditional love. We will miss these girls and hope they remember the love they felt while in our home.

Happy New Year

We had a great new years eve party. Aaron took care of all the details. He cooked some great food and the dance party was very entertaining. Since it was also my birthday, Aaron took me to lunch and then let me go shopping for the afternoon while he got ready for the party. It was a great day.

Black Bart and the Slinky Dog

Yee-Haw!

Jake's 2 favorite gifts: horse and hat and the slinky dog.

Jake's new nickname: Black Bart