Ephraim's Birthday

Ephraim was counting down the days until his birthday, so it's a good thing he had a fantastic birthday. He was SO EXCITED about everything! It made his birthday really fun for me too.

First thing in the morning Ephraim woke up to find a birthday banner up in the living room. We also had some light sabers made out of pool noodles that he thought were pretty awesome. Isn't this photo just epic?

I don't think he was very excited about the lightsaber and his banner! (hehe)

As you can tell we were going with a Lego Star Wars theme for Ephraim's birthday. He has never seen the Star Wars movies because I think they are too scary for him. However Jacob and Ephraim beg Daddy to play Lego Star Wars on the Wii so they can watch him play. They also get to play with him sometimes.

Ephraim got to open one present right away because I knew he would want to wear it all day:

Isn't this a great shirt? I could not resist it when I saw it at Target. Do you think he liked it?! What a grin.

My first order of business in the morning was to get Ephraim's cake finished and the balloon banner up.


Grandma Heiner helped me out with the balloons, so I got to work on the cake.

Ephraim insisted that he wanted a red R2D2 cake. What do you think?

I actually made the cake the night before and had it in the refrigerator, so all I had to do was make the fondant and get it on the cake.

I was actually pretty proud of the way the cake turned out. I used two six inch round cakes, and then made the dome part using a glass Pyrex bow. I made fondant and did my best approximation of a red R2D2. I think he turned out pretty well! Ephraim LOVED his cake, so that was good enough for me!

I got it done just in time to have lunch and get the party started. Ephraim only wanted to have three people come to his party; Clara, Ty and Grandma Heiner! How fun

First we played a fun game with the pool noodle lightsabers.

Each little Jedi had a cracker tied on a string around his neck that represented his "life force". The object of the game was to keep your cracker safe and break everyone else's cracker. I may even have had a little fun with this game!

The funny thing is that none of the kids actually broke each other's crackers. They really spent more time running away from each other. It was a crack-up!

After they got tired of running around, they asked to play in the sandbox. That was fine by me!

Next we played a game where the goal was to traverse the lava pit (red table cloth) using the rocks (grey felt) without falling in. The kids thought this game was great and played it over and over again. I got some really fun action shots too!

I love this action shot of Ty jumping from the "rock" to safety on the other side of the lava pit.

They all had to take turns being the Jedi in front who laid down the stones for everyone else. It was really hilarious! Amelia was a good girl and had fun hanging out with Grandma Heiner during the party.

Soon enough it was time for opening presents. Ephraim really loved the gifts his friends got him. They even got a little carried away and opened the present that Aunt Emily sent. It was a pair of purple courdoroy pants that Ephraim loved! He actually took his pants of right them and put on his purple pants. Then he told me that he loved them and he would never pee in those pants! (hehe!). When I told Joe about this later, he said maybe we should put Ephraim to bed in those pants so he wouldn't have to wear a diaper at night!

After the purple pants, it was time for cake and ice cream!

I was a little sad to carve into my droid cake, but at least it tasted good!

When we finished with the ice cream it was time for Ephraim's friends to go home... but the fun didn't end there. After Daddy got home from work it was time for Ephraim to open his presents.

Ephraim was excited to get to open his presents. He got several lego sets. He got the Star Wars ship that he wanted, and was excited that it came with a droid (R2Q2).

As you can see, he was also excited by the other Lego set that he got from Grandma and Grandpa Devereaux.

What can I say, he was excited about all his presents. It was really fun.

Amelia got to ope a present too. Since Grandma Heiner would not be here for Amelia's birthday, we let her open the weebles playset that Grandma got her. She really had fun playing with it!

And of course for Daddy, Lego birthday presents mean "some assembly required". Joe managed to get Ephraim's Lego Star Wars ship done so Ephraim had time to play with it before bed. What a good Daddy!

Ephraim had a great birthday. I really enjoyed watching him have so much fun. I can hardly believe that my little boy is already four! What a big boy!

We love our Ephraim and we are so glad he is part of our family. He is such a fun and energetic kid! He makes our lives so much more exciting and fun! We love you Ephraim!

Feeling Lucky

I have been having so much fun getting ready for St. Patrick's Day! I started last month because I have two birthdays this month in addition to our St. Patrick's Day fun.


 I decided to make another fun banner for my living room. I think it turned out pretty well, don't you?

Then I decided to try my hand at freezer paper stenciling. I made shirts for all three of my kids and I think they are adorable! What do you think?

I got Ephraim and Amelia to wear their shirts, but Jacob is waiting to wear his to school for St. Patrick's Day. I just love their "lucky" shirts. Freezer paper stenciling was surprisingly easy (especially with my Silhouette Cameo) and I love how crisp the stencils turned out. These shirts will be so fun for the kids to wear on St. Patrick's Day as well as the rest of the year!

Can you believe that Miss Amelia is standing up by herself?! She has taken a few steps from the coffee table to the couch, and it is only a matter of time before she gets more confident and starts walking! We love our lucky girl! (Her birthday is the day before St. Patrick's Day).

Now we are all ready for St. Patrick's Day! That's a good thing because I have a Lego Star Wars Birthday party to plan for Saturday, and my baby's first birthday the next week! Wish me luck!

A Pirate's Life for Me!

I love all the fun, free programs that are offered at our local library! We have been attending Story Time and Wee Read for nearly four years now! Wow!

Saturday they had a Pirate Party which was for boys only, so of course I had to take my little pirates. They had so much fun! First they dressed the part. The library provided all the pirates a hat if they did not have one. We happened to have one pretty cool pirate hat.

Do you like Ephraim's mean pirate face? He really had fun acting like a pirate. I think he is cute, regardless!



After getting their hats, we got to listen to a pirate story before breaking into groups. The first thing the boys got to do was dig for buried treasure in the sand. They even got to keep their treasure and jewels in their own little bag.

Next they got to walk the plank, swab the deck, and cross the ocean. Phew!

 Then they got to make a parrot to sit on their shoulder. How clever is that?! They colored the parrot, attached some feathers, and then glued it onto a clothespin.

I loved how creative all the activities were, and how much fun they were for the boys. Our favorite activity by far was the sword fighting!

Each pirate got his own sword (hooray for pool noodles!), as well as a cracker on a string around his neck. The cracker represented their "life", so the goal was to keep their cracker safe while breaking as many other pirate's crackers as they could. What could be more fun for a group of boys?!

I think we are going to steal this sword-fighting game for our upcoming Lego Star Wars Party. It should be a blast!

Here are the boys after the pirate party was over, eating their cookies outside. It was a little chilly for Jacob, who was wearing short sleeves, but otherwise it was a pretty nice day.

It was an especially nice day later on because we had unexpected visitors. Grandma and Grandpa Heiner decided to come and visit us! I think that part of their motivation was this little girl!

Isn't she cute? Grandma helped me figure out how to make her piggy tails a little lower on the sides. I think she looks so great. She had a lot of fun hanging out with Grandpa and Grandma.

Of course the boys had fun playing with them too. We ended up running a couple of errands in the afternoon, and I ended up in the back of the car with Ephraim and Jacob. That is how I captured this little moment.

Yes, he was so asleep that he was drooling and making spit bubbles. I even wiped his chin and he didn't wake up! This kid is a sound sleeper!

Grandma and Grandpa stayed overnight and went to church with us the next day. We had fun visiting with them and the kids loved to see them. We really enjoy it when they come and play at our house! I know they enjoy seeing the kids and enjoying our lovely weather. We were excited because we get to see Grandma Heiner later in the week for Ephraim's birthday, so that should be fun too!

Dr. Seuss Day and the Laundry/iPad Baby

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

 For show-and-tell today Jacob was supposed to bring a Dr. Seuss book to school. So first thing this morning we had our collection of Dr. Seuss books out and the boys were enjoying reading them.

What a fun way to start your day! After reviewing all of his options, Jacob decided to take "I Can Read with my Eyes Shut". I love that he picked a book that is slightly less well known. I have a feeling a lot of copies of "One Fish, Two Fish", "Green Eggs and Ham", and "Horton Hears a Who" will be going to school today.

There must be a lot of kids with the same school assignment because last night while I was working at the library we were having a run on Seuss books. By the time the library closed there was not even one Dr. Seuss book on the shelf! (and we have a LARGE Seuss collection). I was a little surprised by this because don't most people have at least one Dr. Seuss book at home?

This morning we also got a fun Seussical surprise. I opened a package of diapers that I get to review (later on) and found this:

Hooray! A Dr. Seuss book that we don't have. Plus I believe the movie is coming out today! How fun. I will definitely have to read this book to the kids later on today.

Miss Amelia was not as into Seuss as the boys. But she was "helping" me with the laundry.

What a cutie pie!

After Daddy came home later in the day, Amelia got another chance to play on the iPad. I think she really likes it!

It is amazing to me how technologically advanced our kids will be! They are definitely growing up in a different world than I did!

A Little Snow and a Temple Trip

Can you believe that we FINALLY got some snow?! The boys were so happy when they woke up to find the ground all white and it kept snowing as the day went on. I was just happy that Joe made it to his meeting in SLC without incident.

After we picked up Jacob from school, we had lunch and ran to the library for Story time. We usually trade kids with Karyn, but Joe and I were trying to work out going to the temple that day. So we skipped it.

When we got home we found Daddy had beat us there. So the boys got to help Daddy shovel off the snow that had accumulated on the driveway during the day. I was feeding Amelia her milk, so I did not get outside in time to take too many pictures.

Look at what great helpers the boys are!

Amelia took a good afternoon nap (and so did Daddy). Then we had a quick dinner (leftover pizza from Daddy's meeting), before dropping the kids off at the Miller's house. Then Joe and I went to the temple and did sealings. We had a great evening at the temple. They were so happy to see us at the sealing office. Apparently they had been waiting for proxies for a few hours. We had a great sealing session and really enjoyed what the sealer had to say to us.

The best part was when we got back to the Millers we found Amelia happy! The last few times we left her with a babysitter she cried the whole time we were gone. So it was nice to find her calm and happy.

Amelia at 11 months

I finally got around to taking Miss Amelia's 11 month photos. Go mommy!

Once again, it was a bit of a challenge to get he to let me take her picture. She just doesn't want to hold still for a picture. She would much rather crawl around or stand up and do her own thing. She gets really annoyed when I keep putting her in the same place to try to take a picture

I did manage to get some pictures that I think are pretty cute.

Just look at all those teeth! Amelia has four teeth on the top, and two on the bottom. I think she is getting a cute little grin.

As you can see, Amelia was standing up next to the coffee table. I guess next time I should get a cute decorative chair for her to hang onto or something. I figure these work for now!

This next picture is nearly a miracle to me. Last month I could not get one picture of her sitting still, so I am really happy with this one. My favorite place to take pictures is outside, so I really can't wait until it is warm enough to move our photo shoots outside.

What a beautiful girl! Can you believe that she is already 11 months old. In less than a month she will turn one! WOW!

We love Amelia so much! She brings so much joy and happiness to our lives. That is why we call her our little sunshine. For her first birthday we are going to have a "sunshine" theme because it is just perfect.

It's a good thing that the two pictures above turned out so well, because Amelia was not having it when I tried to take her picture with her 11 months old sign.

What a funny girl!

Baby Behind the Couch

Today Amelia has discovered the one really fun crawl space in our house- behind the couch!

She figured out how to get behind the couch at the end table by the piano, since the open side has actually had her exersaucer in front of it. She had a great time crawling back there and giggling.

I don't really let the boys back there, and normally wouldn't encourage her to do this either, but I needed to take a photo for a "glimpse" prompt on my public blog. I figured one of these would be perfect!

The boys even gave Amelia a flashlight, so she wouldn't have to be in the dark. Aren't they sweet?

Apparently it is nice and cozy back there. She thought it was tons of fun!

After letting her play for a little while, I put her Bumbo seat in front of the opening so now she can't crawl back there. I don't want her to learn bad habits, even if it is fun!

Health and Safety Week= Craziness for Mommy

This week is Health and Safety week at Jacob's school. For some reason this means that there are different days for the kids to dress up or wear something special. So Wednesday was "crazy hair or crazy sock day". I don't know if you noticed, but my boys have pretty short hair. When I asked Jacob if he wanted to spray his hair some fun color and his response was, "No way!".

No problem, right? He can just wear crazy socks. Um... did I mention that my boys only own socks that are white and grey? They also have black socks for church... boring! So on Tuesday night while Joe was teaching at UVU (he had to teach on Tuesday because Monday was President's Day), we were running around the stores trying to find crazy socks.

Melinda recommended that we look at Target or the dollar store. We went to Target first, but they didn't really have much of a selection. Then we went to the Dollar Tree. They had TONS of colorful socks. Here are the ones that we settled on.

Fun huh? Jacob absolutely loved them and was excited about getting such crazy socks. Then when he put them on he said, "I can't wear these! The kids will laugh at me."

I told Jacob to trust me in that nobody would laugh at him because there would be people looking much more crazy than he did! Of course I was right. He wore his crazy socks on Wednesday with sandals so the kids could see his socks and he said it went great. He was definitely not the craziest  kid in his classroom that day.

Then on Thursday it was Sports Day or Fitness day or something. Anyway, Jacob wore Joe's old soccer jersey, and I thought he looked really cute.

He wore long sleeves underneath because it has been a bit cold here lately. Apparently lots of kids wore sports jerseys, so Jacob felt right at home.

Then Friday was Hat Day. Instead of having Jacob wear a boring baseball cap, we let him pick one out of the dress up box. With Daddy's help he chose the explorer hat, and wore it to school. I did not get a picture of him in it, but I couldn't help but laugh when I went to pick him up from school. I could spot him right away amongst the other kids.

I am glad that this week only comes once a year! It is a bit more work to get my boy ready for school when he has to wear something "special"!

Monster Preschool and No Power

Then today was a bit of a crazy day. When we woke up the power was off. Apparently it had gone off in the middle of the night, and when we called they said it would not be on until after 1 pm. Ugh!

There was a big wind storm last night and apparently there was a problem with a power pole. It was 63 degrees in our house when we got up, and I was supposed to have preschool at our house. Since we don't want the kids to freeze, I had to call around and arrange for a new location. Luckily Karyn was OK with having preschool at her house. So I gathered up my stuff and headed to her house.

We had to take a little detour because the street by the cemetery was blocked.

Ephraim and Ty really enjoyed seeing the fire truck and utility trucks!

Preschool went really well at Karyn's house. I had a ton of really great monster books and the kids wanted to read them all! I even had a flannel storyboard that I borrowed from the library for "The Big Green Monster". It was a lot of fun.

For the craft, we made paint-blob monsters. I let the kids choose the colors they wanted, and put drops of paint on the folded paper. Then they closed the paper and smeared the paint around inside, making colorful paint blobs. We let them dry a little bit and then added googly eyes, pom-poms and stickers. Didn't they turn out great?!

Of course I had to put Ephraim's monster up on the refrigerator. I think it is totally cool.

We ended up going to Melinda's house for lunch because the power was still out when I stopped at home after preschool. She let us play for a little while, and then when I took the kids home the power was FINALLY on. Hooray!

Poor Amelia was a bit tired. She did not get her usual morning nap, and she was very ready to go to bed. I finally got to take a shower and get ready for work. It was a bit of a crazy day.

Speaking of crazy, later this afternoon I noticed a little something in our flower beds out front:

Can you believe that my flowers are starting to come up? Crocuses and daffodils,  in February?! Now that really is a little bit crazy.