Happy Birthday to Blake!!!

Blake turned 4 on Tuesday of this week!!!

To say the boy was excited is an understatement!! He was ecstatic!! ALL day long he talked about how he could do anything on his own now because he's a big 4 year old!! He was even singing in WalMart about being 4. It was funny...and a little embarrassing. :)

We've had a week long celebration. We went to Chuck E. Cheese's with my parents when they came in last week. It was also my dad's birthday so that's REALLY what we were celebrating. ;) They were here Mon-Wed and we had a great visit!! Then we had Matt's parents in on Friday. We also celebrated Blake's birthday with them!! They left Monday morning and we enjoyed our visit with them too! See, lots of partying for little Blakers. I was beginning to wonder if he would be excited the day OF his actual birthday since we had already celebrated so much!!!

On his birthday he chose to go to McDonald's for dinner. We went to one with a play land. This was a BIG step for me! I HATE play areas....unless it's Chick-fil-A!!...and we don't have those up here! Then we came home and did cupcakes and ice cream!!

Then Wednesday afternoon we celebrated his birthday with his friends!! He had 11 little friends over and was SO excited!!

Everyone has been wanting to see my decorations...so here ya go!! I owe a HUGE thank you to Kristy and Nicole who helped me with the birthday banner!! Isn't it so cute!?!?!

They also made the scalloped circles for the cupcakes!!

I did the middle part of the cupcake toppers and I think they are pretty cute!!
This was before all the kiddos got here.

Then we enjoyed some pizza and fruit!

After lunch we made sun visors!!

And then we had cupcakes (which were AWESOME!) and ice cream!!

I wish I would have gotten a group picture, but it never happened!

The kids played downstairs with the Thomas tracks we had set up....and some other toys.

At the end everyone went outside and played. The kids were DYING to go outside. We had some rain early that morning, but thankfully it dried up enough for them to go play!!

Blake got lots of presents and said his favorite part of his birthday was ALL of it. Love that boy!!! It's hard to believe he's already four. :(

Well, I was going to do a post about the snow we got about 2 weeks ago....or maybe it was a week ago, but I deleted it because it's old news! The weather here lately has reminded me of our winters in Houston....70 one day 50 the next. I have to remind myself that it's April and not January tho!

Anyway, I don't have any other pics besides this one of Claire doing her FAVORITE thing these days. She LOVES to color. She will go get her coloring box out and just start coloring. It's funny, but she doesn't understand that she can't just walk around the house with her crayons!

I had been busy working on a consignment. It was VERY time consuming!! It's going on this weekend and so far I've made more than I expected!! That's always good! When I got it all finished I told Matt I would probably never do it again, but seeing what I've made so far...I probably will.

Andrew's spring break is coming up. It's late this year...or so I've been told. Matt is taking the boys camping!! Fun for me!! The boys are SO excited about it!!

I can't believe school is almost out and then Andrew will be starting 1st grade! This year has really flown by. I kinda wish it would slow down!!

Well, the kids are in bed and my floor needs to be cleaned! I swear my kids make such a mess when they eat!! Really it's Blake and Claire! I'm going to make them start eating outside! ;) Okay, gotta run before the computer sucks up all my energy and I get nothing done!

blake and his bud

Last Friday I let Blake have a friend (of his choice) come over to play. We've had playdates since we've been here, but I've always chosen the friend. ;) So, Blake picked a friend from school named E. Blake was SO excited!! Seriously, you would have thought it was Christmas! When he would wake up in the morning he'd ask how many more days until E would come over. They had a great time and got along really well. I like E's mom so we had a nice visit too. Blake has some really sweet kids in his class this year. We won't be going to school there next year, but I hope we keep in touch with some of those kids. I know we've all said we would, but life just gets busy!!!

crazy & sweet claire

This post is all about Claire. What can I say....she gives me a lot to work with!! :)

Claire loves to climb up on the kitchen chair. The problem is she can't get down. At the end of the video I finally caught her yelling at me to help her!!

I had folded some clothes and stuck them in the basket thinking Claire wouldn't mess with them. I was WRONG!And underwear becomes a hat! Thankfully it's clean!!

Matt bought this flower headband for Claire because he knows how much she loves to accessorize!! I'm pretty sure it doesn't go like this!When I go in her room in the morning her passies are always thrown on the floor. She only gets her passy in bed so she's trying to be smarter than her mommy!! Sometimes she'll get lucky and find one that rolled under her bed!She does love her babies!

She loves pushing them in her stroller, giving them a bottle and sometimes her cup, and giving them lots of hugs and kisses.

She is a sweet little girl who loves to give some BIG hugs to us all day long!She definitely keeps us laughing!

more bath fun!!

Lots of fun in bubbles!!

I realize the water is very high for Claire. I didn't expect her to want to go in it since she cried at the last bubble bath. So, she didn't stay in long!!

Typical Andrew doing a silly face!

Serious Blakers.

A happy girl who threw a HUGE fit when it was time to get out.

The other day Blake was sorting his colorful pom poms with a clothes pin.

And Claire had to be just like her big brother!

Then Matt and Blake tried to play with Thomas.

Claire kept stealing trains or trying to sit on the tracks, so I decided I would try to distract her...

with some macaroni!

She played with this for a while! She did make a mess, but enjoyed putting them back on the pan. Why didn't I distract her with a toy? 'cause she's not into her toys these days! She loves her dolls still, but other than that, she's gotta be doing what you are doing! So playing with the macaroni seemed like a treat!!

bath fun...or not so fun!

Ever since Claire has been able to sit up she's been taking baths with the boys. The boys didn't mind and it made my life easier.

Until...

Claire became such a menace!

The boys like to line their toys up on the edge of the tub and all Claire wants to do is knock them down! It drives the boys crazy.

So now when I tell them it's time for a bath they beg for Claire not to take a bath with them. :)

She's trying her hardest to be a pesky little sister!!

astronaut blake

Last week at Blake's school they learned about outer space. We had to make a space helmet and Blake wore it to school on Friday. Does he look a little excited?

Matt spray painted it and Blake did the decorating! Andrew wanted to know why we named Blake NASA. :) Next week they are learning about trains!

Here's what my mischievous child has been up to lately...

Andrew and Blake have bunkbeds in their room. Claire would always try to stand on the bottom, get in trouble and get off. Well, lately she's been testing the limits...instead of just one step she'd go on to the second. Anyway, the other day she was very quiet...I knew she was up to something. I went to see if she was in her room and found her in the boys' room. ON ANDREW'S BED! I nearly freaked! I yelled for Matt to come watch her while I went and got my camera. ;) And now the ladder is hidden in the closet during the day!

Then, somebody left the gate to the basement open and she went down head first. Thankfully she caught her self on the 5th stair. Where was mommy? Sitting on the living room floor folding clothes. She was making a noise so I knew she was stuck, but it took me a sec to figure out where she was. That could have been ugly!!

She's also into wearing her scarf again...but is now adding the boots! The girl is learning she must accessorize!!

She does have some learning to do....she keeps wanting to wear her bother's hat!

Yesterday we spent some time outside! I think it was 60 degrees! I'm sure some of you have been in the 60's for a while..not us!

Anyway, it was nice and the boys were glad they didn't have to wear a jacket!

Blake playing hard with his trains.

Andrew played hard at the sand and water table.

(Yeah, Daddy DID put water in it at one point. What was he thinking???)

I pulled out Andrew's 4wheeler he got for his first birthday, but Claire wouldn't stay on long enough for me to get a picture. She kept trying to push it with her feet and wouldn't keep her finger on the button to make it move long enough.
She tried HARD to get her brothers to drive her on the John Deer...or whatever, it's called...but there were NO takers!
We are supposed to get MORE snow next week or so. We got some a week ago, but it was only an inch and a half. Hopefully we won't get much more than that!! Wishful thinking!!