Parties and Pedi's!!!!!

We had another action packed weekend, filled with two birthday celebrations and pedicures! :) Friday was my wonderful mother-in-laws birthday and they got into town that evening so we had a nice meal and cheesecake to celebrate her 61 years of life! :) Stella wondered why Grandma did not have 61 candles on her cake!!!!

Saturday morning mom picked up Porter and took him to Build-A-Bear for part of his birthday gift. Mom said he had SO MUCH fun. He picked out a BLUE bear (of course!) and named him "Blue" (original!!!). They had a great time that morning and Porter was so excited with all the attention that Nana gave him and made him feel so special! He talked about "Blue" all day!

With all his goodies. He picked out a baseball outfit, cleats, a fisherman's outfit, complete with a fishing pole, camo boxers and more! :) Nana spoiled him!

They stopped at Cold Stone after leaving Build-A-Bear and enjoyed a ice cream treat for the birthday boy! Saturday afternoon was all about the girls!!!!! We did some shopping and got treated to pedicures. Part of Linda's Mother's Day gift from Mike was a gift certificate for a pedicure, so Linda, Stella, Sara, Mom, Hannah, Haydn and myself all went and got pampered. The little girls were so cute and very well behaved getting their toes painted. Stella and Haydn requested flowers on their big toes, Hannah had peace signs on hers! It was such a nice way to unwind together and we had lots of fun!

Saturday evening was all about our little birthday boy! He was very excited about his party! :) He's trying out his party blower, making sure it works!

Uncle Mark pushing the girls on the little merry-g0-round! He's probably sore today!!!!!! Porter requested a BLUE dinosaur cake for his birthday and here is the result. I think it turned out pretty cute, but that is probably b/c I made it!!! ha ha! He loved it and everyone looked like they had eaten a small village of smurfs after having a piece!! :)

Blowing out his candles.

Porter with his bestest bud, Eric.

Giving baby, Eva, some face time! She is so cute and the best baby! :)

Porter Pie is THREE!!!!!!!!!!

Our little guy is three years old today! Does not seem possible, but it sure has been a fun filled three years with him! He keeps us on our toes and we love it! He loves to play with his Batman toys, stomp on bugs, the color BLUE, have books read to him, play at the park, play with his sister, dig for bugs.....I could go on and on all night. He is a joy and also very clumsy at times!!! We are so blessed and have love him to bits!
Here he is with his 3 balloons he got for turning THREE! :) (This was first thing in the morning and was still pretty much asleep!!!) Opening gifts....of course sister had to help out! :)

His favorite gift was the Bug Vacuum! He pretty much played with this all day, I can't wait for it to warm up and dry out so we can take it outside and play with it!

We went to some friends tonight for dinner and I brought cupcakes for everyone. Here he is getting sung to.

I guess he must be wondering what he should wish for before blowing out his candles! :)

Kids table After dinner all the kiddos enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and burning off all the sugar from the cupcakes! :)

Slowly, but surely.........

Porter has been in his big boy bed for over a year now and I'm FINALLY getting things on his walls!!!!!! I've been wanting to do a nautical/lake theme since we love Lake Okoboji so much. I've been looking on Etsy a lot for wall decals for his room and nothing has ever really jumped at me. Today at Target I saw these boat wall clings and knew they would go perfect in his room and matches his bedding wonderfully! Now I just need to get some knick knacks for the shelf over his bed and on his dresser.
Here are some of the wall clings. There were a ton that came in the package I bought. He also has some over his closet doors and over his bed. This we put on his bunk bed, he thought that was really cool!

S & P destroying the room!! I think this was the first time all day they have played nicely together!

Sara and I are having a garage sale next weekend. Last night I finally pulled out S & P's outgrown clothing and here is one of the piles I have!!!!!!!!!!! Yikes. Guess I need to get pricing some stuff ASAP! :)

Bye Bye Binkie

Porter finally got rid of his binkies yesterday!! He'll be 3 next month, so it has been long over due for sometime now, I've just been dragging my feet making him get rid of them!! We've been talking about it for a good 2 weeks now so he knew it was coming up. Here he is throwing his binkies in the trash! :) All smiles!! He did wonderful last night w/o having his binkie. I was bracing myself for the worst as he was still very attached to it! He went to bed without a peep and woke up twice but each time he just asked for a drink, never did mention his binkie! So hopefully it remains that way. He hasn't mentioned it at all today! His reward for getting rid of the binkies was a FISH!!! We went to the pet store yesterday and his only requirement was a blue fish! He picked out a blue Betta and named him "Blue Nemo", he loves Blue Nemo and is very proud of him. Blue Nemo now resides on one of his bookshelves in his room. He is wearing his bathrobe in this picture, do not ask me why?!?!? I thought he looked very "Hugh Hefner-ish"!!!

A close up of Blue Nemo.

Of course Porter could not get a fish and Stella come home empty handed! She picked out a red Betta fish and when you look closely it has purple little dots all over it, very pretty! Betta's can not live in the same bowl b/c they fight with one another, so we stopped at Goodwill and picked up another fish bowl for $1.99. I still need to get rocks for Stella's bowl, but she is thrilled with her new fish, Barney (I think this is Barney the 3rd or 4th???). Yes, she is also sporting her bathrobe!Such a studmuffin in his "Cars" bathrobe!!!!! :)

Hail Hunt!

Forget Easter Egg Hunts, we are hunting for pieces of hail today in our yard!!!
Luckily the hail was very small in size, but the kids were surprised to see "ice cubes" falling from the sky! LOL! Here's some of the hail in our yard, the storm lasted less than a minute and melted almost as fast. Picking up the hail and getting rained on at the same time!

Porter with the biggest piece of hail we found after the storm.

Hippity Hoppity

We headed to MA over the weekend to celebrate Easter with my parents, my sister (Wes had to work) and Hannah and Haydn. Friday night the Steve, Nancy, Tiny and Ruth came over for dinner and drinks. It was a fun evening. We had not been to MA since the week before Christmas, so it was good to see everyone again! Saturday afternoon we headed to Diagonal to help Grandpa Jay, our longtime childhood neighbor, celebrate his 90th birthday. It was such a fun celebration and so great to see all the Austins and Snyders!
Here is Rosey playing with the girls. They love him!! They all ended up wearing their matching pajamas while we were in MA and it wasn't even planned! They thought that was pretty cool.

Dad giving Nance a hard time! :)

Saturday morning we headed to the courthouse lawn for the annual Easter Egg Hunt. It is always fun and we run into a lot of people we normally wouldn't see. Dad and the older girls, ready to hunt for eggs.

Porter :)

Mom, Stella, Porter, Haydn, Hannah and Dad. Stella is not saluting, just trying to block the sun from her eyes! It was a beautiful day out, last year they hunted for eggs in their winter coats, hats and mittens!!

Mom's Easter tradition of decorating the bunny cake with the shorties. They were very proud of how it turned out!

Tearing into the Easter baskets from Papa and Nana.

Stella and Nana playing with a toy that was in her basket. Whoo hoo! The Easter bunny even left stuff for the big kids, too! (Excuse the no make-up face!)

Such a show off!! Balancing a glass on my head!!!!! :)

The Easter bunny left eggs at the house while we were at church this morning! Time to hunt for more treats!

They all clean up pretty good!

Lots To Update!!

I have been putting off updating the ole bloggy blog b/c I feel overwhelmed! Here is what has been happening the last 10 days or so, but bare with me for some of these photos are out order!
We were SO happy to have Steve and Linda fly in last Friday afternoon to help celebrate Stella's birthday. Stella had a joint bday party with Haydn this year, who is turning 4 on April 7th.
Grandma and Grandpa got Stella a new bicycle for her birthday. She is in love with it and luckily has been able to ride it everyday since receiving it! :) Dad and Steve at the birthday party.

Mom and Dad left the convertible at our house after the party in case Steve and Linda wanted their own wheels while they were in Iowa. The weather has been SO awesome the last couple of days that we moved the carseats into the convertible and tootled around DSM today with the top down!

Steve and Linda were able to take Stella to school one morning and meet her teachers and see her classroom.

A few days before Steve and Linda arrived the kids decorated their bunny house that Nana gave them, they enjoyed eating the frosting off of it!

Mom and Sara at the birthday party.

The Birthday Girls getting ready to blow out their candles.

Who is having fun?!?!?

Tearing into their gifts.

Coloring Easter eggs. You can notice that this was taken after Porters haircut.

Part of Stella's gift from mom and dad was taking her to Build-A-Bear, she has never been before and from the sounds of it, she had a BALL!!!!! She choose a pink bear and named it Stella.

With all of her LOOT!

We took Porter to get a haircut the day after Stella's party. He hadn't had a haircut since July or August...so it was about time! :) He did really well, but did cry a little b/c "He didn't want his curls gone"!! He still has his curls and looks as cute as ever! :)