Annika's 3rd Birthday

Pictures from Annika's 3rd Birthday party. She wanted to Strawberry Shortcake Cake. And lots of balloons. Her brothers picked out special gifts for her- crayons, an umbrella, candy....

Death by Cake aka Birthday Week

 My first 3 boys were all born within 5 days of each other. Cale on August 8, Rylan on August 9 and Cohen on August 12.  Three birthdays mean 3 birthday cakes, and my boys have very rich tastes! Over the past few years they have moved away from fancy, carved and decorated cakes and moved on to cakes that are all about flavor. But I think this year....took the cake.


We started the week with Rylan's cake, which accompanied us to Tennessee to celebrate with Paul's family. His choice was a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake. It was a yellow layer cake with icing and cookie dough balls in between the layers, frosted with butter cream icing and topped with a healthy layer of homemade chocolate chip cookies!




Once that cake was finished off, we had Cale's cake...

 

It is very similar to his cake from last year- chocolate cake, peanut butter icing, chocolate ganache and peanut butter cups all around. The main difference came on the inside:

 

See that in the middle? It's not icing between the 2 layers of chocolate cake, it's peanut butter cheesecake! One slice could make some one slip into a sugar coma.

Cohen wanted an ice cream cake this year- with coffee and chocolate ice cream. His was a brownie crust then the coffee ice cream topped with chocolate ganache then the chocolate ice cream topped with a whipped icing and chocolate chips.

We are now taking a short break from anything sweet! Except for the fact that they all bought each other candy as birthday gifts.....

Field Trip Friday: The Children's Museum of the Upstate

 

This year I plan on taking more opportunities to take learning away from home, and experience it first hand. At least once a week we will pack up and spend a few hours, or the whole day, exploring. I am challenging myself to think past the standard field trips and zero in on my kids' interests, explore the unknowns of my surroundings and find the value in any outing. In order to help keep myself accountable and to allow others to share their field trips- and their outside of the box thinking- I am starting a new link-up: Field Trip Friday. Please feel free to share any outside of the home learning experience!

This week I am sharing a trip that is not at all outside of the box, but it was really fun and my boys have been wanting to go to this museum for months. This day trip was our birthday present for them, so this past weekend we packed up the car and drove south to Greenville, SC to the The Children's Museum of the Upstate.

It's a huge museum- 3 floors tall. And has all sorts of fun stuff to explore. It's got enough to cover any aged kid so that families with large age spans will all have a great experience. Annika loved the Bi-Lo Market. She spent a lot of time filling  her cart with produce and putting it back....and filling it up again. It was situated right next to the climber (pictured above) so she spent a lot of time there while the boys climbed as long as they wanted.

The construction center was a big hit too. The older boys spent time with the magnetic crane. Annika made paths with huge blocks or helped Lakin load bricks into a wheelbarrow to send up the conveyor belt.

The vehicle area was a lot of fun too. A couple large-enough-to-sit-in cars, tons of Automoblox pieces to build your own car with and send down test tracks. For my car obsessed kids it was heaven!

The water area- the best part to any museum according to my kids- was one of the last places we visited since they were sure to come out soaked. They had 2 areas- one for the 5 and under crew and one for the older kids. Annkia got to hang out and pour water and collect ducks (and get soaked) while the older boys got to manipulate water in tons of cool ways.

Once they were thoroughly soaked we moved back up towards the exit, but got distracted quite a few times- in the music room, in the market again, in the Healthy Heros section.

Annkia discovered her love for slides this day. Especially this one- which the boys also found hilarious. It's a stomach. And it makes all sorts of "digestive" noises.

And that was our trip! Have you taken any field trips this week? Or have an old one to share? Please add your link!

Seven

We spent the day in Greenville, South Carolina at the children's museum celebrating all 3 of my August birthday boys.

But seven years ago today this little boy came into this world. He is growing up so fast. He's my clown and always has a smile on his face. He loves to dance and play and generally make people laugh. He has big ideas and tells big stories.

Happy Birthday, Cohen!

Eleven

 

Eleven years.

He's grown so much over the past year. I can see him starting to leave some of childhood behind and becoming this amazing young man. 

 

He knows his way around the kitchen. He's great with the drill. And he can prove you wrong if you mention a date wrong when it comes to states and presidents. He can tell you the name of a zillion trees. He loves his birds and his family.

Happy Birthday, Rylan!

Nine Years Old

This boy.

He's 9 years old today.

He is an amazing boy with an amazing heart. He is wild and crazy, never quiet and never sits still.

He is loving and kind.

He's someone you want around in an emergency and can put aside any emotional reactions and do what needs to be done. He's strong and hardworking. He's artistic and creative.

He is also a lover of anything chocolate.

Happy Birthday, Cale!

32 Years

 Today is my 32nd birthday.  It was a good day. Well, something bad happened, but I am not going to focus on that. I am going to focus on the happy and good things that happened today.

Like my older boys bringing this inside for me this morning. They've been keeping it hidden for 2 weeks. Strategically placing grass and arranging leaves so I didn't see it...and keeping me away from the plant in general. And here I thought that Cale was just being extra helpful this week- feeding and letting the chickens out first thing in the morning.

This monster is almost 4 lbs. Yesterday we picked what I considered a monster zucchini...here is is next to the huge one and a normal one. You can see Annika off to the side. This thing is almost as big as she is!

Paul brought me home beautiful flowers.  

Rylan made me an amazing cake. It's a copy cat recipe of the Olive Garden's Black Tie Mousse Cake. It looked great and tasted wonderful.  If you've never heard of or tasted the Black Tie Mousse Cake, here is the inside:

It's 4 layers....chocolate cake on the bottom, then chocolate cheese cake, then Italian Mousse and topped with chocolate ganache. I helped him with the folding in the mousse layer and spreading the ganache on the sides, but the rest was him. Cale and Cohen worked together to make pesto rolls for dinner tonight. It was a good day.

Growth

Lots of growing going on around here....I have a ready supply of calendula. There is a quart of olive oil being infused by calendula sitting on my windowsill right now.

I will never understand the growth habits of zucchini. They have the ability to go from too small to pick to huge in a couple of hours. And they also have the ability to camouflage themselves. I mean, really, we go through the garden every morning and every night. How in the world do we miss those monster sized zucchini?

We topped the basil a few days ago since it was trying to flower. Picked a whole basket full, which we turned into a bowl full of leaves and turned that into a quart of pesto. Pesto rolls are on the menu tomorrow!

This dog is growing too. What I mean is that her expertise in escaping a fence is growing. This barricade was #4 I think. I think we finally got her though. It looked like thunder yesterday and she couldn't scale the fence! I am sure it's only a matter of days before she finds a new way....

This girl....she's growing too. Probably faster than anyone here. Her feet can almost fit in her favorite shoes. She has a box of hand-me down shoes....these ruby reds come out often.

 And her hair....it grows straight down into her eyes. And tiny little rubber bands and a mirror to see her pigtails in were just the ticket to get it out of her face without her pulling them right back out. She's stealing my headphones in that picture. She's a Taylor Swift fan.

Her vocabulary is going up. She's nearly potty trained. She's trying to give up her nap- though I am resisting that one.  She's got a tiny turtle in her hands....which she laid down in the grass with until she finally allowed it to crawl away.

And these boys. They are growing too. Just over a week until 3 of them turn one year older....and I will have an 11 yr old. And a 9 yr old. And a 7 yr old....

Seems like these kids are growing almost as fast as those zucchini!

linked to the  
Homestead Barn Hop 
Home is Where the Heart Is

5 Years

5 years ago today he came into this world.

 Welcomed home by his 3 brothers.

Coming home

First Birthday

2nd Birthday

 And he grew so fast....

Into this loving, imaginative, amazing boy

Happy Birthday, Lakin!

A Fairy, a Princess and a Little Girl's Birthday

 

My little girl turns one year old this Thursday

 

It hardly seems like a year has gone by since she joined our family. She is such a wonderful addition. Her personality is coming out so much these days and I can't wait to see who she becomes in the next year.

 

Since next weekend is Christmas, we celebrated this past Sunday. 

A small party with just family...and lots of balloons.

I got to make my first girly cake. I've had this idea for awhile and although it didn't turn out completely like the picture in my head, I still think it's pretty cute. It was also a little experimental- I didn't want to use any food coloring in it so with the exception of the black dots on the princess's eyes it is all naturally dyed. I used avocado for the green, strawberry for the pink, cocoa for the brown and lemon curd for the yellow.

Annika was a little unsure about the whole singing and cake thing.

She liked the cookie on top best of all. 

Eventually she got into the frosting and made a mess of herself. She didn't eat too much of it though. 

 She actually got into opening her gifts too...

Helping to unwrap and pull them out of the bags. 

 

Her doll collection is growing already!

 Happy [early] Birthday, Annika!