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.....

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!

A Happy Easter

 

On Saturday,  the kids talked me into taking them to an Easter egg hunt they saw a sign for. The signs said 16,000 eggs....I was sure it was going to be a madhouse and someone would get lost. But the whole thing was very organized and every age group got a turn and they all had a lot of fun.

Easter baskets on Sunday morning.

This year it was just us for Easter. We kept dinner simple and we all pitched in. I made a turkey.

Rylan made a chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert. 

Lakin made a fruit salad. 

Cohen made dinner rolls. 

 Cale made mashed potatoes. 

and Paul made me a milk stand. 

The kids cooperated for their annual group shot with their new shirts. And if you look really close you will see that Cale is holding a grasshopper, who they just had to be in the picture too. 

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!

Trick or Treat

 Annika's first Halloween.

 A dinosaur joined us for school

 So did Super Cow

 And Spiderman

 Posing before heading out to our Halloween Party

 Lots of posing

 He wanted to be duct tape man....but settled for Super Cow when we ran out of time and tape to make his costume.

 But check out his cape....silver and black duct tape using a trash bag as a base.

 Spider climbing

 Obligatory group shot.

 And another group shot once we got where we were going. 

Party Time!

 Lollipop spiders

 Witches Stew contest

 and race

 Jack-o-lantern luminaries 

Jack-o-lantern pizza

 

Bone pretzels

marble painted spider webs

and faux trick-or-treating

Happy Halloween!