Jared's cake

Jared doesn't love cake. When I do make him a fun birthday "cake" it is usually actually frosted rice krispies. This year I made him flan instead...

His favorite meal from his childhood...roast beef and parsnips. Thanks to Jared's mom's guidance over the phone, it turned out delish!

Blowing out the candles

(Yes, he is wearing his apron. And yes, he did have to help cook his birthday dinner. This man can make some mean gravy. Mmm. And, well, I can't make gravy.)

Jakie LOVED the candles. Loved. Them. We lit and blew candles for a good 20 minutes. As soon as they were out, Jakie would chant "puh, puh, puh" until Jared lit them again.

Don't worry we didn't let him grab the flame. :)

Poor Nathan was quite sick with a high fever. This is the only smile we got from him. What is it with boys and fire?!?

(And yes, his shirt is on backward. Oh, but don't worry, he is wearing a nice pair of brown plaid shorts to match his gray, blue and yellow shirt. Growing pains. :) )

This was at the end of the 20 minutes of candle lighting. Hence Brielle is getting a little tired of the "puh"ing. I decided to shoot a little video.

(When we ask him if he wants "more" we are referring to the flan that he has been loving. We were trying to get him to sign "more" for the video, but he had other things on his mind.)

Birthday Presents

Most likely, by the end of the day there will be a couple of boxes or gift bags for Dad to open that will be filled with "treasures" gathered from various rooms in the house, including Jared's own closet and dresser drawers. A whole new aspect of re-gifting!

Happy Birthday Jared! We sure love you!

Jacob's Birthday Celebration

Here is our birthday boy! He has his 4 front teeth with 2 more coming in on the top.

After dinner we started the festivities with present opening. Jacob tried...but brother and sister did most of the unwrapping.

Playing with his new water bugs and net...Lucky him he got to try them out that very evening for after eating his cake he was in dire need of a bath

Jakie loved this tractor from Grandma Kay and Grandpa Ken. We had a hard time getting him to pay attention to much else. :) Except to put the new gifts in the tractor trailer...

Dad chose this fun book for Jakie at a book sale at work and he loved it. It has puppet eyes that you can move to go along with the story. So cute. Great choice Jare!

Isn't he cute?!?

Here comes the tractor!

Jacob sharing his loot (frosting from the cake) with Brielle. (Obviously my efforts to get out of the picture didn't work.)

Now a little frosting for himself...

And a little more...

And a little more...along with some candy this time.

Man, this birthday stuff is fun!

Happy Birthday Jacob. We sure love you!
Jakie is still crawling and climbing up on and getting into everything. He is getting pretty good at doing stairs. As soon as he figures out how to turn backwards at the top we can take out gate down. Yay! He is starting to talk both verbally and in sign language. He can sign "more" and "all done" and he says a darling "a dun" along with it. He says "ah ohm" when he drops something and we can usually get "mama" and "dada" from him when we try. :) He loves to wave and say "hi" and "bye" and just has the most heart warming smile. We love his snuggles, his giggles and the joy he brings into our home.

Jacob's 1st Birthday Fleet

Jakie loves cars. He spends gobs of time each day crawling around the house pushing a car around. The sound cars make was his first "word".

So we decided to make him a whole fleet of cars for his 1st birthday cake...

Nathan chose to make green and Briele chose to make red. Hmm. Imagine that.

Mom's final product

That day I was a fan of 30 minutes and we are done.

Mmm. Blue frosting is yummy!

Jake with his car

As a "birthday present" to Mom and Dad he learned to crawl out of his high chair (when the tray was on, of course) and onto the table nearby. Thank goodness he didn't fall. So, Mom has resigned herself to strapping him in each time. This kid is a bit of a monkey. :)

One just Jacob's size!

Brielle and her car

Nathan displaying his handiwork

Ten Little Fish

Nathan chose this book at the school library yesterday and we had fun reading it together a couple of times yesterday. This morning we sat down to read it and about halfway through Jacob required my attention. To my surprise Nathan kept "reading." He had the whole thing pretty much memorized after 2 readings. I was amazed. Plus he is super cute. I was going to have him Skype grandma to read it to her, but thought we would put it here instead so it is saved for all posterity as well. :)

Responsible Fish

Hooray! Today we celebrate at least 6 months of effort on Nathan's part to be "responsible". Each time he has done something responsible he has gotten to put a fuzzy in his jar.

Along the way he earned a fish tank, fish food, water etc. and today he earned his FISH!!!! He put the last fuzzy in the jar this morning after going in to play with Jakie when he heard him crying

The kids and his jar (after Brielle got to it with her organizing skills)

We celebrated by going to Walmart and letting him choose a fish. He chose a small, white, shiny one who is now swimming in his new home. We are proud of Nathan and his efforts to make responsible choices. He is such an awesome kid!

First Day of School

Both Brielle and Nathan now attend the same school...Bre as a kindergartener and Nathan in 4K.

Man, was she excited for this day to finally arrive. She had such a wonderful time. It is fun to watch her love school so much.

Nathan was happy about going too, I think. Though he doesn't show it like Brielle does. He did a great job. I can't believe he is this old already.

Good luck getting a picture of Nathan looking at the camera when there are buses to be seen, admired and enjoyed. At least it got a real smile out of him. Man, I love that kid. The buses were compelling enough to even draw Brielle's gaze.

Brielle has wanted to ride the bus for SO long. She finally got her chance.

It was fun to wait out front for her to get home. She was BURSTING with excitement. We didn't even get inside before I had heard about most of her day...though more wonderful tidbits kept coming out all evening long. I loved it. We sat on the front porch so she could tell all. Her favorite parts?

• Riding the bus
• Eating lunch at school
• Art class (they get to do art class and gym class everyday. She was pretty excited about that)

How was Nathan's day you ask? So do I. I have quizzed the poor guy til I am blue in the face and can't get much info. Here are the few precious tidbits I got:

• "We didn't have time for recess or snack",
• "We went to the bathroom twice"
• "I colored a truck on paper and teacher hung it on the wall"
• "I played with trucks"
• And, my favorite, "We had pretend marshmallows in our mouths when we walked down the hall". What a great way to keep 4 year-olds quiet in the hall.