a few photos of the young folk

for your enjoyment, a couple recent photos of the younger people in our home...

Power Ranger Ewan and his sidekick Darth Optimus Prime


Ewan and Liam had a preschool fun day on Monday. Liam was very excited to go and bring his lunch in a lunchbox. I think he was excited to be included, too. Both boys had lots of fun and were very tired when they got home.

And, a cute picture of Kella, 6 weeks old, wrapped in her new favorite blanket

celebrating Marcus's birthday, belated post

While we were in Decatur, Marcus had his 8th birthday! It was a perfect place to celebrate because both sides of the family could get together. Chris and Kim were gracious enough to let us party at their place and Kim even made Marcus's birthday cake for us.

We used all the non-girl color streamers that Kim had to decorate the dining room.

Cale posted a sign telling Marcus not to come in. In kid writing it reads, "danger Marcus stay out. Don't come in." Cale made another sign later that had Marcus unroll a streamer. I'm not too sure if that was supposed to be a surprise for Marcus or Cale just wanted to write another note. Very cute.

Here is Marcus with his cake. I thought he would like a volcano cake since he likes science experiements. I had some recipes for it, but Kim has made this cake a couple times and was willing to do it for me. Thank you! The smoke was made with dry ice. The kids thought it was very cool. I bet the adults thought it was cool, too. But, the candles were hard to light with all the smoke from the ice.

Opening presents. Marcus got a nintendo ds for his birthday. It was something that he wanted for a while. He was pretty excited and so were his brothers. They've all been playing on it.

Showing off his new Illinois shirt. "Train a child up in the way he should go...", you know.



Marcus's entrance into the dining room. He was pretty pumped to get to bust through some streamers. I don't know if you can see him warming up in this video. I think he had a great birthday!

celebrating Marcus Andrew, age 8!

Here's an overdue post in honor of Marcus's birthday! He is such a good boy and a great helper. He likes to make us happy. He likes to do what is right. He is a great reader and great at math. He likes to ride his bike and scooter and play the Wii and his new DS. Where does the time go? It seems like not too long ago he was my first little baby and now he is this tall boy who will soon outgrow his grandmother. It is definitely bittersweet sometimes thinking about how much he has grown. But, it is fun and exciting to watch him grow too and learn how to do different things and become more independent. We love him so much! He is a sweet, smart, loving boy and we are blessed to have him as our son!







our "little" baby boy!

spoils of the 4th

Way back during the 4th of July weekend, Andy took the older boys to Cicero's 4th of July celebration. They have vendors, a Civil War re-enactment camp, a pioneer village and a kids game/play area. Each of the boys got to get a trinket from a vendor. Here's what they chose...

Marcus picked out a metal pendant that has a design pounded into it. He looks exhuasted, doesn't he. He was coming off a couple days of having pretty late bedtimes.


Ewan picked out a wooden snake.

Cale picked out a spear. Yes, a spear, made out of a long stick with rabbit fur wrapped around the top to make it look more "real". Don't worry, it has a wooden tip.

They loved their new things. And, Andy took them back to the children's area in a separate trip. They bounced on a bunch of different bouncy things and saw some different animals. The best part is, that all this stuff is within walking distance of our house. Seriously, our subdivision was surrounded by events. I love the 4th in Cicero!

at the last doctor visit...

Kella had a great check-up last week. She weighed in at 11 pounds 2.5 ounces. I know she's gotten longer, but our favorite doctor had let our favorite nurse go eat lunch and was doing everything herself and forgot to measure her length. Kella's looking good. The doctor says Kella is very strong and has good head control. She can also calm herself down pretty well. Then our doctor got some cuddle time with Kella which they both enjoyed. No shots at this visit, that will be next time. She's getting so big-growing out of some of her 0-3 month size clothes. She's starting to look more like a little baby than a newborn. *sigh*

the 4th fun continues after dark

We kept the kids up to see the fireworks. Another perk about where we live is that you can see the fireworks from our front yard. It was the gathering place for several of our neighbors and their kids. One of the moms brought over some poppers, snake-things, sparklers and a couple bigger things that lit up for the kids. We put Andy in charge of the pyrotechnic display, probably because we had some matches. The kids liked it all. They created a small fire at the street corner and ran around with the sparklers. Ewan threw his back at Andy and then later apoligized for throwing "fire" at Andy.

Here are the kids, lined up, watching Andy light what we thought was a rocket, but turned out to be something that lit up and then made a bunch of noise. There were 3, and each was just as exciting as the first to the kids. The 4th of July is becoming one of my favorite holidays with moments like these!

4th of July parade

We took the kids to the 4th of July parade. I love that it took less than 10 minutes to walk there. The boys loved that the parade participants threw a ton of candy their way. They even got dilly bars from the Dairy Queen people. The candy helped keep Liam in the wagon for most of the parade.

Here's Liam-tough decision-sucker or ice cream. He chose the sucker.

Nothing woke Kella up, not the marching band or the old tractors.

What you can't see is that all their pockets are bulging full of candy. (sidenote-Marcus and Cale purposely picked the same clothes to wear. They have a lot of the same tshirts and the past several days they have been coordinating their shirts. I call them the "twins".)

This was my favorite float. Santa Claus. He yelled, "Ho, ho, ho. I'm on vacation."

After the parade, Marcus, Cale, Kella and I took the long way back to the house. We stopped at a free face painting booth. Marcus wasn't feeling a face paint, but Cale was for it. He got this nice starburst with some sparkle. It actually stayed on until Andy took the Marcus, Cale and Ewan to the bounce house area that afternoon (they had a blast, by the way, and got lemon shake-ups afterwards).