Eli's 9th Birthday

We celebrated Eli's 9th birthday with a few friends while we were in Gainesville. He wanted to have a Gator party and cake. I did a google search to get ideas for cakes done in orange and blue. Mind you I had no idea of making the cake myself. Just wanted to take a picture to good ole Publix and have them make it. Well... while searching, I came across this Gator Cakes website and was LOVING what I saw! I had Eli come to the computer and he liked them too. So thanks to technology, I was able to order a cake from 900 miles away! Here was the final result.... My sweet bff Bridget offered to pick up the tablecloths, plates and napkins for me. Not an easy task with 4 little ones, I know!

Since we were flying in to Gainesville and then having the party 2 days later, I wanted to keep it very small and simple. We invited 4 sets of friends to join us at Possum Creek Park for cake and ice cream. Here's the birthday boy with his cake....

Singing "Happy Birthday dear Eli"....

and blowing out 9 candles! (I had sent Philip to the store to buy the ice cream, candles, etc... Little did I know that he bought the trick magic candles. Eli blew all 9 candles out in one breath and I thought we were done. But, one by one they all started flaming again. Such a jokester that I married!)

Here are all the mommas and kids that came. These 3 sweet girls are what I miss most about Gainesville. They are truly terrific friends! (On a sidenote, look at how many kids we have between the 4 of us! 13 kids ranging in age from 13 months to 9yrs old!) Too bad we aren't standing up behind our own children. It would make it easier to tell you which child belongs to which momma. We were doing good just to get them all sitting down and looking in the same direction!

It had been raining on and off all day. The party was scheduled at 4:30pm and around 2:00 it came a torrential downpour. I quickly tried to think of what else we could do inside on such a short notice. Philip and I talked to Eli and decided to just cancel the party and have the cake and ice cream after supper with the Guillot family. (that's whose house we stayed at) We thought Eli was okay with that but he got really quiet and we knew that he was sad about not having his party. Around 3:45 the rain had stopped. Bridget and Terese (the blondes in the above picture)convinced me that we could still do the party at the park. We'd take towels to dry off the play equipment and the actual playground would be fine since it was mulch. That worked out very well and I'm so glad we went ahead and did the party at the park. However, a few minutes after we finished the cake and ice cream, the torrential downpour came back....

We all stayed under the pavilion to stay dry. (well the adults did. the kids would dart out in the rain every so often. They had such fun doing that!) We waited until the hardest rain seemed to pass and then we made a mad dash run to the car. Here's Eli, Emma Kate and Philip (carrying Zander) as they make a break for it....

I had told our friends not to get Eli any gifts since we'd be flying back on the plane and didn't have the extra room. I'm sure you know that they did not go along with that! He was so surprised and excited to receive Toys R Us gift cards and a Gator shirt from them! Before we left for our trip, he also received a HUGE Nerf machine gun and a Nintendo DS from his grandparents. His present from us was going to the Gator Homecoming game (I'll be posting about that next!) Hopefully this will be a birthday he won't soon forget!

Back in Gainesville

One week ago today, we flew back to our old stompin' grounds in Gainesville. We lived there from 2003-2008 and absolutely loved it! The last 3 years that we were there, we made several lifelong friends, so its such a treat to get to go back and spend time with them.

This is the first time that we've taken all 4 kids with us. Philip and I went back for a few days in January and took Zane and Zander. But this time, we wanted to take Eli and Emma Kate as well. It was Eli's birthday while we were there and we were going to a Gator football game, so we decided to do it BIG! We had no idea what it would be like to fly with all 4 of them, but we were pleasantly surprised!

Per my usual, I started off the trip by taking lots of pictures and then was taking nearly none by the end of the trip.

The picture below was while we were waiting to board the plane for the first flight. I'm pretty sure all the other passengers were a bit concerned as they watched my two toddlers climbing up and down and over the seats in the waiting area. But, look how good the other two were being. Here they are both doing schoolwork. Not that they volunteered to do work, but they had been given a set amount to do on each flight before they could get out the "good and fun" stuff from their backpack.

Most of you probably don't know that 2 lap-riding babies (meaning they are under 2yrs old and you didn't buy an airline ticket for them) cannot sit in the same row together. (due to lack of oxygen masks) So, Philip and I always have to be split up.

Eli, Philip and Zander on the first flight....

Me, Emma Kate and Zane's ear on the same flight....

Okay, so all of those were taken on Wednesday. Now skip to Friday, which was the next time I even took my camera out. (I told you I fade fast with the picture taking)

We stayed with our bff's Tom and Terese. We love them and just all get along so well. They have 2 boys ages 5 and 2 that my kids love to be with.

Friday afternoon my baby boys were particularly cranky, so I popped in a Baby Einstein DVD. Colton (their 2 yr old) decided to watch with them. Look how cute they all are together....

Colton and Chase have this little kids table & chairs set that my little boys loved! They are so happy to be eating their snack at this table rather than in highchairs....

The trip was nearly perfect! We had such an enjoyable time getting to see our friends. We were able to do a date night with Tom and Terese, I got to do a lunch date with my other bff Bridget, and Philip was able to see friends and professors from his time in pharmacy school.

Here we are with Tom and Terese right before we left to go back to the airport on Sunday....

Good Times.

School Pictures '09

Today is school picture day. I have a feeling they are going to be quite memorable this year.

For Eli, he has some fever blisters/I-don't-know-exactly-what-they-are red sores under his nose. (click on the picture to see them life-size!).

Curli-locks (aka Emma Kate) is in the process of letting her bangs grow out. They are at a not-so-good in between length right now. If I pull them back for school, they have fallen back down in her face by about 8:30am. I tried clipping some of them today...we'll see how that goes. Praying that the photographers take the 1st graders pictures EARLY! (would it be too much to ask that they take them before 8:30? School starts at 8:15. I think they can work it in!) Also including a picture taken this morning of Eli with his "All About Me" poster project. They are due Thursday but we are going to be in Florida so he had to turn his in today. I gave him some suggestions and guidelines, but I think he did a GREAT job!

If These Walls Could Talk

If the walls in our new house could talk, they would tell you that they have been empty for far too long. We moved in to this house in June '08. I brought nearly all our pictures and wall hangings from our house in Florida, but when I started trying to put them in this house, they just didn't seem "to go." Not sure why. I even had 2 other females (one of whom seems to have a knack for decorating) confirm my thoughts.

Seeing as I had 2 newborns at that time, I didn't really have many opportunities to go out searching for new prints. Then, month-after-month passed and I just came to know our house-of-empty-walls as "home" and it didn't really bother me. (until someone came over. Then I'd have to explain or apologize or something as to why we had empty walls)

Now over a year later, I finally have a few walls that are no longer empty!! And I must say the wait was so worth it! So I am sharing my 2 favorite walls. Kind of an odd thing to be blogging about I know. But I just love how they turned out. Both totally different but both totally my life.

The first is a canvas painting that Emma Kate's Kindergarten teacher did. She has had no art instruction but is sooooo amazingly talented. Last November, I told her I wanted an ABC canvas but not cheesy or childish. I wanted each letter of the alphabet to be something that represented our family. It took me a loooong time to come up with something for all 26 letters. Finally this spring, Ashley (the artist), started trying to help me think of things. She helped me think "out of the box." As in the letter "K" for example, doesn't have to start with the letter K. She said she'd just accent that letter to make it stand out more than the others. Ashley also had me take pictures of our house and empty walls to give her an idea of color scheme, etc...

In May, the canvas was all finished. I was BLOWN AWAY when I saw it. Absolutely speechless. She went way beyond what I had imagined. Here it is hanging in our house....

And here's a close-up below. You can click on the picture if you want to see it even bigger.

See? I told you she is AMAZING!! Take a look at her Busy Brush Website and Busy Brush Blog. Not only is she so very talented, but she is also one of the sweetest, kindest persons I've ever known. We (me and Emma Kate) were so very blessed by getting to know her last year!



My other newly decorated wall is of my babies. I had all 4 of them professionally photographed for their 1yr birthday and subsequently purchased framed 16X20's of my favorite pose. These are hanging in our dining room (which as a sidenote still has NO dining room furniture. It does have a balance beam though in case you like to eat while practicing gymnastics!) It is so nice to walk by this room and see SOMETHING finally hanging on the wall. Click on the picture to see them in chronological order left to right. Do you think any of them look like each other? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Toilet Papering @ 17 months

Zane and Zander are 17 months old today.... They (or maybe just one of them) decided to celebrate by unrolling the toilet paper in the bathroom. (Not sure why the door was open to begin with. Since I caught Zander unrolling several months ago, I always try to keep the doors shut.)
So this is what I saw first.....

Now does that sweet face look like a toilet paper caper?

I think in the picture below, Zane is looking at Zander like "Dude...she caught me sitting in here so now she thinks I did it, but you know who is guilty bro."

Then this little face turns around and looks at me as if to say "Who? Me?"

Blue Lightning

Eli is playing fall baseball for the first time this year.

His team is the "Blue Lightening". These pictures were taken at one of his games this weekend (he usually has 2 or 3 every weekend.). His favorite position is catcher.

In the next picture on the right you can see him smiling at his siblings.

Here is what his sister was doing during the game. Scratching her head with her feet...

and then making her chair fall to the ground while she was in it....


His brothers stayed in the wagon for a (very little) while...

They also thought they wanted to sit in my chair, but that lasted all of about 15 seconds!

Most of the time they were walking around pushing their wagon, petting dogs and putting their hands in the fence. I could hear Philip yelling (from out in the field where he was coaching) "Get him back. Get his hands out of the fence." I know hands in the fence is not safe but 2 boys in 2 different directions makes it hard to keep everybody doing what they are supposed to be doing!

Lullaby with the iPod

As a rule in our house, when the baby boys lay down for their afternoon nap, it is quiet time for EVERYBODY. Eli and Emma Kate do not have to go to sleep, but they have to be upstairs doing something quiet. My definition of quiet is: that I cannot hear them.

Today, Emma Kate asked if she could listen to my iPod for quiet time. I said yes as long as she was laying down on her bed. I asked her which playlist she was going to listen to. She said "Kids" followed by "Praise & Worship." I had her show me that she knew where those were on the iPod and how to get to them. She passed the test and off she went to her room.

I had my quiet/rest time. (One of my MOST favorite parts of the day! Seriously. It rejuvenates me for the remainder of the day.) After my time was over, I went upstairs to check on her to make sure she was listening to the appropriate playlists. This is what I found.... Of course it made me smile. Also made me sneak quietly back downstairs to get my camera. In this next picture, you can see white tape around her wrist and part of her hand. This is from gymnastics. It's a "tape grip" for the bars. She still had it on from practice this morning.
The music on the iPod was still going. It was on the "Praise & Worship" playlist. How sweet to be sleeping with promises, truths & praises of God's Word in your ears!