Nathaniel's birthday

Being as, for the third time, we were moving around Nathaniel's birthday, we decided to celebrate it a week or so early. Which turned out to be a good thing because on his actual birthday we signed papers on our rental in Grants Pass and it was kind of a chaotic day.  So about a week and a half before we had the great-grandmas and grandma and grandpa over for dinner and cake and ice cream before we really got packing.  Hard to believe that he is seven already!!

I found an Angry Bird t-shirt (not that he needed more t-shirts) in his FAVORITE COLOR.

Grandma Lorrayne crocheted him a loony bird tooth pillow...hopefully he'll start losing some teeth pretty soon!  He's like Joshua in that department...Joshua was almost 8 before he lost his first tooth.

Reading one of his cards...he loves to read.

Angry Bird game for the computer from Grandma and Grandpa

This kid is hard on backpacks!!  This is his third one in 4 years I think. Skylanders is quite the favorite in the house :)
But he's still using the Cars 2 lunchbox that came with last year's backpack.

He requested a Finn McMissile cake this year.  So with the help of a coloring book picture and someone else on Pinterest that had had my same idea of altering the Lightning McQueen cake pan I already had, I made Finn.

Guess he looks good enough to eat :)

Blowing out the candles...Grace is there ready to help if needed.

Up to something...

First picture in our new house!!  Grandma and Grandpa brought a load of our stuff up for us the day we FINALLY were able to get in to our house. They got him a cake on the way up so he had a cake on his actual birthday too!

This is Nathaniel...silly goofy cute kid! We've missed this Nathaniel the past few weeks as he has been battling double ear infections and strep throat as well as adjusting to new school and everything else. But we're starting to see this Nathaniel coming back :)

ELEVEN!!!!!

Seriously, I can't figure out how THIS little guy:


















has become THIS young man:

it really doesn't seem like it has been that long since "little" Joshua Ammon (all 22 1/2 inches and 8 lbs 15.9 oz of him) entered our lives and made it so much better and more exciting.

It doesn't seem like that long ago that he was just a little baby...not interested in much by sleeping and eating and smiling at us.

Now he's a big brother (times two), a 5th grader, voracious reader, Sacramento Kings fan, baseball player

 (4th year in Little League), Legomaniac (Ninjago, Star Wars, you name it), artist, writer, top of his class, methodical, scientist and expert frog disecter (what we did in science last week - I got to "help"), loves to learn,












Webelo Scout about to achieve his Arrow of Light,

loving, kind, caring, helpful, respectful, trumpet player (if he doesn't have music to a song, that doesn't stop him, he figures it out by ear...), singer (takes after his dad, not me, thank goodness), budding piano player (teaching himself) and guitar player, bottomless pit appetite is beginning,











great swimmer, soccer player,

School Spelling Bee Champ (last year he was 3rd place, this year he won),



and I could just go on and on about the totally terrific son he is!  He already plans on going to BYU after high school and a mission. He is so excited that the age to go on a mission has changed from 19 to 18...but that means one less year of him at home.  He's not set on what he wants to be when he's a "grown up" yet - some days it is something to do with music, other days something with writing and/or drawing, some days something with animals. But no matter what he does, we know he will be AWESOME!!







Being as he has a game tomorrow night, we celebrated his birthday on Sunday - with Great Grandma Darlene and Great Grandma Donna and Grandpa Bruce and Grandma Lorrayne. He choose Dad's meatball casserole for dinner and requested a Ninjago cake from Mom. Well, that was a little much for Mom, so I went with making the cake (kind of) look like Lego bricks and then putting Ninjago characters around.

Cool candles that had flames the same color as the candle!

The three amigos...they'd used their recycling money to buy him a catnip kit - he's been wanting it so he can grow some catnip for Shadow...
 

Scout shirt from Grandma and Grandpa - now he's really ready to advance from Cubs.



Seeing the circuit science kit from Mom and Dad.

His face when Grandpa uncovered his eyes so he could see the surprise Dad had brought in for him...

 

A new bike...yeah, he was really excited/shocked/surprised/happy.

Grace's birthday

Since we were having a yard sale on Grace's actual birthday, we had her dinner and cake, etc. on Sunday - a couple of days later. This was the first time we'd had anyone over to dinner in our new house. I fixed crock pot ranch pork chops (thank you, pinterest) which is one of the few ways Grace will eat meat. And she wanted a princess castle cake...it turned out so-so. Besides her big brothers and mommy & daddy, she had 2 great grandmas, 1 grandma and 1 grandpa there. She got lots of pretty clothes, some toys and books and had a great time. Hard to believe she's 3 already!!

Getting some help from big brother

With Great Grandma Donna

with Grandma Lorrayne

Grandpa Bruce

Big Brother Joshua

Big brother Nathaniel



Daddy kissing his birthday girl



With Great Grandma Darlene

The Three Amigos



the princess castle cake (purple of course!)



The cake - pink and purple were the requests so it's purple on the outside and pink (strawberry) on the inside. Not as pretty and fancy as I'd have liked to have done, but with yardsale, etc, I was just glad to get it done :)

Coming soon...Grace turns 3!

Grace turned three a couple of weeks ago. Her birthday was the first day of our Yard Sale...so we saved her birthday dinner, cake & ice cream with grandparents until a couple of days later. But here are a couple of pictures of her on her big day...more to come later.

At the yard sale

Recognize this bear, JoAnn? Joshua rediscovered the Winnie the Pooh he'd had as a baby, and gave it to Grace as part of her birthday because she loooooves Pooh Bear!

She so has the perfect facial expressions of awe and excitement for each package!

Happy Sixth Birthday!!!

On Monday, Nathaniel turned the big 0-6! He had his first party on Saturday - pirate themed (thank you pinterest!!). Sadly, only one of the 4 friends he invited came (one was on vacation and another was sick). But he loves Lucy and was happy and told us it was the best birthday ever! We played Pin the Patch on the Pirate (Orangebeard the Fierce), Pirate, Pirate, Matey (aka Duck, Duck, Goose), Red Light, Green Light and Dad was pretty darn cool and made balloon swords (and some animals...one of Lucy's older sisters loved that and took home a balloon zoo!) They had Pirate Punch, Buried Treasure Cakes and Cannonball Cream.

The cake isn't quite in proportion...the pirates are bigger than the ship (funny since they are all part of the same set) and it wasn't the greatest decoration job, but since we spent most of that day unpacking and moving stuff around, I'm just happy I got it done!

Our birthday boy!!

His backpack & lunchbox didn't survive kindergarten intact (well, he'd used them in preschool too, so I guess they lasted for two years). We went with a little higher quality this year (Target as opposed to Walmart) and Cars instead of Superheroes.  He loves that the lunch box clips on to the front of the back.

Grace had a hard time with the fact that she couldn't open the presents...we told her she's just got about 3 weeks to wait...then it will be her turn.