Happy Birthday Daddy!

I'm not even sure where to start so I guess I'll just start with Happy Birthday to the most important man in our lives, Husband, Father, Son, Brother and Uncle. We love you dearly and you mean the world to us. I started this a few days ago and it got way out of hand, I was looking through pictures to use a few for this post. Needless to say, I found a ton that I just love.

I loved it when "I" was this size, he loved to ride on Daddy's shoulders, except he called it, "riding on Daddy's head."



My best friend and the man of my dreams.



The family, minus one.



Thank you for being a hands on Daddy.



And for loving our babies.



I love this picture. I think it is one of my all time favorites.



Daddy and his boys.



I love the way you look at our children. There is so much love in your eyes.



Thank you for going to work every day to support us.



Thank you for using those same hands to be gentle and loving with our babies.



The second time Daddy held baby "E" but the first time with no tubes, wires or monitors.



The very first time Daddy held baby "E" he was nearly a week old.



Thank you for always involving the children in the things you do.



Nap time with Daddy and little "I" I remember those days like they were yesterday.



"I" helping Daddy carve punkins.



Thank you for going to see The Wiggles with us.



Thank you for showing our babies the world all while protecting them at the same time.



Thank you for having fun with our babies.



Thank you for never putting our babies in harms way.



Thanks for caring enough to take the time to explain things to them as they grow.



Thanks for sharing new experiences with them.



Thanks for being "I's" best friend.



Thanks for being the #1 man in her life.



Thanks for adoring him.



Thanks for being a big kid at heart.



Thanks for making your family your #1 priority.



Thanks for having only one other woman in your life.



And thanks for sharing her with us!



Thanks for always being there for me and loving me for me.



Thanks for having fun with us.



Thanks for spending time with him.



And always being there to carry us when times are tough.



Thanks for being there to lend a helping hand when we can't quite do things for ourselves.



And thanks for taking the time to help us with those things instead of just doing them for us.



Thanks for being the one by our sides as our life has changed through the years.



Thanks for letting us follow our dreams and supporting us along the way.



Thanks for always taking the time to stop and smell the flowers.



Thanks for being you.



Thanks for doing things with us instead of always just standing in the crowd watching.



Thanks for always being gentle with us.



And affectionate with us.



And thanks for protecting us from evil rabid ducks!



Thanks for showing her what it is like to be Daddy's girl.



And that it is ok for men to show love and affection.



Thanks for being there to support us when we experience things for the first time.



Thanks for always holding our hand.



Thanks for going to see The Wiggles. Again. And for knowing the songs and dances and teaching us it's ok to dance when people are watching.



Thanks for agreeing to hop on a plane to Colorado with 2 hours notice because Mommy found a good deal.



Thanks for being the only man alive that knows the sound a giraffe makes!



Thanks for always living life to the fullest and taking every opportunity to have fun with your family!



Thanks for always having a heart full of love and looking at your babies like no one else in the world matters.



Thanks for not being afraid of what other people think.



Thanks for always being up for a new adventure.



Thanks for being the man of my dreams. I love you more today than I ever thought possible. You are a wonderful husband and father and we could not be more blessed to have you in our lives. We love you with all our hearts and could not imagine our lives without you.



Thanks for giving me a baby girl.



Thanks for being a wonderful loving role model for our boys. What an awesome example you are to them.



Thanks for deciding that Bu-cee's wasn't all bad. The beef jerky is amazing.



Thanks for being creative and making a redneck condo in our backyard for the boys.



Thank you for being the kind of father that sets a high standard for the type of man they will one day marry.



Thanks for being a fun daddy.



Thanks for helping wrangle the dog for pet day.



Thank you for all that you do for your family. We are so blessed to have you in our lives. You always make each and every one of us feel special and that we are the only ones in the whole world who matter at any given time. Bringing the dog to pet day might not seem like much, but you are helping to mold the children into loving and responsible individuals. They have a daddy who cares enough to see them through the little things and for that we are grateful.

We love you!

Babies in the bluebonnets

Sunday we took the little kids (well, actually we took all of the kids) to do pictures in the bluebonnets. The big kids are so over having theirs done in the flowers! There were quite a few people there so by the time the spot opened up that I really wanted, The Pretty Little Princess was done. She had had enough. I took a few back drops for her and ended up not liking the pink one as much but she was getting fussy so I just left her on it and got a few. We are thinking about taking her back out to try again during the week, in hopes that it will not be as crowded.

Meanwhile, here are a few shots of my precious little ones.



Apparently she found whatever was off to her right side way more interesting than mommy!



My sweet big boy. I cannot believe that he will be 6 years old next week! Ugh. Where does the time go?!? Get ready, I might just have a break down next week.



He is getting so big. He is nearly finished with his kindergarten year. He lost his very first tooth on Monday. Well, technically he did not lose it, we had to go to the dentist and have it pulled. He was such a big brave boy. He did not cry at all. He was super excited because the tooth fairy came to see him last night!



He is growing up so fast. I cannot believe how old he is looking!



He is a wonderful big brother. He loves his little sister so much!



She loves him too. You just can't tell by this picture. By then, she was DONE!!



He is so sweet and careful with her. He loves to hold her.



And he loves to kiss her.



Big girl...



My sweet baby boy.



Ooooh, I love my baby boys!! They are so sweet. How did I get so lucky?!?



Once again, she is not impressed!



My little love bug. He was not feeling well at all when we went on Sunday. He has been sick for about a month now. He just cannot seem to kick the sinus junk and ear infections. I feel so bad for him. He did such a good job with pictures. You cannot even tell he was feeling bad at all. Poor baby.



I think he is just beautiful. And LOVE LOVE LOVE his hair!!



One of The World's Best Big Brothers!!



Hands down...I have the greatest kids EVER!!

One of those weeks

Have you ever just had one of those weeks? You know the kind. Nothing gets done, the house is a wreck, every dish in the kitchen is dirty, there are clothes that need to be washed, dried, folded and put up, you cannot walk through the living room without stepping over a little tykes cozy coupe, a dump truck, a garbage truck, a bouncy seat, a radio flyer caterpillar, a Pottery Barn Kids Everywhere chair, a dancing mickey mouse and who knows what else.

The last few weeks have been so hectic around here. "H's" baseball season started a month or so back and we are now in full swing. Sometimes we have 3 games in one week. Last night we had a game that was about an hour away. Those are exhausting. We have a few coming up that are at 8pm. Ugh.

We have been gone so much lately, or busy doing something, or having sick kids, or appointments or baseball games, or field trips or school plays or birthdays or....you name it that I feel like I have not had a single moment to get anything done around here that needs to be done, much less doing anything that I might want to do. *sigh*

I am hoping things start to slow down here sometime soon, not thinking that is going to be happening. Three more family (as in people who live here) birthdays just this month.

Anyway, enough with the rant. Just wanted you to know I am still alive, just buried at the moment!

Bailey Bear comes for a visit.

"I's" classroom has a stuffed friend named Bailey who gets to go home with a different kindergarten student each weekend. So far the bear has had a lot of fun! A few weeks ago was our first time to have him over for the weekend. We were so excited.

The first thing that "I" wanted to do with Bailey was show him their "redneck clubhouse" that Daddy had built a few days before, but first, Bailey had to get out of the "icky girl clothes" that he had been dressed in the week before. I am really glad that Bailey is comfortable with his man/womanhood because I am afraid that Bailey gets to change genders weekly! Once they finally took care of that little bit of business, I think Bailey really enjoyed playing in the clubhouse with "I" and the other boys.



There was lots of cheesy posing going on.



Bailey getting a tour of the second story in the main part of the clubhouse! Oh, and did I mention that a few weeks before that "I" gave himself a lovely, well planned out haircut?!? Oh yea! Everyone needs a cut like this! I am sure you can all agree that it is quite the haircut!



After playing outside in the clubhouse, they came in for a snack. Fresh strawberries for everyone! Bailey loved the strawberries!



Mmmm, strawberries and tv with friends, it doesn't get any better than this!



Getting ready for bed on Bailey's first night.



A little bit of fake sleeping for the camera.



On Saturday, we got to go to one of "I's" friend's houses for dinner and games. The boys had a very good time. They played video games and Bailey beat them both a few times!



Taking a break for some popcorn. Woo, you can really see the fantastic haircut in this picture! YIKES!!



"I" taking Bailey for a spin on the scooter.



The boys going for a ride in the truck. Hang on Bailey!



Coming by to say hello.



Bailey really wanted "I" to take him for a ride on his bike. He said he had never ridden a bike before!



Then Bailey found "H's" skateboard and wanted to go for a ride on it all by himself! That really made me nervous, after all; Bailey was only here for the weekend and I certainly did not want to spend our weekend in the emergency room. Can you imagine what the teacher and other children would have thought had we let Bailey get injured when he was in our care?!?



Bailey even tried to convince "I" to let him ride alone!



After some serious thought and consideration, I finally agreed to let Bailey ride on the skateboard, but only under one condition; that he ride along with "I" since he had way more experience on the skateboard. Bailey agreed, so off they went!



After we finally got that silly bear off of the skateboard, he found "E's" cyclebike and wanted to take that for a ride. I agreed to let him do that on his own because it was more his size. He rode the cyclebike for hours. We finally had to drag him off of it to get him inside for dinner. He said that he was having so much fun that he did not want to go back to the school. Thankfully, the weekend that Bailey got to come to our house was a 3 day weekend so we had an extra day with him!




Once we finally got Bailey inside, he was so tired that he climbed up on the couch, covered himself up and went straight to sleep! He even slept through dinner. Silly bear.

Rough life

It's a rough life but someones gotta live it.

Redneck Clubhouse

We recently got a "recycle" can for our boxes and items that can be recycled from the city. Needless to say, with so many people living here, we fill our recycle can up quickly! We have been putting the big boxes in the garage and cutting them up as we have room in the can. Well Daddy, being as inventive as he is, decided to pull one of the boxes out for the boys to play in and well, it "grew" from there.



And it goes without saying if you know my kids, wherever Daddy is, they will not be far behind.



He gets lots of help when they are around. Notice anything funny about "E's" choice in footwear?



The "upstairs" window.



The cheeser in the upstairs window. Ok, here is a better view of the footwear in question. Notice that both shoes are for the same foot too. Hehe



Now you can see the lovely hand accessory on "I's" hand as well. See, my kids are little weirdos!



Welcome to the redneck clubhouse, the finished product, complete with a second story look out and a north and south wing, one for each little boy! Before it was all said and done, they had toys, a blanket and who knows what else drug in there to play with. It lasted for a few days until the morning dew had the best of it.



Sadly, the boys had to say goodbye to their very first redneck clubhouse.

Recipes

I am going to share some tasty recipes with you today. I would advise you to NOT try any of these at home! Hehe. "I's" kindergarten class wrote a book recently. The book they wrote is called The Kinder Cookbook.

I am going to just type them out EXACTLY as they are written but I will add in parenthesis whether it was written by a girl or a boy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (girl)

Ingredients: Sugar, flour, chocolate chips

1) Get 1 scoop of sugar, 2 scoops of flour and a few chocolate chips so we can eat it easily.
2) Put it on a couple of rectangle pans in little round circles.
3) Put it in the microwave and cook it for 10 hours.
4) Take them out and serve them.
Make sure they are not too hot.

Chocolate Cake (boy)

Ingredients: Stuff

1) First you need to grab a bowl and put some stuff in and stir it up with a spoon.
2) Put it in the oven and bake it at 40* for 20 minutes.
3) Take it out and sit it on the glass thing with the tall thing and the thing over it.
4) Whenever you want some, you lift up the thing and have some.

Brownies (girl)

Ingredients: Brownie stuff, water, eggs

1) Get 1 cup of water, 1 cracked egg (throw away the shell) and put it in a bowl.
2) Mix it with a spoon.
3) Put the brownie stuff from the box into a bowl.
4) Put it in a pan and put it in the oven for how long the box says at about medium temperature.
5) Take it out and share it with everybody.
6) Check the directions on the back of the box to make sure these directions are right.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich (girl)

Ingredients: Bread, peanut butter, jelly

1) Get 2 pieces of bread.
2) Get a lot of peanut butter.
3) Get a lot of jelly.
4) Get a knife and put the peanut butter on the bread.
5) Put the jelly on it.
6) Use your hands to make it.
7) It's done!

Chicken Nuggets (boy, MY BOY!!)

Ingredients: Chicken nuggets

1) Get chicken nuggets from the chicken factory.
2) Put them on a napkin.
3) Put the napkin in the oven for 10 seconds until they're a little hot.
4) Serve them.
5) I like the ones from Chick-Fil-A.

Snow Ice Cream

Ingredients: Snow, Ice Cream

1) Get about 10 cups of snow.
2) Then get 10 cups of ice cream.
3) Mix it together.
4) Put it in a bowl.
5) Get it a little hot.
6) Serves 1.

Scrambled Eggs (girl)

Ingredients: Eggs

1) Get 3 eggs and 5 inches of water.
2) Put it in a bowl.
3) Heat it for 12 minutes.
4) Get ketchup and forks and eat it.

Dove (boy)

Ingredients: Dove, spices

1) Shoot a dove.
2) Put spice on it.
3) Put it in a pan and put it in the oven for 30 minutes at 50*.
4) Take it out and put a toothpick in it.
5) Eat it.

Waffles (boy)

Ingredients: Waffles, syrup, bacon

1) Get waffles out of the refrigerator.
2) Put it in the toaster for 30 seconds.
3) Put the waffles on a plate.
4) Put about 10 squirts of syrup on it.
5) Eat it with bacon.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich (boy)

Ingredients: Bread, cheese

1) Get 2 breads and 1 or 2 slices of cheese.
2) Put butter on the bread.
3) Put it in the microwave for 12 minutes.
4) Take out the bread and put the cheese on.
5) Put it back in the microwave for however long.
6) Take off the crust.
7) Eat it!

Hot Dogs (boy)

Ingredients: Hot dogs, buns, mustard, ketchup, chili

1) Get 1 hot dog.
2) Heat it up in the microwave for 1 minute.
3) When it beeps, take it out and cut it or put it in a bun.
4) You can put mustard, ketchup or chili on it.

Iced Sugar Cookies (girl)

Ingredients: Sugar, powdered stuff, milk, cookie stuff

1) First get 1/2 cup of sugar.
2) Get some powdered stuff and pour it in a bowl with a little cup of milk (about how much my little brother drinks) and stir it.
3) Buy cookie stuff at the store.
4) Put the squares on a tray.
5) Set the timer on the oven for 20 or 30 minutes.
6) Put the tray in the oven. Not too hot; not too cold.
7) Take them out when the timer goes off.
8) Put the icing on.

Spaghetti (girl)

Ingredients: Sauce, noodles

1) Get sauce and noodles.
2) Put the noodles in a bowl and put them on the stove to bake for about 14 seconds.
3) Rinse them under the sink to make them cool.
4) Put the sauce on them and eat them.

Ravioli (boy)

Ingredients: Ravioli, sugar

1) Get cheese and ham raviolis at Kroger or HEB.
2) Put them in a pan with 10 teaspoons of boiling water.
3) Cook them for 10 minutes.
4) Put them in the freezer for 1 minute.
5) Put on a little teaspoon of sugar and eat them.

Charlie Soup (boy)

Ingredients: Jalapenos, cabbage, carrots, cheese, juice soup

1) Get jalapenos, cabbage, carrots, the cheese and juice soup.
2) Put it in a pot.
3) Cook it on the stove for 31 minutes on the last number.
4) Put it in bowls.
5) Makes 60 servings.

Now, if you did not laugh at least 85.6 times, you need to go get your sense of humor checked out. These are the cutest recipes I've ever heard. They also got to draw a picture of their "dish" on the page opposite the recipe. I think they did a fantastic job! I wish I would have ordered a handful of these books because I would have given them as gifts!