Happy Birthday Taylor!

It is so hard to believe Taylor turned 5 yesterday! We had his birthday party with family and friends on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday was a quiet day, but we had a fun day together as a family. Enjoy the pictures of our celebrations!

Cars Birthday Cake

Happy birthday to Taylor!

Friends

Surprise! Taylor got a Gator!

From – Dad, Mom, Addilyn, Seth, Oliver, Micah, Maama, Papa, Meme, Brampa, Uncle, Jenny, Natalie, and Sophia

Maama and Papa with the family

Meme and Brampa with the family

Chocolate Chips Pancakes for breakfast

Now that Taylor is 5, he gets his own library card. A big deal for this new 5 year old.

Signing his library card

A proud library card holder!

A midmorning drive with his buddy Jaden.

Enjoying birthday cake with our friend and neighbor Rick who also had a birthday yesterday.  Happy Birthday Rick!

Taylor’s choice for his birthday supper… Hawaiian pizza and pop!

Happy Birthday big brother!

Celebrating with the family!

Lasagna and First Hair Cuts (Strange Combination!)

Ok, these things did not happen at the same time or in the same day for that matter, just two new big events at our house.

About the lasagna – our new attempt to help Taylor be a better eater; he gets to choose a meal from one of the kids cookbooks and then he gets to make that meal for our family(with some assistance of course.) It worked well for the first week, he helped prepare the whole thing and he ate extremely well that night, not to mention the babies loved the lasagna too so that made Taylor feel even better.

Here are some pictures I took to document this new experience.

The preparation

Chef Taylor Lee

Showing off his lasagna. It may not look like the cookbook, but it tasted wonderful!

Now on to hair cuts… Seth and Oliver got their first official hair cuts today. They look like such big boys now. Addilyn is growing her hair out, so she doesn’t need anything cut yet and Micah, well he is still waiting for his hair. Our friend Abby was awesome enough to make a house call and give them their first hair cuts! Thanks so much Abby!

Seth’s hair cut went really well. He sat in the big seat all by himself the entire time.

The first snip.

Our new big boy!

Oliver’s hair cut went well once I held him in the chair as you will see from the pictures.

Oliver before his hair cut.

The first snip.

Much better in mommy’s lap and with a pile of cheddar bunnies to eat!

Our big boy Oliver!

“I wonder how long I will have to wait before I can get my hair cut!”

Another Ode

Avent bottles, you fed our babies well for 15 months and allowed tons of great snuggle time with babies. Drying rack, you did an excellent job of organizing and drying our bottles, but now it is time for you to find another home to do your job. Thanks for everything and good luck in your new home!

Our counter for the past 15 months

For the past 15+months bottles have had a very prominent place on our kitchen counter. Not to mention all the time washing, filling, and warming bottles 2 – 8 times a day for 15 months. On Wednesday I was finally able to remove all my bottles and the drying rack from my counter! Yes, the babies are now done with their bottles. We started the process of no bottles for naps and bed about a week and a half ago, but I didn’t want to take the bottles away too soon, in case I needed them. After a week of Sippy cups before bed, I think it is safe to say we are starting a new phase of our lives, HUGE GROCERY BILLS! We can’t believe how much our kids eat now. There are some days when I am sure the babies are eating more than Taylor. Going from three people eating, to seven (almost over night it seems) has been hard for me to get used to. We hardly have left overs any more. I need to start coming up with some big meals that will last a day or two in the fridge. Regardless of the amount of food they eat I am sure glad I have gotten rid of the bottles and drying rack from our kitchen sink. (I do miss the extra snuggle time, but now I can get all the babies in bed in about 15 minutes by myself.) Crazy how things change so quickly. Gone are the days of babies, look out toddlers!

Look at all this space!

Good Bye Robins

Last Friday the robins looked like this:

On Monday the robins looked like this:

There was room for two robins in the nest and two in my plant. Later I looked at the robins and the two in the plants were on top of the two in the nest. I wish I would have gotten a picture of that.

On Tuesday I took the plant down to see the robins and they were all gone. Our family of robins has left the nest, now I hope I can bring my plant back to life. (It didn’t fair as well this year for some reason.)