Ahoy thar matey!!

Captain Gabe had a pirate party for his 5th birthday!  We started off by sending out these invites:

Eric and I had entirely too much fun burning the edges of each invitation... it was a very good thing that Gabe was in bed and didn't see how fun it was to play with matches, haha! :) 

Once all the little pirates arrived and had donned their skull and bones eye patch, they ran around shouting "Aaaaaarghh!!" while brandishing their hooks (the crooked finger!)  Next Gabe showed off his lego pirate ship. His audience was enthralled and Gabe was loving every minute!  Then we played some pirate games like musical islands and toss the gold coin in a bowl full of prizes.

Then we read Gabe's new book How I Became a Pirate and they headed to the table to eat pirate ship cupcakes (as per Gabe's request) while shouting "DOWN THE HATCH" and pounding their fists on the table!! Ok, that last part was in my imagination - I loved that part of the book and was actually encouraging them to forget all their manners and act like loud and obnoxious pirates.... but alas, these kids were far too polite and didn't even burp once at the table! ;) 

 

The party ended with running around outside popping each others' cannon ball balloons tied to ankles. Gabe had a great time!!
(Thanks Mel for all the great ideas on how to throw a pirate party!!)

I love Mother's Day!

Mother's Day has always been a favorite holiday for me because I love my mother so much!!  But now it's even better because I get spoiled too!  This year I got to go to a special mother's day lunch at Gabe's preschool... it was wonderful! He helped cut up the fruit salad for our lunch, sang me songs, and best of all, presented me with beautiful handmade gifts! I just loved it. (Those flowers are made from cutouts of his own hands and the bottle is covered with papermache-type tissue wrap! And the butterfly picture is made from his own hand prints in paint - so cute!!)

On actual Mother's Day I got pampered with a (quick) breakfast in bed of eggs before church at 8:30am!  I enjoyed a lovely church service - and even got served cheesecake, yum.  Next I enjoyed a wonderful nap... and then after naps we headed to the park to fly kites! What a FUN day! 

low tide

Gabe's preschool had a pretty cool field trip to Seahurst Beach at low tide! One of his teachers is a beach naturalist volunteer and so she gave us a fun tutorial about the creatures at low tide.  We found lots of crabs of all sizes - from the tiniest little hermit crabs I have ever seen to a nice big crab scooting around on the sand (check out the picture below of Gabe bravely touching it!)  We also saw starfish, anemones, and tons of barnacles and other shell fish. It was a blast!!
Below: The kids are peering into a deep crack in that rock where you could see starfish!

We ended the outing with a picnic at the jungle gym at the park! Here is Gabe whizzing down this funny slide thing - he was loving that!! And I was loving watching his intense facial expressions each time - haha!!

1 whole month!

 

My little peanut has turned into a round little pumpkin instead! :)  Look at those bright blue eyes and fat little cheeks!!

Ian's baby blessing

On the Sunday Mom was here, Ian received his baby blessing from his daddy.  It was a beautiful blessing. We all felt the Spirit so strongly.  I heard later from one of the priesthood bearers in the circle that Ian was wide awake and solemnly stared at Eric and looked around the circle during the blessing.  It reminded me of when Nyah was blessed - she did the same thing.  I wonder how much they understand with the veil being thin for them as newborns.  What a treasure Ian is to our family and what a blessing it is to have a precious new spirit from heaven here in our home.

Bellevue Botanical Gardens

Sunshine

Mom brought the sunshine with her!  And when we've got sun, we enjoy it!  Here we are playing at the park.

Grammy!

 My mom is simply amazing.  I know all moms are not created equal and I just thank heaven (literally) that I was blessed with mine!  She came for a full week to help me after Ian was born and it was blissful.  I pretty much got to be a kid again.  You know, the days when Mom did all the laundry and cleaning and when dinner rolled around all you had to do was show up?  Ya, that was me.  A grown woman with a husband and 3 children. :)  Now you know why I say it was blissful!! But the best part was getting to hang out with her all day, every day.   I loved every minute!  Since I had just had a baby there was no pressure to be out and about and so we just got to relax and watch chick-flicks and play games in the evenings.  (Eric was loving life...heehee!)  We also did do a lot of fun activities... I have pictures coming soon!

snuggle bug

[I'm back online and so relieved! I had some issues with my browser and blogger... it took me a few weeks to figure out the simple fix (obviously I'm no computer whiz).  I'm excited to catch up now!] 

I could snuggle with that cute little bug all day!  But alas, I do have two other equally adorable children to take care of, so Ian does have sleep time in bed occasionally.  Here he is at 3 weeks: