it was sweet

our valentine's dinner was.  the kids came home from school to find the dinning table set with some surprises...

they were sure excited to open their valentine gifts...

we made heart shaped pizzas on the grill for dinner.  pepperoni & cheese...

and tomato-basil on rosemary dough...

ella really enjoyed rolling out the dough and i had fun making the heart!  we had spinach salad with it and the dressing is a pretty pale pink color which worked perfectly for the occasion...

and for dessert...individual heart lava cakes

it was a fun dinner and i am so thankful to have so much love in my life.

happy valentine's day

i feel so blessed that i get to spend today and all my days with my wonderful husband...

and my wonderful kids...

happy valentine's day to my #1 love and to my 4 little loves.

scenes from a 3rd birthday celebration...

ok, i've got to get caught up on these birthday posts so there are going to be a lot of them from now on.  this is our busy time of year for birthdays and since this blog is my 'scrapbook' for my kids i have to post on important events even if they've already passed.

so, john turned three a month ago now.  and he was really excited for his birthday.  he talked about it for months and talked about wanting to have a big party.  he would tell me who he wanted to invite and then say 'and....' to me so that i could fill in the blank with more invitees so that he could have a 'big' party...it was pretty cute.

i happened to find an ancient martha stewart baby magazine (from when i was pregnant with my first 11 years ago!) that had some adorable ideas for a 3yr. old circus themed party (i.e., cake pictured above) and john john loved looking at that magazine and that lion cake anticipating his party.

so we had some neighbors and friends with little ones over on a sunday afternoon for some face painting,  games, and jumping....

there was a panda trend going on with the girls...

and the (older) boys got into the team logos...

our neighbor is amazing at face painting and balloon art.  the kids each got a balloon sword, flower or animal on their way out...

my mom helped me make the lion cake...

and these adorable party favors. we filled them with animal crackers...

ella helped too. she painted all the stripes on these cups one day when i was putting john down for a nap.

oh and my mom made this cute elephant swag too...

here's the group at singing time...

the little guy had so much fun at his party and that made me so happy.  i just love this kid so much...

how can he already be three?  why, oh why do they have to grow up so fast?!

happy 11th birthday, christopher

it was a few weeks ago but i'm not doing such a good job of posting birthdays right away for some reason.  oh well, better late than never (still need to do andrew's from october!)

we took six of christopher's friends to mary coyle's after school on his birthday...

if you've never been there, you must.  it has been around ever since i can remember and they have the best ice cream...

we ordered the 'mountain' - 7 lbs. of ice cream...

they pretty much devoured it, and had so much fun doing so.

john has handshakes he does with all christopher's friends...

then it was back to our house for some serious 4 on 4 basketball...

and since john john wanted to play so badly he got to put on the half time show...

i was so impressed with how the big 5th graders interacted with john.  he is so social and wanted to constantly talk and hang out with them and they were all so good with him.  just about each of them took time out on their own to play with john, it was so sweet.

matthew is the youngest of seven.  he went into our neighbor's yard for awhile with john to play football and soccer...

he did this totally on his own and i just watched with a smile on my face as this took place...

john is trying to tackle him in this one...

and ben who is one of five sat here at the bar for about 1/2 an hour with john creating this marshmallow fort with him...

i asked ella to make a little flag for christopher's birthday treats and got out the toothpicks for her which then led to her getting out the marshmallows which then led to the making of these sweet buildings...it always amazes me what she comes up with on her own with things we have around the house.

then all our family came over for dinner for the big family birthday celebration.  i wish i had a pic of our full house.  it was a great birthday for my first born...