ella is six!!!-part two...

    ella had a few friends over after school to celebrate her birthday.

    they made some delicious fruit kabobs ...

    christopher joined in on the fun - what a good big brother.....

    he also provided some entertainment for them...

    then it was inside for our craft...

we got these really cute wooden dolls that each came with with a set of small markers and i got some sequins to bling them up...

    the girls did such a great job with them...

    again, christopher joined in and made up his own drawings...

    and john had woken up from his nap so he sat with his big sister while she worked...

    it was a sweet party with sweet girls...

happy birthday, ella  - we love you!!!

ella is six!! - part one...

so, last friday was ella's 6th birthday...

 it has become a tradition for me to leave the birthday child's wrapped gifts on the dinning table so that on the morning of their birthday they see their special things waiting for them (she double checked the night before to make sure i would do this again this year)...

john and i took lunch and birthday treats to school...

john is a superstar to all the kids at ssj...

what ella's classmates had to say about her on her birthday...

ella had a few friends over after school for her little birthday celebration but i will do a separate post for that so as not make this one super long with tons of pictures and to keep me committed to my lenten promise (i'm really trying to do no computer past 9:30 pm).

life is good

when you have older siblings to entertain you...

christopher always seems to come up with fun (and funny) activities to do with john.  being the youngest definitely has its perks!

i have kept these last couple posts brief because i am only allowing myself brief stints on the computer during lent. i have so many pictures waiting to be posted, but they'll just have to wait!  that's all for now...

little boys and school buses,

trucks, trains, motorcycles - all john-johns favorites. whenever chris or i take the kids to school and he sees the school buses parked he gets overly excited to see them and shouts 'bus!' pointing like crazy. then he starts asking to go in, 'in bus, bus in'. finally, one morning chris saw the bus driver and she gladly let john get in the bus.
seeing the world through kids eyes is so much more fun than through our own!

my birthday was

wonderful... here are my top 10 reason's why:

1. i got the best present ever - a new bike with a seat for john. something i've been wanting for quite some time...remember my dreams of family bike rides?? we've already had several successful ones and i just love it - rides to grandma's house (through beautiful neighborhoods - i just love the scenery around here), down central to have lunch, along the canal and through the underpasses.

chris and i (and little john, of course) rode down central for coffee and pastries on the morning of my birthday...

2. mom and i went out to lunch (again with john-john), something we need to do more often. no, pics but we had a delicious meal - will post on it sometime.

3. all my brothers, nani and tata joined us for a fabulous chinese dinner...

4. it was a nice, relaxing meal, with some fun distractions for the little ones...

5. little john-john was as cute as ever entertaining himself with the napkins when he had sat long enough...

6. i have the best husband and kids and love them more than anything in this world. i feel very blessed...

7. my handsome husband...

8. he (kids helped too) made me a homemade cake and frosting. my wonderful in-laws joined us for dessert...

9. i had live entertainment from a daughter who does not give up on things until she succeeds. she has been practicing jump roping for weeks and now has it mastered. she put on a darling show for me (asked me to announce her and told me exactly what to say). it was quite adorable.

10. mi familia -loud and crazy, and i love them...

these just make me so happy

maybe because i made them, and i haven't made anything crafty in awhile.

nani had this great new year's resolution of having a craft night every month for the three females in our family: nani, ella and me.

since our first craft night was in january, we decided to have a valentine theme. nani just had all sorts of fabric and ribbon out on the table. i brought the stuffing and we thought we'd make some stuffed hearts.

this was the first stuffed heart i made...
then, i decided to make some stuffed hearts to hang from my chandelier. i loved this striped linen fabric...
they only took about 10 minutes each to make... just used embroidery floss to sew the two hearts together and ribbon at the top, stuffed them, and nani came up with the cute pom pom hanging from the bottom of the heart. i need to make a few more, but three was as far as i got this year.

hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day!
p.s.

i am so excited i just learned how to make my blog pictures bigger! but now my header picture doesn't fit - i'll be working on changing that in the next couple days.

it was a beautiful ending

to a wonderful afternoon of playing outside after school....


did everyone catch this awesome rainbow last week? it was sure a lovely sight...just looking at this picture calms me and makes me feel so peaceful.