And then comes Birthday #2

Next up in our Spring Birthday Lineup is Little Miss Elisabeth turning 7 years old (how is that possible??).  And in contrast to Samuel who had changed his mind about what he had wanted for his birthday every single day up to and including his birthday day (you say you want what?), Elisabeth had decided that she wanted a strawberry party.  And, perhaps because it was such a (relief) contrast to the previous planning process (isn't parenting fun!?), I felt like if this girl really wanted a strawberry party then by golly she was going to get a strawberry party! Hooray!

And, yeah so somewhere in the process I might have gone a little pinterest crazy and decided I could really go all out with strawberries, strawberries everywhere!  So many cute ideas! Really, strawberries are just so adorable.  The first thing I wanted to do was make little felt strawberries as decorations for her gifts, with embroidery accent things.  Yeah.  This is not something I've ever attempted before.  But look how cute!  Not bad for a first ever attempt, eh?  It did take me a ridiculously long time, though, so I only ended up making one.  But still, I'm pretty proud of myself.  Especially all things considered.;)

And I made a very yummy partially homemade strawberry cake (white cake mix, strawberry jello mix, fresh strawberries blended in, homemade fresh strawberry frosting).  It was pretty amazing, if I do say so myself.

And what's a strawberry party without strawberry shortcake dolls!  Of course.:) I found them pretty irresistible myself, I don't even know exactly why.

They are very different from the dolls I had as a kid, but something about their shiny smooth hair and cute shoes . . . .  

Those shoes!  It's like I could . . . . eat them.  Ok, I don't know what it is.

Anyway, I think Elisabeth had a pretty fun day. She is a fun little girl, growing up and learning to read and taking gymnastics and playing with her brothers and playing with friends and becoming her own independent person.  It's amazing to watch my youngest become so big.  She is now the age that Abigail (the oldest) was when she (the baby of the family) was born.  That was a really strange realization.  She is all at once still so little and all of a sudden so big.  We love her to pieces.  It's a crazy whirlwind life we are trying to keep together here, but it's a good one.

Birthday #1

So the first birthday of the Spring Birthday Bunch, Samuel celebrated his 9th birthday in March.

He was so excited he couldn't get to sleep the night before and kept getting out of bed, at 10 pm (his bedtime is 8:30) he was still awake!  Then at 1 am I found him up watching TV in the family room. And then he was still up, dressed and ready to go to school before I was even awake at 7 am. Silly boy!

 

 He is at a stage where he is kind of hard to shop for because he wants everything.  Like everything he sees, he wants it. Everything that someone else has that looks like fun, he wants. Everything that's even slightly age appropriate for him (or even slightly not), he wants it. If his brother has it, he wants it. If his friends have it, he wants it. So it's tough on him and on us. It's tough because we obviously can't give him everything.  It's hard to teach him to be grateful for the things he has.  He is inevitably disappointed, always. We can't figure out how to stem the wanting. I really hope it's a passing phase. He has a really hard time with time with it. Anyway - so his birthday . . . I hope he was happy. I think he was happy. But he wanted so many things and it was hard to tell what he really wanted or what he just thought maybe he wanted just a little, so we just hoped he was happy and grateful to have gotten gifts and to have had such a great birthday.  He's such a great kid.  We love him to pieces. He just has some struggles.  This happens to be one of them at the moment.

Here are some of his cute creations lately.  :)  Happy happy birthday to silly energetic Samuel!

Three Cheers for Recuva!!

Before I get into the many (many) other blog posts I need to write (hello birthdays!) - let me first give a great big Hoorah to Recuva for helping me recover some photos I accidentally deleted off my memory card on my camera yesterday during Isaac's birthday celebration.  

As you can see, I really really needed these fantastic spontaneous pictures:

 as opposed to this pose I tried to capture after the fact:

I was a much happier mommy after I got those back, as you can imagine.:)  Thank goodness for miraculous technology.  Free miraculous technology, at that. Hooray!

(I really stink at blogging lately. I know.  Sorry about that.) :(

and hey look where we were! lots of posts (hopefully) coming soon...

I think it must be magic

that can turn this ....

into this ...

(and after a night like last night that ranked among the worst ever in terms of my pain and desperation, I like to think I deserve a little magic in my life. I will take it wherever I can find it.)