Fall family photos in the neighborhood

I have been wanting to go to a park or somewhere "pretty" to take some pics of the kids, but it can be tough to get all 3 kids dressed and out the door after their naps, but before hunger meltdowns begin.  So, it's just not happening these days.  But, we have several "common areas" in the neighborhood, with picnic benches and gazebos...I figured we would give it a try.  It was a nice alternative to the backyard, where just about all you see is the fence :)  As you can tell, the boys are big on clapping right now.

Rub-a-dub-dub...

3 kids in a tub!  Well, I've started bathing all 3 together now.  It is, of course, much easier to do when Jared is here to help...I hand him one, he puts diaper on, crib, then comes to get another.  But that isn't always possible, so I have to be quick.  Sometimes I wonder after all chaos, how clean they actually are...

 Ethan on left, David on right.  David gives me this face ALL the time...such a charmer.

Guess who wants to stand up in the tub??

 Happy Ethan!

Ethan is "bathing" himself!  Emma never did this, but both of the boys rub their bellies in the bath, and when I put lotion on them.  Cutest thing :)

 Ethan messing with brother...

In other news, the boys have started "talking" to each other!  LOVE.  And imitating Emma (screaming contests).  So fun :)

Emma's birthday "day"

I'm going to be doing a lot of backtracking for a little bit, since August is such a busy month for us.  Our anniversary is Aug 6, Em's bday is Aug 17, and Ethan and David's is 6 days later on Aug 23.  And the most recent addition to our family, Todd (my brother in law) had his birthday Aug 15.  So, August is crazy for us.  Crazy fun.

We had a special family celebration on Emma's actual birthday.  Started the day off with some yummy dunkin donuts for breakfast.  Then we gave Emma her birthday presents from us- her 1st tricycle and a sand/water table!  She is obsessed with the tricycle, or as she calls it, her "bike".  After breakfast Jared took her out front to try it out.  She kind of figured out pedaling, but still needed a little extra help from daddy.  The trike has a retro style bell and streamers on it that add to the fun.  If you are looking for a good, durable tricycle, I would definitely recommend this one.  It is a Schwinn roadster.  I read a lot of reviews of different ones before purchasing one, because we have a lot of kids and I want things to last through them all.  Or at least a couple of them.

So then we all headed out to the McWane Center.  This was our first time going, and I thought it would be a fun, (air-conditioned) activity for the whole family.  Emma had a blast.  She played with the bubbles and in the playground area.  We all really loved the lower level with the fish and the sharks and sting rays that you could touch.  David was pretty fascinated with the sharks.  We were running out of time, so we made a quick stop by the dinosaurs and then went upstairs to let her play with some of the fun things up there- giant piano and blocks, etc.  Ethan was amazing the entire time- stayed in the stroller and just chilled.  Poor David (he's a mama's boy) wanted to be held for the last half.  It was great fun, though.

The rest of the day we let Emma play with her sand table and watch Tinkerbell.  What a fun 3rd birthday!  We love our Emma so much, and I am very thankful for her.  She has this joy and happiness inside her that I know must be a very special gift from God.  I love her giggles and her dimples and her bright, contagious smile.  She makes us laugh everyday.  She makes my heart happy. :)  

Life

Wow, it has taken me forever to update the blog!  I can't believe it has been 2 months since my last post.  Ethan and David are 3 1/2 months old now, and Emma is quickly approaching 2 1/2 years old.  The days are long, but how time has flown by since they were born!

All I really have time for right now is getting pictures up.  Here are some random pictures from the last 2 months.  More coming hopefully in the next few days.  We decided to play it low-key and took Emma treat or treating in our neighborhood this year.  We bundled up the boys in the double stoller and had a great time walking around to see our neighbors.  She loved getting all the candy, and just about walked into everyone's house that we went to.  She was a kitty in a tutu :)  



Emma kissing Ethan :)



Ethan snoozing



My happy girl!



Precious David



Sweet girl

Ethan smiling at mama

Emma eating chocolate peanut butter balls that she made with mommy!  She loved them :)

Eli's 1st Birthday Party

One of our best friends' little boy, Eli, celebrated his 1st birthday last Saturday.  It was a really hot day, so they had a giant blowup water slide outside.  Emma was too little to get up the slide by herself, but she had lots of fun splashing in the water and Jared helped her go down the slide a few times.

It has been a long time since I've made a "big" cake, but I really wanted to do something special for them.  There is no way I would have been able to do it without Jared's help!  He entertained Emma while I worked on it.  There wasn't really a theme to the party, so they told me to do whatever I felt like doing (Jared was sure to tell them that it was a My Little Pony cake :)).  I've been seeing tons of these giant cupcake cakes and I have always thought they were so cute.  They actually even make a giant cupcake pan now, but I was not going to spend a lot of $$$ on a pan I'll only use once.  Anyway, this is how it turned out.  The cake was vanilla buttermilk and there were matching chocolate cupcakes to go with it.  I may not have the time to make lots of cakes anymore, but it is fun when I can spend a little time being creative with cake :)

This boy can put down some cake!  He demolished the entire 5" smash cake in no time.  There was absolutely none left!!!  Only crumbs on his tray!  I was so surprised!  Emma hardly touched her smash cake.

Dress Up

Emma is all-girl these days and I am loving every bit of it!  She has been trying to put on her clothes by herself, usually getting one leg in one pair of pants and the other leg in a different pair.  She will also bring me a dress to put on her when she already has clothes on, and has become quite a fan of hats and sunglasses too.  It was only a matter of time before she discovered jewelry.  I don't wear much jewelry- not because I don't like it, but I just always forgot about it.  I got out some old bracelets and necklaces the other day and let her play dress up.  We even got out the tutu from her birthday last year.  Look at this girl!  All dressed up and playing tea with baby dolls.  I'm not going to know what to do if we have boys!

Here are some other silly pictures from last week.  Emma found a bag of her bows and brought me each one saying "bow. hair.", leaning her head down for me to put a bow in.  And another.  And another.  So that is what we did and I think she felt "pretty" playing outside with her tutu and a head full of bows :)

Dancing with Daddy.

Yea!!!

Coloring with sidewalk chalk.

Emma loves playing outside so much.  She will say "side" (outside), "more please".  It cracks me up!  That is how she knows how to ask for more food, so I guess she figures it will work for going outside too.