Happy Birthday Ronan!

I can't even believe that an entire year has gone by so quickly. My sweet baby Ronan is big 1 year old today. It is amazing how much your life changes when you have children, and how the love in your heart can expand. Ronan has been such a blessing and a joy in our lives. He is so loving and fun and I can't imagine not having him. He starts my day off right when I get him out of bed and he lays his head on my shoulder and pats my back. Such a snuggler.

We started our day off right this morning with chocolate chip pancakes and chocolate milk for breakfast.
Then Collin gave Ronan his gift. 2 Busy Town books.

After daddy got home we took a trip to the store and let Ronan pick out an Elmo doll to snuggle with. Collin always has Manny and doesn't like to share. Now Ronan has his own snuggle toy. When we got home, Ronan opened his gifts while the pizza cooked.

This is the cake that I made for him. The kid LOVES Elmo! We have a tradition of not letting our children have sweets until their first birthday. This cake was entirely for Ronan, aside from the small slice he shared with Collin.

I think it's safe to say he enjoyed his cake!

And this is what it looked like just before he finished.

Time to get clean!

What a fun day!

Happy Birthday sweet boy! We love you!

happy love day

Happy Valentine's Day!
Today I am blessed to have been with my wonderful husband for 5 years. We haven't been married that long, but today marks the day the we "officially" started dating 5 years ago. I knew from the very beginning that he is who I wanted to spend my life with.
This afternoon we went to lunch together, without the boys, and then finished up shopping for Ronan's birthday.

Earlier in the week I baked some delicious mini cupcakes for Dan to take to school and share with the staff. The cupcakes were straberry flavored with chocolate frosting and candy toppings. Quite delicious if I do say so myself. As Dan ran out the door in a hurry to get to a meeting, he slipped on some ice and lost more than half the cupcakes. Ooops. He felt way worse about it than I was dissapointed.

In preparation for Valentine's Day I made a centerpiece for our dinner table out of an old tissue box.

And the boys helped me make gifts for the grandparents. I let the boys finger paint some different colored paper which I then cut into hearts, and attatched to green pipe cleaners to look like flowers. Collin helped my decorate old formula cans to use as the flower pots. We placed the flowers inside and added some candy to hold them in place. I also pasted their picture to one heart to add a personal touch.

My gift from the boys for Valentine's Day was 2 new fish for our tank.

Poor Jazz was getting lonely.

The pretty black fish is one of our new friends, Oliver, or Ollie for short.

This is Bumblebee. Our other new friend. Collin got to name him.
The boys love to stare at the fish. Ronan stands there yelling "Bumbee!" and "Azz!" and "Aahh!"

For our Valentine's dinner I made linguini with tomato and mushroom sauce and heart shaped turkey meatballs.

Dan wanted to make sure that I got his picture in too. Don't you like his pretty pink shirt?The boys devoured the food.

I hope everyone had an equally enjoyable Valentine's Day!

Collin speak

This evening while helping Collin put his pants back on after using the potty, he patted the sides of my boobs and said "I like your booboos Mommy."
My reaction went from speachless with my mouth wide open to laughing histarically which of course only caused him to start giggling and repeat "I like your booboos!"
Oh how I love my Collin and the silly things he says.

snow fun

Collin enjoyed watching the beautiful snow fall on our snow day Friday.He even got to get all bundled up and play in the snow with Daddy.

Do you like Dan's sweet Harry Potter-looking scarf? I totally made that.Poor Ronan just had to watch from the window. Next year he can get out there in it.

On Saturday my parents came over and Papa played in the snow with Collin. They made snow angels...and threw snow balls...

and shoveled the driveway.Ronan again had to watch from the window.