We've Got a 2 Year Old in the House!

Ellie was SO excited for her birthday this year. I really think 2 is the best year for birthdays. They are so enthusiastic and fun. We filled the living room with balloons for her to wake up to and then let her open a couple presents and her cards from grandparents first thing in the morning.

Emma was so incredibly sweet. She spent all of her free time at school for a week making cards, pictures, and books for Ellie. They were so cute. There was a colors book so Ellie can learn her colors, a couple cute cards, and then 3 pictures that Ellie could decorate how she wanted. There was the decorate your own cast, decorate your own chicken, and decorate your own cupcake. It was seriously the sweetest thing ever.

We met up at the zoo that morning with all of Jon's family and our neighbors/Ellie's BFF. We LOVE the zoo, but it ended up being a really hot day, so we only stayed for a couple hours.

 After the zoo, we went and spent the rest of the day with Jon's family and then opened presents and had cake that night.

I am partly excited and partly terrified for this next year! Ellie can be so sweet and smart and fun and she can also be very strong willed. She has a very extensive vocabulary, but her favorite word right now is NO! She loves reading books and being silly with the other kids. I am pretty sure she thinks she is 5 or 6 instead of 2 and she is convinced that all of Emma and Matthew's friends are her best friends. We feel so lucky to have Ellie in our family.

And in place of a birthday interview, here are a couple fun facts about Ellie's birthday-

She was born exactly 3 1/2 weeks (25 days) after Matthew's birthday and 3 1/2 weeks (24 days) before Emma's birthday. Seven weeks of nonstop birthday fun!

Her birthday (6/8/11) just happens to be the years each of the kids were born. Emma in 2006, Matthew 2008, and Ellie 2011. Kind of fun.  :)

Pinecrest

The week after we went camping at Big Sur, Jon took Emma and Matthew camping with a group of friends and their kids. After our less than pleasant night time experience camping the previous weekend, I opted to stay home with Ellie...and was SO glad I did. It was a nice, quiet weekend and I loved getting to spend time with just Ellie.

So, Ellie and I said good bye, and Jon and the kids headed out to one of their favorite camping spots. They did this same campout last year with friends, and are looking forward to doing it again soon.

The traditional stop on the way there...the kids love this store.

Practicing at the rifle range

They spent a lot of time fishing. The lake was recently stocked so they caught a ton of trout.

Oh, this picture makes me laugh!

 Saturday morning everybody headed to the lake and played on the beach and fished. Somebody brought a boat and they loved getting to ride on it too.

 If you judge how much fun you've had by how dirty you are, then it's safe to say these kids had a pretty great weekend!  :)

Preschool Graduation

It's SO hard to believe this day has come and gone. It feels like we were JUST here with Emma...watching her with her preschool classmates, thinking they looked waaayyyy too young to be starting kindergarten. And Matthew looks even smaller! But the truth is, he is 5. He is done with preschool. And he is moving on. It was a fun little morning and a quick graduation....perfect for 5 year olds' 5 minute attention spans.  :) 

 

 

We have absolutely LOVED this preschool and are so glad that Emma and Matthew could both go there. The teachers (Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Mercanton, Mrs. Stigge, and Mrs. King) are fabulous and the kids loved going there. It was so sad to say good bye on the last day. We are so proud of Matthew and the person that he is becoming. 

Big Sur

Every Memorial Day weekend Jon's family goes camping at Big Sur, so when we can we tag along. This year the entire Farrell family came, which was really fun. The weather was gorgeous and we all had a great time...or mostly great time. The day time was really fun, but night time was a complete nightmare. There was me...20 weeks pregnant, sleeping on an air mattress that completely deflated an hour after I went to bed. Then we added Ellie to the mix, who completely refused to sleep or lay down or do anything that had anything to do with bedtime. It took until almost midnight for Jon to get her to fall asleep after driving around with her for awhile. She then spent the rest of the night sprawled out on top of me (on the completely deflated air mattress). And then because we weren't having enough fun yet, she was up for the day at 5:40. I was one tired, cranky pregnant lady! This was definitely her last camping trip for a long while!

So, moving on to happier things...

We all went on a bike ride/walk down to a swimming hole. This picture of Ellie and Nora riding in the bike trailer cracks me up.

Grandpa gave the grandkids a lesson on forest safety

The fam at the swimming hole

Emma pretty much lived in the trees the whole two days...little monkey! When we left she said she wants to live at this campsite forever.

These kids love camping!

I love this little sequence

Best buds. These 2 cute cousins were SO happy to see each other.

Birthday Boy!

 I can't believe this little guy has been a part of our family for 5 years now! He has a whole lot of personality packed into his tiny little body and he definitely keeps us on our toes. We sure do love him!

We had a lot of fun celebrating Matthew's birthday. He wanted to have a party this year (I think we're falling into the party every other year thing, which is fine with me!) and specifically requested a pirate party. We held it at a park and kept it really low key. The kids played for the first little while and then we rounded them up for a treasure hunt. Jon went all out making a really cool treasure map and led the kids on their hunt for treasure.

Their treasure was little cardboard treasure boxes that had a few little goodies in them. They filled the rest of the their treasure box with candy from the pinata that we broke open after the treasure hunt.

 Buddy and I had worked hard making pirate cupcakes...he was so excited about these.

As people were eating cupcakes he decided he HAD to open his gifts...he just couldn't stand it anymore! So before we knew it, he had already opened one and was onto the second one. And then it just dominoed from there. Every present was his favorite and a couple of times he asked, "How did they know that's just what I wanted???"

On Matthew's actual birthday (the 14th) we had a little family party after dinner. He chose macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner and then he got to open the couple presents we had gotten him.

Emma was so sweet and insisted that she wanted to use her money to pick out 2 presents for him. He LOVES the squishy little ball thing, and thought it was fun that she got him the 3 pack of water guns so all 3 kids can have a water fight together.

A Lego set from the grandparents...between this set and the 2 other sets he got, he and Emma have been in Lego heaven the last couple of days.

A remote control car! Ellie calls it a yobot (robot) and the kids think it's the funniest thing. We've had a lot of fun with it though.

 We were so over cupcakes at this point, that I made mini fruit pizzas (he also took these for his preschool birthday celebration). They were tasty!

And a birthday wouldn't be complete with a birthday interview:

What is your full name?  Matthew   Do you have any other names?  Steven.  I can't remember the whole thing.

How old are you?  Five.

What's your favorite color?  Pink

Who's your best friend?  Steven

What's your favorite animal?  A zebra. I mean a lion.

What do you want to be when you grow up?  A artist.

What's your favorite movie?  The Eon Kid

What are some of your favorite books? Umm...I don't have any favorite books.  No? Not your Ninjago books or your Jake and the Pirate books?   Actually yeah, my Ninjago books.

What makes you happy?  When somebody be's nice to me that makes me happy.

What makes you sad?  When someone punches me that makes me sad.

What's your favorite food?  Reeses Puffs

What's your favorite song?  Umm...Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam.

What games do you like to play?  Um, the punching game... Oh, boxing on the Wii? Yeah, boxing and baseball, actually and tennis.

What's your favorite toy?  The truck I got for my birthday.