Birthday Party Extravaganza

On April 5th we had a combined b-day party for Mitchell and Mark. Yes, a month ago and I am just now posting pics. Well, you see, Neil's Grandma came from Nashville to visit and be at the party, and the night before she was supposed to go home she fell and broke her hip. I did not think it was right to post pics of the fun day we had a the party while she was in pain awaiting surgery in the hospital so I waited. Then I got busy with a few projects and just did not have time! So here they are! Happy Birthday Sweet Boys!

Sandbox fun! Mark and Joy as Shrek and Donkey!

"Get the gummy bugs out of the swamp" game. 2nd pic -Just wanted you to see what it looked like to have two kids opening gifts at the same time with all their friends around! Chaos really!

Shrek pinata! Yes, we beat our pinatas. We don't go for the wimpy pull the string thing! It's more fun if there is the fear of sending someone to the emergency room for stitches! I did buy a foam covered bat though! 2nd pic - Mitchell and his first piece of artwork on the new easel!

Megan slept through the party or was held by grandad. Here she is hanging out on party day! Since Grandad held her most of the day she did not get to wear a bow! I think her head looks naked!

photo dump two

Aparently I have a habit of finding odd things in the back of pictures and zooming in on them. I found this one floating around in my screen saver slide show from our family New Year's party in 2004. It is my grandma. Pretty funny don't you think? Even funnier if you know her!

BTW - I am pretty sure that is sparkling grape juice. We like to "act" fancy at our family gatherings. It is rare and akward if anyone pulls out the hard stuff, since very few in the family partake!

photo dump

I liked Audrey's idea of posting pics you had forgotten about, or that didn't make the cut for a previous post. I had been tossing around a similar idea a few weeks ago. What about the random things you crop out of your pictures, or the funny or odd things in the backgrounds that you accidentally caught. Here are my findings from the Easter pictures I was recently working on.

Here are the boys playing with an Easter treat.

And. . .

Here is what I found in the background. . .

I know all of you perfect parents are out there thinking, "What kind of mom leaves her precious baby girl lying in the middle of the floor like that?" Come on, you know you have done it! Besides, she needs time to herself to explore and to learn to roll and crawl and all that stuff. Right!?

Here is the original picture. Mark hunting eggs.

I went to crop the picture to just him and realized the part I cropped out was kind of funny!

Here are the two resulting photos!

I am sorry if that is your booty that I accidentally took a picture of, zoomed in on, and am posting for all to gander at! Well, no I'm not really sorry. I think it is pretty funny!

Yikes

Where has the time gone? I knew it was time to post someting when a friend had the date of my last post memorized from looking at so many times! Mandy, Thanks for the encouragement!

Here is my pretty girl on Easter.

Here is what happens when the big brothers baby sit. The room was clean when they started. I don't know what I was busy doing, or how long they were at it, but they sure had fun! To my credit, I was in the kitchen or at the dining table just a few feet away from the chaos and had no idea it was going on. Ok, Maybe that is not to my credit!

Neil's birthday. Yes, it is on St. Patty's day, hence the green accessories!

Mark's birthday. I think Mark is so confused about the birthday thing. We were out of town for his birthday, so they sang to him a few days early at Sonshine School. Then Rachelle gave him a special birthday breakfast cake on his actual birth day. Then Sunday in Bible hour they sang to him again. Sunday afternoon we let him open some presents that had come in the mail . We keep talking and planning his party, and I am sure he is wondering when in the world it will happen! Wednesday night at church he tried to open someone's baby gift and had a melt down! Finally he gets to have his party on Saturday! The only confusing part about that is that the boys are sharing a party, so I hope he really thinks it is his party and not just Mitchell's.

Some more pictures of my pretty girl! We got fancy one day, so we had to take a picture. The other one is from an impromptu photo shoot on the living room floor one day. The lighting was good, so I got out the camera and pretended I was a creative photographer!

Art project day!

Our kid table broke. One weekend when were were in Dallas, I talked Neil's mom into driving me by Ikea and sitting in the van with the kids while I ran into the store to grab a kids table. Ever been to Ikea? I was in and out in 20 minutes. No Kidding! But I was in such a hurry, I accidentally picked a table that was completely unfinished. Mitchell heard me talking about how I was going to have to paint it and he got really excited about painting his table. The idea was to let the boys paint their own chairs with watercolor paints and I would paint the table legs in a kid-like decorative fashion to match, and I would just leave the top plain with a nice thick coat of varnish. Well we got a little carried away. The boys were both working dilligently. There was no fighting. The sun was shining. The weather was warm. The boys both kept saying how much fun they were having and how cool this was. I was in mommy heaven. We were successfully making art! They were loving it! We were bonding! There was no fighting (did I already mention that?) So, when they asked to paint the table top, I quietly, but with much deliberation, gave up the idea of a table that would look good in our kitchen for a piece of art work that the boys eat breakfast on every day and are so proud of! Here is what the table looks like. It does not fit the coffee theme of the kitchen. It does not fit the color scheme of the den. It does not even really look that good or blend in with anything in our house. It belongs in a play room. But it stays in our kitchen where it is used every day by two boys who, I hope, remember the great day that they made something artistic of their very own with thier mom.

The last pic is just a cute pic of Marky drawing on the driveway! I can not believe he is three years old!