MY BIRTHDAY

My birthday was over a month ago (May 3) but I'm catching up on posts and my birthday was next.  It was a pretty quiet day.  We spent most of the day at home.  We took a walk after lunch and just enjoyed the nice weather...

 and then when Nathan came home from his meetings, we had homemade chocolate zucchini cupcakes and I opened my gift from Ruy. Nathan bought me a new camera lens for my birthday about three weeks before my actual birthday :) The kids always like to help blow out candles.  A few years ago when Ruy was little I was totally against kids helping blow out candles but I've since realized that I was just being silly and now enjoy having all the kids around me helping me blow them out.  Ruy got me a mug with a chalkboard on it and he helped Liam and Alanna make me a card.  It was very thoughtful and sweet of him.

After cupcakes, we headed out to one of our favorite parks and enjoyed a few hours there watching the kids play and just enjoying time together. 

It was a good birthday and I feel very blessed!

JUDE SIX & SEVEN MONTHS

The past two months Jude has grown so much.  He rolls all over and just started scooting and crawling.  He's loving being able to move around so much and is quite happy being on the floor playing with toys and being next to the other kids.  The older kids love sitting with him and playing with him...although Alanna gets pretty put out if he tries to chew on one of her Little People Princesses.  

He has four teeth now and loves food.  He's taken on a huge interest in it and screams and grabs for it whenever he's sitting on my lap while I'm eating.  

His hair is really starting to come in and it's a beautiful blonde color.  It seems a lot lighter than any of my other kids' hair.  His eyes are so blue and light up so much when he smiles.  And that smile...it melts mine and my husband's hearts so much!  He get so excited to see us and when he smiles that big smile it really just brightens up your day!

He started reaching for me or Nathan or whoever he wants and it's pretty darn cute.  He likes to give those big, drooly open mouth kisses and sometimes he even goes straight for the nose and tries to bite it!

He loves being in the Ergo, jumping in his Johnny Jump Up, swinging, being outside, going on walks, taking a bath, playing with his sister and brothers, crawling around on the floor (for short periods of time) sleeping next to mommy & sleeping in his crib (he does about half&half of each every night), nursing, and chewing on his giraffe (that's his favorite toy right now).

He's in the 68% for height and 16% for weight.  He's so sweet and snuggly and is really just about the happiest little baby I ever met!  He's so easy going and we are all just so incredibly in love with him.

Six Months April 11, 2016

Seven Months- May 2016

April 2016

April...it came and went so fast!  I was without my nice lens for almost the entire month!!! And so other then a few pictures I took on my point and shoot, I only got a few nice pictures taken at the end of the month when Nathan bought me a new lens.  The rest of the pictures I took in April were on my phone.  I guess I need to get them off my phone and do a whole blog post of just cell phone pictures.  

April is kind of a blur to me.  We celebrated Ruy's birthday, played outside, and spent a lot of time taking walks, or being inside from the rain.  But other than that, we really didn't do much.  We took a break from sports this season to just kind of keep things simple.  Life was getting pretty busy and with adding another baby to the mix we just decided that it was best for our family to take a season off.  I'm glad we did.

Well here are the few pictures I did manage to take in April....

One day I took Alanna out back to play in the creek with the boys.  She thought it was the best thing ever.! 

Liam picked out his outfit this day...

"Spurspenders" as he calls them, Superman shirt and sandals (on the wrong feet of course)! 

Jude is always smiling and is probably the happiest, most easy going baby I have ever met .

Ruy was trying to look tough here :) 

Alanna is getting so big I'm not really sure what to do about it.  She is just about the sweetest thing.  She loves swinging like a big girl now. 

Liam likes to help Nathan with anything he does outdoors.  He had a blast helping Nathan wash his truck. 

And then I finally found Alanna a pair of rainboots!  We were grocery shopping at Aldi and we saw these and I grabbed them up for her.  She was all sorts of exciting!  They are so adorable on her! 

This is one of my favorite pictures of her ever.  I know it's not totally in focus but this picture completely captures her sweet playful personality and so I love it so much!

And looking at Jude playing with the "big kids" makes this mama's heart feel happy and sad all at the same time.  How can he be growing up so fast?!

And just like that...April is over and so little to show for it. Breaking my lens and then just forgetting to take pictures on top of all of it...makes me sad and ready to get all caught up on May's posts and then stay on top of blogging!

RUY'S 9TH BIRTHDAY & LEGO PARTY

I say it every year but I really just can't believe how big Ruy is getting!  NINE...that's just one year before he hits double digits!  And then after that he's officially a big boy and I just can't handle that!  It feels like yesterday I was holding him for the first time and now he's nine.  

For Ruy's actual birthday it was just our family.  We had a quiet little party for him on that Sunday evening with cake and presents.

And then the following Saturday we had a birthday party for him where several of his little friends came.  Ruy wanted a Lego Party so I did the best I could on a tight budget to make that happen.  We hung legos up, used legos to hold the forks, put legos on the table to play with and...I attempted to make my own homemade lego cake.  It didn't come out perfect but the boys knew what it was supposed to look like and Ruy loved it so that was all that mattered to me.

I was all worried about maybe I should have planned games for the boys to play but running around in the woods and playing legos on the table was all they wanted to do.  Ruy loved all of his gifts (which was mostly legos of course :)  and all the boys had such a great time playing.  It was a really relaxing party and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

The only thing I was bummed about was that a few days before Ruy's birthday party my nice camera lens got broken and so I wasn't able to use my "big girl" camera for pictures on his birthday or his party.  So the old point and shoot camera had to do this year.  But I'm thankful to have the memories saved through these pictures anyway!

Happy 9th Birthday Ruy!!!
We love you so much and are so proud of the little man you are growing to be!