Pictures Seth's Birthday Party Weekend

Here is the much anticipated Coral snake birthday cake (sorry mom and dad, it took so long for me to post these).






Yeah, I couldn't decide which pose I liked better, so I posted both.






Seth and Philip had a great time with Mike playing laser tag and bowling, then came home to play video games and eat cake.






What? Our dogs aren't allowed on the couch!








Mom and Seth cheesing it up.






All the candles blown out!






Then the next day we had a treat after our free movie, Jackson got to come over and hang out with us for a while. They spent a good part of the day building card houses and were very proud of this one.


Kristen

Happy Birthday Todd

Kind of a strange day.

I have had lots of emotions today, and have been unsure of what I want to share.

Tonight I celebrated my friends 43rd birthday with his boys and his wife. He should have been with us.

Paula and I took the kids to Chuckie Cheese, where they had spent Todd's last few birthdays.

While there, Kylee and Jackson, such good friends, were paired off. They found a game that they had found a way to get A LOT of tickets out of. I didn't feel bad that they were bending the rules of the game a bit to get a lot of tickets, because let's face it Chuckie got his money tonight.

But here is the thing. After Kylee and Jackson got all of these tickets, and there were a lot of tickets, Jackson asked Kylee if they could take these tickets and go around to some of the little kids who don't have that many and give them away. Kylee said sure!

That is what they did. They gave every last one of them away!

You know who that is?

Todd Mitchell.

Oh my gosh, I just wanted to cry. That is Todd's legacy, he imparted to his children how to be generous, by living a generous life.

I am so proud of them and I know he is too.

Kristen

Seth's 8!!

Yesterday was the day Seth was waiting for all week.

About driving me crazy!

He was so excited about his birthday. Just couldn't wait for the day. It wasn't about getting presents because Mike and I had already given him his present earlier in the week, roller blades. I am convinced he just really loves being the center of attention.

He got up Saturday morning and opened up his gifts from his sisters and brother, two shirts and two Funkeys(if you don't know what they are you must not have kids in the 8-10 year old range.) Kylee bought the Funkeys and told me he could use her port even though that might mean sharing her funky coins. So kind.

Then we went to the free Saturday morning movie as a family! It was a treat to be together, since Mike was gone to a conference for a good part of the week, and didn't get home until 12:30 Friday night or is that Saturday morning? Whatever. We saw Spiderwick, which we have on DVD, but it was so good on the big screen, we all loved it!

Next took him to Red Robin, where he ate himself silly and got sung to. He is such a ham, he ate it up!

I let the kids play for the rest of the day with friends, till we had to get to church. I bought him a big bag (90 pieces) of candy to take and share with his friends at church. This is where his very generous spirit comes out, he had two pieces, every child in Wahabu was given two pieces, and he came out with a few left in the bag. But instead of keeping them for himself, he proceeded to go through the building giving away the rest of his candy to smaller children, who weren't in Wahabu, and adults.

He gave it all away! That just blows me away. I can't wait to watch him as he grows , and watch this generous spirit grow with him. He is going to do huge things!

So next week is his party. This year since we are doing "one friend parties" he chose Philip, and Mike is going to take the boys to play laser tag and bowl next Friday night. And he is having his first sleep over ever!!!!!

Wish me luck.

Kristen

I Spent the Afternoon Putting Bikinis on Bears

Kylee is finally getting her birthday party tomorrow.

Since we are doing a one-friend-fun-day for birthday's this year Kylee chose to go to a water park for the day with her best friend Allie.

I asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she chose this. I don't know how close I am going to come to it, but here is the beginning. I am going to finish it in the morning.

Wish me luck!!!

Kristen

Joshi's Birthday cake

I wasn't so happy with the way the bowling ball turned out.

I wasn't going to post it but then felt lame that I would only post the ones I thought were good.

I think it would have been better had it not been green. A black ball would have been more realistic. Also, if I had had a ball pan I think it would have looked much better.

But the best part of this cake is that it tasted really really good!

I did use the bake and fill pan, and Joshi picked chocolate mint pudding to use as the filling. Also since I only starred the number and the rest I just frosted and pressed flat, I was able to use the good frosting!! Yum!!! The good frosting recipe is here. (I use half butter half shortening) Enjoy!

We keep telling her there is no going back now. She has officially hit the double digits today! Kylee is 10!

What a gorgeous kid, in every way. And Kylee has also been saving up her money. But not for a puppy. Kylee has her heart set on an electric guitar that she found in one of her dad's music mags.

And ever since she found it she has been saving and drawing.

Yes, drawing. She draws guitars everywhere.

She is going to be a rocker like her dad. So Friday her daddy is going to take her down to Guitar Center and she is going to buy her electric guitar.

The part she is most excited about is the whammy bar.

Kristen

Joshi is Six!

This is what Joshi said to me last night before he went up to bed;

"Mom I just have one thing to say to you, I'M SO EXCITED TOMORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY!!"

Six is a big year apparently. He has been really, really looking forward to turning six. Makes me a little sad. He really isn't a baby anymore. I could somewhat talk myself in to thinking he was still little when he was five but six and first grade, that isn't little anymore :(

He was born the day before Kylee's fourth birthday. So at the time of his birth Seth was one year nine months, Kylee was one day from being four, and Faith had just turned six. Oh, and Mike was working a full time secular job and working full time for a church. That maybe why much of Joshi's babyhood was a blur!

Today, I will make him a special dinner. Whatever he wants. And this is what he chose, terriyaki meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and a double chocolate layered pie. He gets his birthday cake this weekend when his two best friends, Sam and Luke, are coming over for a bowling/sleepover.

His cake? It will be a green bowling ball filled with pudding, at his request.

Kristen

Faith's 12th Birthday!!!

I just finished the Wicked cake!!!

We asked Faith what she wanted for her birthday and she said she just wanted to go and see Wicked with her best friend! So we got the tickets and we are going tomorrow on her actual birthday.

No brother's, just her best friend, Sarah, and me. We are going to have a blast in Chicago!! (Thanks Paula for watching the sibs.)

To go with her Wicked birthday I made her a Wicked cake. Her and Sarah are spending the day today doing girl stuff and tonight some neighborhood friends are coming over to have dinner and cake.

I will post more pics later.

Kristen

36!!!!

Mike is 36 today!!!! The kids and I have a special evening planned for him.

When I asked him what kind of cake, or pudding (I have been known to make him his own bowl of home made chocolate pudding), he wanted he said he wanted a chocolate meringue pie.

Okay.

I have never made a chocolate meringue pie but found a recipe that looks yummy so I am going to try it. I will post the recipe if it is worth it.

I have been marinating beef for fajitas since yesterday and preparation for the big night is in full swing.

I can't say what his big surprise is tonight but it is going to be HUGE!!!

I can't wait!

Kristen

More than One way to Skin a Cat

It is moments like these that I feel so completely technologically inept! I wanted to post the pictures from Seth's birthday with text but spent about 45 minutes this morning struggling with it. So finally I posted the pictures and decided that I would just add the text to another post. So here it goes.

The first pictures is a picture of Seth with his birthday meal. He requested steak wrapped in bacon, baked potato, corn, cheese and garlic biscuit, and root beer.

The next picture is of his cake. Seth really wanted to play basket ball this fall but being on limited income we can only do so many extra curricular sports a year. Seth had his with baseball in the spring. It is now Joshi's turn. But we did tell Seth that if he wanted to have us sign him up for fall basket ball than we would but that would be his birthday present. He said that is what he wanted so we did. That is when he decided that he wanted a chocolate cake with coffee ice cream inside, and it had to be shaped like a basket ball. (his daddy also brought him home a bag of candy and a starbucks card).

The third picture is of him getting his candles lit...Are some of those trick candles?

Next he is directing us in the birthday song.

The fifth picture is the cheesy smile picture.

And finally he is blowing out his candles. Or trying to :)

Kristen

Seth's 7th Birthday Bash!

Happy Birthday Seth!

I have a feeling this is going to be a book. Sorry.

I can't believe my little boy is seven today!!! Seth's birth brought an amazing thing into my life. The relationship between a mom and her son. Now don't get me wrong, I love and adore my girls and we have a special relationship as well, but let's face it they will always be their daddy's girls. And I love that for them and their daddy.

I will never forget the day that we found out we were having a boy. You see Mike had made it very clear that if the third child was not a boy than we were stopping. He didn't want to be totally out numbered in a house full of girls. So I got this book and read it from cover to cover. But even though we had bought the book and followed it's advice I still was totally shocked when the ultra sound tech said,"It's a boy!"

I had a little freak out. I mean I had two girls I knew what to do with those. I knew how to care for them and dress them and... a boy seemed out of my league. I didn't even have brothers! What had I gotten myself into.

He was due on October 14th but we were hoping for the 10th. His birthday would have been 10-10-00. But he waited till the 11th. We had a delivery room full of people. Friends and relatives I thought it was great. Lots of tears and excitement. I had had an epidural so really it went very smoothly. Until after he was born and the drug lady said as she was leaving make sure you drink lots of caffeine.

What? I thought that was a strange thing for a doctor to tell you right after you have a baby. But then I tried to sit up. And felt like someone had dropped an anvil on my head.

It was decided that I had an epidural headache. From what I understand it is when the dura sac is nicked and begins to leak spinal fluid. I was told you could do a blood patch which is where they do another epidural tube but this time fill the tube with your own blood and this patches up the hole. I was told this was very dangerous and could cause me to have all kinds of problems. The other option was to drink lots of caffeine and lots of fluid and hope it patched on it's own. I went home with the headache a day later.

Two weeks I lived with this headache. I could never put into words what this headache was like. Unique, because all you had to do was lie down and it completely disappeared, but lift your head and there was nothing you could do to make it go away. It provided all the effects of what I hear a migraine does for you. Now I think back to it and those first two weeks, they were a blur. I lost all my baby weight because I couldn't eat, but I also couldn't hold my baby unless I was laying down, as soon as I would pick my head up I felt like my brain was banging against my skull.

After two weeks Mike called the hospital back. The people in the ER freaked and said to come right in. That they should never have let me go an that i could have had a seizure! So I went back in had the blood patch, which hurt like I can't explain, but after it was over my head was instantly clear. Amazing.

After recouping from the blood patch I was able to start enjoying my new little boy. What a sweet baby!!! He was a great kid. Slept great, ate great, very happy guy. And he still is!

Today he is in second grade and loves school! He loves to learn new things, play with his friends, play video games with his dad, ride his bike, and read. One of the most unique things about him is his generous spirit. He really is so kind and loves to give things to people. He will spend all his points at church just to buy his brother a toy. For a while he opened a shop in his room,of his toys, but everything was free. I pray that God would continue to bless him and that he would always keep that generous spirit and help this world out in mighty ways.

Kristen

Happy Birthday K-Hope

Today Kylee is nine! This picture is her when she was three. I picked it because I think it shows her personality so clearly.

Kylee has a very unique personality. I don't know if she has ever met anyone who she didn't call friend. She is really easy going and kind, and super funny. She loves to run and play and do sports. She loves monkeys and animals. Her smile lights up the room and her laugh is absolutely contagious. She is also one of the most sensitive kids I have ever met. She can cry at the drop of a hat. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had put her in school. I don't think that the teachers would have been able to deal with her emotions. It is not unusual for her to cry for no reason at least once a day. She is very huggy and loves to be held and cuddled. She would literally sit on your lap all day if you would let her.

But it wasn't always like that. Kylee and I had a rough start. Our pregnancy went great. The delivery a dream! Really. Hers was so easy. And she was a gorgeous 7 pound baby. She was round and cuddly and so cute. And she loved to sleep!!! I mean really loved to sleep. We brought this sweet baby home and she just slept and slept and slept. So much that she wasn't gaining weight fast enough. Man, did those doctors have me worried. I was stripping her down tickling her feet doing whatever I could to get her to wake up and eat. But as soon as she would begin to eat she would sleep again. So the first few months were a blur of trying to keep Kylee awake. Imagine trying to keep a baby awake.

Then she woke up. And boy did she wake up! As soon as she became mobile there was no stopping her. This is about the time we discovered what Kylee meant in Aborigine. Boomerang. And that really did describe year 1 and 2. She was all over the place. I couldn't imagine how I was going to manage this child. She was always happy but very, very, very, determined. With Faith if she had tried to get into, lets say the toilet, we disciplined her and she never touched it again. Kylee would just look up at us with those gorgeous blue eyes, laugh, and turn around and dump the cup of toilet water that she was holding in her hand, all over the floor.

But she grew out of that. She grew into the sweet kid that she is today. I praise God for her loving spirit and kindness towards others. As a matter of fact today Kylee spent some of her 9th birthday cutting her long, long hair and sending it into Locks of Love. She was very excited. Here is a picture of her after getting her hair cut.





Happy Birthday Kylee!!



Kristen

Joshi Will's B-Day

Today Joshi is 5!! He is very excited about this birthday.

This is a picture of Joshi five years ago today. He was our surprise baby. Joshi went a long way in strengthening my faith. Also, in teaching me that I was definitely not in control. That is still a hard lesson for me.

Shortly after Mike and I and the family moved to North Carolina things were tight financially. Mike hadn't found a paying secular job as easily as we had hoped and the church he was working for was able to pay a housing allowance, but that was it. So, naturally as we had no steady income and no insurance, I got pregnant. Those nine months were a weird time for me. I learned a lot about myself. A lot of things that were buried pretty deep. I think they made me a better person.

On Sunday July 7 th, 2002 I was sitting at home waiting for our small group to come over when the contractions started. Now I knew a couple of things, first I knew that I was strep B positive (which meant I could go to the hospital and as long as I was far enough along they had to keep me), that I was 6 centimeters a few days before (which was far enough along to have them keep me), and that with my three previous babies nothing had ever happened unless my water was broken. So I waited a couple of hours (with contractions every 5 minutes lasting about a minute, and smiling through them while there were people meeting in a small group at my house) and as soon as they left I called the midwife. She told me that since it was Sunday and she wasn't on call, and because of my history, if I went to the hospital they would give me a sleeping pill and tell me to lay down and wait till tomorrow. She suggested instead of me doing that, that I should stay home, take a glass of wine (REALLY?), or some Benedryll, and stay at home to sleep. For me drinking even one glass of wine while I was pregnant was really out of the question for so many reasons, but I did take the Benedryll and then continued having contractions all night long every five minutes in a half sleep half awake state.

So, by morning I was ready. We drove to the hospital and they, of course, admitted me seeing that i was now 7 cm (seriously, all night and one centimeter, ridiculous) and put me on the antibiotics for the strep. After the two doses of antibiotic, and one dose of epidural they broke my water and Joshi came about an hour later. Our midwife was awesome and let Mike deliver Joshi. It was a very cool moment. And so funny because after he was born I had nurse after nurse come to my room to meet the daddy who was so awesome and gentle in delivering his baby. Our Midwife was actually bragging about him!!! He was great!

But my biggest surprise by far was our little peanut!! I felt huge during this last pregnancy. I had only gained 25 pounds but they were all stomach. Even Mike said I was huge!!! So we really thought that since each of our babies had gotten bigger that he was going to be our hugest. When little 6 pound 5 ounce Joshi was born we were shocked!!! He was so little and cute, with his little furrowed brow. Gorgeous baby.

One of the fun things about Joshi's birth was that is occurred the day before Kylee's birthday!! She was so happy to have a new baby for her 4th birthday!!















And Five years later I could not imagine life with out our little Joshi Will. Joshi is a great kid!!! He loves doing school with his brother and sisters, playing with friends, swimming, riding his bike, helping his mommy cook, hanging out with his daddy, the list goes on he is just a really fun kid!! I thank God for him every day. I feel so blessed that God knew that I needed this little guy in my life.

Happy Birthday Joshi!!

Kristen

Party Time

It is the night of the big double party. Kylee's birthday is in a month but the girls decided that they would like to combine their parties this year and celebrate together.

They have a set of friends who are sisters that would have missed Kylee's party so that is the real reason they moved it up. So tonight we are having a party with 9 girls total. Faith and Kylee wanted the sleepover cake we saw in a Family Fun magazine so with a few modifications here it is. It's not a great picture. Well, the girls are about to arrive so I guess I must go.

Kristen