Jade's 3rd Birthday!

My sweet girl turned three.  I really can't believe it.  I still close my eyes and see her as a baby.  Her babyhood flew by far faster than Teagan's.  She is my little princess.  She loves everything to do with princesses since her Grandma got her a little pink skirt she calls her princess skirt.  Everytime I look at her I think how much I love having a little girl.  She is my biggest challenge but so very worth it.  I love you sweetie!

See I'm getting better about getting pictures of my cupcakes.  This year we decided to have a smaller party.  We love our big parties but with three kids now it's time to scale down.  So we invited Jade's buddy Mitchell and his family and Grandma's, Grandpa's, Great Grandma's and Great Grandpa's.  We sure missed everyone though.

Jade's cake.  Strawberry.

The kids played bubbles

I had to get Teagan to stop a moment so I could get a picture.

Mitchell and Jade enjoying their pizza.

Drinks.

Cute dog from Great Grandma & Grandpa John.  I think she said Sister Appleman made it.

Reading her cards.  Upside down but still.

Opening presents.

And more presents.  We got her these little appliances at Christmas but decided she was getting enough stuff and saved them for her birthday.  She loves them!

Everyone loved them.

Such a pretty girl.

Happy too!

Time to sing Happy Birthday.

Jade blew out the candles as they were being lit so we had to try a few times.

Yummy!

There is Sam in the background.  Jade wanted me to take pictures of the mess she was making.  Apparently she is getting used to me thinking her messes are funny.

Love you baby.

Mitchell being funny.

Stanley and Kade.

Grandpa John, Great Grandma John and Great Grandpa John.

Grandma John feeding Gauge.

See what I mean about the princess stuff.  These were from Grandma John.  She loves it.

Jade got tons of fun books, coloring books, barbies, books, playdough, magnetic dolls, kitchen stuff.  She loved it all.  I got her a fairy tale book that we are loving reading together.  I love you sweetie.

Easter at Grandma & Grandpa's

These pictures look the same as the ones at our house.  Perhaps I should have changed the kids clothes.  I think I made the mistake of calling the meal at our house dinner.  It was actually lunch.  We had dinner at Grandma & Grandpa John's with Great Grandma & Grandpa John.  We had so many eggs left from our hunt I took over a gift bag full of them.  The kids had another great hunt.  Below are some pictures of Gauge in Grandpa John's pink wild flowers.  Each of the kids have pictures in those flowers as babies.  I thought they turned out pretty cute.

What's New?

1.  Jade decided to potty train herself today.  Thank freakin' goodness!  I'm proud of her.
2.  Gauge has two teeth and another on the way.  He loves to eat!
3.  Teagan is reading 5th grade level books now.  He is proud and I'm proud of him too.
4.  I do not have thyroid cancer.  Thank freakin' goodness for that too!
5.  Ian got a new work truck.  It's got that new car smell. 
6.  Ian and I watch Bones together at night.  We started with season one.  I think he is as in love with Booth as much as I am.  In a manly way though.
7.  It's official that Teagan will be homeschooled next year.  We are going to use the K12 system.  I hope it will be fun for us both.
8.  Jade had a birthday.  A post to come on that.  It wasn't our huge party we usually have.  Just grandparents and her best buddy Mitchell.
9.  Jade discovered she likes hummus.  Although the first time she tasted it you would have thought I put poop on her tongue.  The second time she ate all of mine and asked for more.
10.  Teagan has had two fish in the past week and both have died.  It's very sad but he is getting used to the whole dead or missing pet thing.
11.  Which reminds me.  Jade got a hold of the new hamster and he survived.  Not even a limp.  I still think we should have got a guinea pig.
12.  Ian taught some dances to my Activity Day girls.  They all love him now and think he is awesome.  So do we.  :)
13.  I got Jade a book of fairytales for her birthday and she lets me read them to her.  I LOVE reading to her and I love that she is going to know all the fairytale stories.

Easter At Home

We didn't get to do our Saturday Easter party because Ian was busy and Teagan had a birthday party to attend that day.  We did Easter baskets saturday morning and that was it.  Sunday afternoon we did our little dinner and egg hunt at home.  It was fun.  Jade was cute.  She would scream everytime she saw an egg.  She was very excited.  Teagan collected a bunch of eggs.  He ended up with two buckets full.  We had carne asada, beans and rice with salad.  That has turned out to be our traditional Easter meal.  Our salad came completely from the garden.  So did my carrot centerpiece.  I have to give Nancy Watson credit for the idea.  I thought it turned out so cute.  The kids had fun.  It was a good day.

Coloring Eggs

I got a ton of eggs to color this year.  I want to say like 40 some.  We love to eat boiled eggs and I wanted the kids to have plenty to decorate.  They had a lot of fun.  It went very quickly though.  Teagan liked drawing on the eggs first and Jade liked to stick her hands in the dye.  The bottom picture is the sugar eggs we gave as gifts this year.  They are filled with candy.  I had some trouble with them so we didn't have many to give but they were pretty.