Party Time

Yesterday we had a fun filled party day, celebrating Savannah's 5th birthday and Alex's 1st. This was the first year Savannah got to invite friends to her party so she invited many of the kids in her primary class plus her cousins, making a total of 8 kids that came. Including my 3, that meant 11 kids in my little house and it was a bit of an adventure! It was fun, though. Savannah wanted to have a butterfly party so we had all the matching butterfly party supplies from the dollar store and I made her a butterfly fairy birthday cake. For games we played pin the antenna on the butterfly (using pipe cleaners for antenna), then Joe read them "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and afterwards we had them divide into two teams, gave each team a roll of toilet paper, and they had a race to completely wrap up one person on their team like a cocoon. I think they had fun. Mostly they just had fun playing with each other in Savannah and Katie's bedroom and climbing on the bunkbeds and stuff. Savannah also didn't realize that all the kids were going to bring her presents so that was a very exciting surprise for her and she had so much fun opening all of those presents with everyone watching. That girl really loves being in the spotlight and she got really fun presents so she just loved it!

For Alex we just decided it would be easier to throw his birthday in with Savannah's even though everything was all girly because my family would already be coming over and it was more convenient than making them all come on a different night just to watch a little 1 year old eat some cake and open a present or two. I mean, really, 1 year old birthdays just aren't that exciting or eventful. I made Alex a Thomas the Tank Engine cake that had a 1 on the side and he seemed to enjoy sitting in his high chair eating it all by himself and making a huge mess. Here are some pictures from our fun day.

Here are the kids with their cakes. Savannah is with her cousin Dylan showing how they're both 5 now. Making two cakes turned out to be a little more time consuming than I'd imagined so the cakes got pretty sloppy. Definitely not my best work, but I was past the point of caring. If you can't tell, I did Alex's last so his was really rushed. Sorry buddy. I guess a 1 year old doesn't care that much.

Grandma and Grandpa Bilanzich gave Alex a little outfit and some shoes. He was pretty excited about those shoes! He wanted to carry them around with him everywhere!

Savannah's favorite present. She's not really into High School Musical that much but she LOVED this!

Alex may not have been too happy about that hat, but by then he was pretty worn out from all of the commotion, too. We all had a fun, but exhausting day. We went to bed early last night! No exciting, romantic Valentine's Day for Joe and me, but we had a great day.

Alex is one!

I can't believe today is Alex's 1st birthday! It seems like especially the past 5 or 6 months have gone really fast. That first little while when they're little babies is so hard and seems to take forever at times but then it starts really speeding up. He's so much fun now, though, and our family would be so different without him.

I just barely switched him last week from his rear-facing carseat to a big kid, forward facing seat and he was so cute how happy he was. He loves being able to look out the window and look over at his sisters and I think he feels so big and cool like them. Usually there are lots of times he screams when I try to put him in the car but now he almost always seems happy and even excited to go somewhere. He looks over at his sisters with big old smiles and kicks his legs excitedly. I think he's still relishing in the fact that he CAN kick his legs and move them freely while he's in the car! I'm actually surprised I held out so long with switching him over. With both the girls it seems like I couldn't handle seeing their scrunched up legs pushing against the backseat of the car at around 10 months--maybe he's shorter than they were. Or maybe I waited because I didn't want to give up being able to sit next to him in the backseat and nurse him while we were driving (I really try to cover up for the sake of passing motorists, I promise!). We just go on so many road trips and stuff and it makes it SO much easier to keep peace in the car when I'm right there to shut him up when I have to and not to stop for feedings all the time. Now we have a whole seat full of kids and I know it's not going to be much longer before we have to give in and trade our sedan for a minivan or something bigger. I'm not looking forward to that. I like how close the kids are in our Taurus plus I love our huge trunk...I'm going to miss that.

This is what my backseat is looking like these days:

Alex fell right to sleep in his new carseat on the first night!

Katie's 1st Haircut

Well, actually I should say haircuts, since there were two. The first was self-inflicted and the 2nd was my sad attempt to correct it the best I could. In hindsight I'm really wishing I would've dealt with the inconvenience of driving her to a professional hair stylist, but there's not much I can do about it now except hope it grows quickly. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw what she'd done to herself was Jim Carrey from Dumb and Dumber. What do you think?

This is what she did to herself:


And here is my attempt to fix it, along with a pic from Dumb and Dumber, just for a reference.








Every time Joe looks at her he just kind of puts his hand over his face and laughs and says she looks like she has a mullet. Poor girl. Grow hair, grow!