My baby is 7!

We celebrated Rae's birthday while we were in Charlotte. Her actual birthday was on Sunday, so on Saturday we had the whole family over for swimming, pizza and cake. Rae was in heaven! Her cousins and aunts and uncles were really generous and she got some awesome gifts. She didn't look very excited while opening her presents, but I think she was just tired.

A few weeks ago I saw this cake and knew it would be perfect for Rae's party. It was a little tricky getting it right, but man oh man it was delicious. And now that I've made it once it'll be easy to make again (uh oh!) It was definitely the perfect cake for Rae - she's a huge fan of peanut butter and Reeses. Mmm mmm good!




I made extra of the frosting and made some cupcakes too. The hope was that most of the kids would go for the cupcakes and us grownups could have the good stuff. It worked - Rae and maybe or two other kids asked for cake but the rest were happy with cupcakes, and all of the adults got a slice of heaven :)


I can't believe she is 7! Seems like just yesterday I was up all night with my sweet little newborn Rae. She's such an awesome little girl - she's super helpful, loves to learn and is just so full of energy and excitement! I love my sweet Rae!

Those other kids

Here's what Rae, Blaise and Isaac have been up to:

Being cute around the house

It's supermouse!

These two have been getting along pretty well lately and it's nice to see Blaise get a chance to be the "big sibling" occasionally when Rae isn't busy bossing them all around.

Babies holding babies


Just relaxing outside

Our city had a free fishing day for kids - they provided the poles and worms and lunch, so we took advantage of the opportunity. Unfortunately it was a super hot day and we only lasted about 45 minutes before we gave up and went home.

"When am I going to catch something?!"Rae decided the worms were more fun

When we got home we let them play in the water to cool off.

They love to wear these matching shirts to bed. Rae got the black one two years ago when she entered a cupcake contest, and then Rae and Blaise got the blue ones last year when they did the same contest. It says "Hi. I'm drug free. Bye. I hope you are too"

Claire's blessing

Our family and Oma and Opa
(Roy's mom and her husband visiting from Las Vegas)

Claire was still asleep when it was time to go home and I felt bad for her and didn't want to put her in her car seat, so Roy carried her home - isn't he sweet? The boys wanted to walk home too. Aren't they adorable? I love living a block away from the church!

When we got home we did a little photo shoot - using the afghan Roy's mom made for Claire

In case you didn't know, this dress was also my blessing dress. I think it's fun that it was purple and now purple is my favorite color. Rae's blessing dress was purple too. It was pretty special to have Claire wear it. (Don't worry, Rae's dress is special too because my mom made it for her) Hmmm, I wonder who made this dress - anyone know?

Ouch

It was hot hot hot today, but at around 4 today some clouds rolled in and cooled things off just enough to play outside a little bit. Rae was taking water out of the pool and pouring it on some flowers and bees. I told her that if she messed around with the bees they might sting her, so she left them alone. It got sunny again and I was ready to make the kids go back in because Claire was getting super hot, but then it started raining (I LOVE it when it rains when it is sunny) so we stayed out and played in the rain.

After a while I put a towel over Claire and I was busy making sure she wasn't getting too wet and all of a sudden Rae started screaming. She ran over to me, swatting at her face, yelling that she had been stung! She tends to exaggerate about everything, so I tried to get her to calm down and figured she'd be fine. Well, she kept crying, saying it really hurt, so we headed inside and I gave her a cold washcloth. In just a few minutes her lip started to swell and I started to freak out a bit. I gave her a popscicle and called Roy to tell him to come home(He was already on his way though) - I was totally scared it'd swell up and she wouldn't be able to breathe or something.

Roy got home and took Claire (who was super fussy at this point) for me so I could call the doctor's office. By then the swelling had pretty much stopped and Rae said it wasn't hurting anymore, so I wasn't too worried. The nurse said to give her some Benadryl and just keep an eye on it. Within an hour so of giving it to her the swelling had gone a lot.

This was about 10 minutes after the sting.
It got just a little more swollen than this but not much more.

Rae said she's a little scared to go outside now -I'm sure she'll be a lot more cautious around bees and wasps. She said she was looking into the gutter drain and something flew out and stung her. It was probably a wasp - we have a lot around our house. We told her that the chances of being stung again are pretty slim, so I think she'll be okay going outside. I'm just glad it wasn't Claire or Isaac - that would have been much harder to deal with!

Fun with Granny

We were SO blessed to have my mom come and help out when Claire was born. She arrived on Monday the 25th. Then she spent most of Tuesday sick - poor thing! But by Wednesday she was back to her busy, productive self! It was so nice to know she was home with the kids Wednesday night when I went to the hosptial - even Isaac loved her by the second day she was here. She was so great about taking them for walks when she could see them getting antsy and bored. She did my dishes, folded my laundry and swept my floors! She is an amazing mom and granny! Thanks for coming mom - we really appreciated it! Can't wait to see you in a few weeks!





She gave Isaac this GeoTrax train for his birthday. He loves it! He still talks about granny giving it to him.

He's saying "chooo chooo!"

Misc pictures

This was my longest, most exhausting labor and I think this picture illustrates that.

Happy Granny

Bribing the kids with snacks to get them to stay in one place!

First family picture - Isaac is thrilled.
(Side note: I did NOT put that stupid bow in her hair. After the nurse gave her a bath she used KY jelly and glued that sucker to Claire's head. I was not amused. It fell off after a few hours and I had to get all the gunk of out Claire's hair. I don't mind bows, but if you have to glue them on then that's just ridiculous. Sorry if that offends anyone - it's just one of those things that bugs me!)

The hospital is under construction and this was the lovely view from my window.

There were a few big construction trucks out there too, but they came and moved them at 7am - wonder why I couldn't get any sleep!

Obligatory picture of baby ready to go home from hospital :)