A few weeks ago, Carter graduated Kindergarten. Wow, this was an emotional time for me. My baby boy is growing up and is going to be in first grade. No more daycare, preschool, or kinder, now it's real school! Recently he has begun to play Minecraft with his brother- Coleman on his ipod and Carter on the ipad. They play together in the same world online, it's wild. Carter was even giving his brother some tips on how to do things. He's a smarty pants.
I love this picture of him, full of his personality: monster truck shirt, spiky hair and a purple tie he clipped on all on his own.
Shaking hands with his principal.
Diploma in hand! That's even a picture of him on the diploma.
It was only a half inch but Daddy didn't want none of it. I was tired of getting her hair out of her eyes. The hair wasn't even much to save for her baby book.
Here's the results: Our little and her big, beautiful brown eyes wide open, wearing Carter's t-shirt. Sorry for the blurriness but that girl is a mover!
A little reason why I've been quiet in this space lately...
when that's the view from your hotel window. Jake and I spent a week in Maui, Hawaii with my dad, brother and his wife. It was a glorious break, without kids and with drinks! We went to Maui because it was my mom's favorite place to visit, we spent a lot of time doing the things she loved to do as well as a few new things.
The Road to Hana... with switchbacks, one lane roads, jungle plants and breathtaking views.
Black sand beach, a special place.
Trying something new: surfing lessons! At one point I did a full belly flop into the water, gave wipeout a whole new meaning.
Trying something traditional: all of us in our luau gear for the luau.
Luau highlight: the fire dancer.
Trying something new: snuba (like scuba but a oxygen line is connected you to a raft so you can only go down 13 feet). That's my dad next to me- Jake was busy actually scuba diving.
Snorkeling in my favorite spot with Jake.
Because this guy was hanging out close to the shore- that's me next to him!
Trying something familiar: hiking. The difference is that of course we were in the lush tropics of Maui and not the arid, dry desert. This was called the Needle of Ioa (good luck on the pronounciation).
It was an incredible trip and I was blessed to be able to spend time with my family. These memories will stay with me forever.
Coleman and I on the graduation day. I know, I'm wearing a scarf in mid-May but it was a freaky cold day!
Singing some silly songs- blurry because I had to do a full zoom.
Listen here (Money, money, money, I always want more!):
Too funny- I love the song because Coleman's at the age now where he really gets the concept of money and saving for toys.
Goofing around with family at the potluck breakfast.
Coleman sitting at his table with friends.
He's becoming Daddy's boy now.
Compare to the first day of school:
We are so proud of Coleman and how he was able to have good behavior most of the year! He has matured a lot since nursery and preschool. Now we have another one going to start preschool! And so the cycle continues...
Today Amelia turned 1! I am still in shock, although our "baby" is soon to a be a toddler, I don't know if I can get that into my head- she'll always be my baby girl.
We had a family BBQ at the community poolhouse and the theme was cupcakes!
Goofing around with Dada (as she calls him). She loves a man in Cardinals gear!
Didn't really like the handmade crown (maybe next year).
We sang her Happy Birthday then it was time for the fun part:
All the family...
Not sure about the icing.
Ahhh, that's better.
Pure bliss...
If you're wondering, I made her strawberrry cupcakes with strawberry icing from scratch (I know, crazy! But please, don't look at my kitchen!). You can check out the recipe here, the consensus was they could definitely make an appearance again.
Also, the giant cupcake came from a Wilton cake mold which you can check out, Wilton 2105-5038 Giant Cupcake Pan. It was a last minute addition but too late I realized she was not going to be able to dig into it like the cupcake. Oh well, it was cute. Maybe next year we can make it again and stick a toy on top of it!
Things she's up to...
Amelia loves to get into trouble! Her latest adventure involved smearing a tube of my dark lipstick (the only tube I own) all over her, the wall, the table, her Daddy's shoulder, her forehead. It looked as if she had a gash on her head but that lipstick definitely stayed put!
Also, she hasn't really liked the taste of milk, so we are sticking to (much more expensive) toddler formula until we can work the milk in. I swear the other boys were not this picky. I think we're in trouble with this one.
She's the reason...
Amelia Valerie is the reason why my house looks like it got hit by a tornado daily,
why my personal shirt laundry has doubled,
and why my spine is always going to curve to the right.
Amelia Valerie is the reason why I get up in the morning,
why I laugh out loud,
why I am able to get through my darkest moments.
Last Mother's Day, she was the best present, ever. Happy Birthday to my beautiful brown eyed girl, (go ahead and cue the song), sha la la la la... you'll always be our brown eyed girl.
The firstborn had his birthday party today. Coleman planned the guest list, menu and games. I usually make a cake- so far I've made a #1, #2, a car, a racetrack #4, and a baseball cake turned army men hills.
So this year I was prepared to buy a cake and stick some army men on it. But then Coleman and I started looking at cake ideas online and I remembered I already had the chocolate cake mix.
Sigh. I have not had the best luck with cakes. The #1 cake kept crumbling in the icing because I didn't know to freeze it first (thanks Carrie for the tip!) and then it got smooshed in the car on the ride over to the park. The baseball cake had two halves that couldn't be stuck together because my icing had turned to liquid goo (in the Philippines, frosting in the tub is hard to come by and I was having a hard time getting the homemade to stay thick).
However, I figured even if it came out ugly, we could cover it completely with army men and noone would know. Luckily, this was one of my best cakes yet!
Step 1: Get a trusty helper. Have him smoosh chocolate graham crackers in bag for "dirt". You can see the frozen cakes next to him. I did two rounds and a small loaf pan with one whole box of cake mix.
Step 2: Get white frosting and color with Wilson colors, like these. It's the only way to get true colors to come through. I've done too many attempts getting a real green with food coloring.
Step 3: Arrange cake pieces to resemble mountain. I froze these but they weren't rock hard.
Step 4: Frost whole thing in main color. This is an actual darker brown but my kitchen lighting is terrible. Here it looks like peanut butter!
'
Step 5: I added the green plants (with the help of a decorator cake tip), grass and lake after that.
Step 6: My trusty helper washed and put on all the army dudes and tanks. Then he sprinkled the "dirt" on.
Step 7: I found some chocolate rocks at the party store, so we added those.
Step 8: Eat and enjoy! It was fun to make and eat.
Jake and I celebrated nine years of marriage on Wednesday! As Jake said, "Nine years can seem like forever or a moment in time if you are with the right person."
It really doesn't seem like nine years- we've gotten past the three year honeymoon stage (where you really find out your fighting styles) and the seven year itch (where you are either going to make it or break it). In fact, for a while we thought we were married 10 years... until we learned how to do math. In our defense, saying 10 years does sound better -next year!
We wanted sushi so we tried this new place...
Unfortunately it was sushi in an Asian buffet. So somehow we ended up being one of the few non-Asians eating food that we remembered from the Philippines. Eating there brought us right back... the mediocre food, the chatter of Asian families nearby, even the fried shrimp with the head still on. One redeeming thing they had was ice cream, but apparantly I picked green tea... gross!
The fortunes were good...
and the laughs were even better. There were lots of laughs that night.
I wouldn't want to be laughing with anyone else. Someone who can make me smile even in the middle of an argument. After nine long short, wonderful years, the only piece of advice I have is marry someone who makes you laugh. I like to follow my mom's motto: live, laugh, love. It works for us.
. It was a last minute addition but too late I realized she was not going to be able to dig into it like the cupcake. Oh well, it was cute. Maybe next year we can make it again and stick a toy on top of it!
