Time for Cake

I have been making my kids' birthday cakes ever since Taylor was born 14 years ago...there have only been a few...literally 3 cakes that I have not made myself.  Well, this is the 4th!  And I decided if it wasn't homemade by mom...then it would be an ice cream cake!  Lainah was so excited to have ice cream INSIDE of her cake!

And here we go...six candles to blow out...

but before we begin...Lainah had to be a little silly.  She tried several times to actually blow...but each time we all started laughing.  She's hilarious!  We had to keep little Addy away from the cake, she kept trying to take the pony off, and Matthew was concerned that if Lainah didn't get her candles blown out, that the pony's mane and tail would start on fire. 

But not to worry...she did eventually get them out and there was no fire in the house that evening.

Seriously...these clowns...

Andy and I bought this kitchen table while we were college students at ISU about 15 years ago.  We bought it used and found it in the Thrifty Nickel ads.  I remember when we bought it that we said, "yay!  This will be a great table until we can afford to buy the dining set we really want."  Well...now I look at this table 15 years later and I'm always amazed at how we can squeeze all of us around it.  It has definitely seen it's fair share of birthday celebrations!

Even little Emma got to wear a party hat!  But she didn't think it was fair that she didn't get any cake or ice cream.  Prunes are NOT the same...poor baby.

As tradition goes...the birthday star gets to cut and serve the cake!  Lainah wanted to save the entire section with her name on it for herself.  Too awesome!

And Matthew just makes me laugh at his quirkiness.  He decided after his first piece that he just wanted a little bit more ice cream...so he very carefully and precisely, carved out a piece of ice cream from the cake.  What a funny guy!

There it is...his piece of ice cream.  He is too funny.

One more successful birthday celebration in the Thuernagle house!

One last funny note:  when we were all finished, I put the cover over the cake and asked Taylor to take it outside to the freezer in the garage.  I made sure to tell him twice to put it into the FREEZER, not the fridge.  Well...the next day I went out to pull it from the freezer, and it wasn't there!  I panicked...opened up the fridge...and yep.  There it was.  In the fridge.  Luckily, it was still holding it's form...but it was starting to bulge on the sides.  I hurried and transferred it into the freezer before we had a cake eruption.  Taylor and I had a good laugh over that one.

More Than Groundhog Day!

On February 2nd, We, the people of the United States of America, put all of our trust in a little rodent named "Phil" from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, to tell us whether or not our winter is going to end or continue on for six more weeks.  Amazing, isn't it? 

 

But February 2nd is a special day for more than just rodent weather forecasting...February 2nd is Lainah's birthday and she turned 6 this year!

Because her birthday fell on a Monday, we actually celebrated all weekend long!  Saturday, we took the family swimming as her special birthday activity...and if you know Lainah, you know that she is a little fish and LOVES to swim so she was super excited.

Then, because her older siblings had basketball and volleyball practice on Monday evening, we had her special birthday dinner, cake and presents on Sunday right after church.  We always let the birthday star choose their dinner menu...and Lainah once again chose Hawaiian Haystacks. 

Lainah has been using Matthew's or Brooklynn's scooters for the past year...she loves to ride the scooters so when she opened up her big gift to see that it was her very OWN scooter...well, forget Phil and the weather....THIS was truly a cause for celebration!

And not only did she now have a scooter of her very own...but it was a Sophia the First scooter...and there's really nothing better than that when you're six.

Meanwhile, Rachel and Emma were having fun watching the gift unwrapping...

And we just couldn't help but document how cute Emma's chunky baby legs are.  Yay for baby chubby bubby fat rolls!!!  Nothing cuter!

And...Addy (who is potty training and showing off her cute Little Mermaid panties) likes the princess scooter too!

Lainah is in Kindergarten, and can read beginner books really well, and likes doing math on my ipad.  She is also learning to write, and has been writing me little love notes and leaving them on my dresser.  They are my little treasures...I love that some of her very first sentences ever were written to me and Andy.

  She loves to play outside, especially riding the scooters and jumping on the trampoline. 

She also loves to dress up in her princess costumes, or ballet skirts and dance around the house.  One of the things I love most is the sparkle in Lainah's eyes when she gets excited...her entire face just lights up with a beautiful contagious energy! 

 

HAPPY 6TH BIRTHDAY LAINAH!!!!!

Addyson

This is my little Addyson.  As you can clearly see from the pictures, she is full of giggles and smiles. 

I remember when she was first born, that I would hold her close to me while we both slept (yes, I broke all those rules the nurses give you) and I would put my nose in her hair and breath in deeply. 

She would snuggle right up to me and I loved it.  She is still my little snugglebug...and frequently comes up to me with her blankey because she wants me to hold her and snuggle.  I still like to put my nose in her hair and breath in her sweet Addyson scent. 

 

 She is 2 1/2 years old, and she loves yogurt, ponies, and Anna and Elsa from Frozen.

She is also in one of the funniest stages right now where she mimicks everything she sees and hears.  I was taking her picture a few minutes before with my pink phone...as soon as I was done, she grabbed my phone and starting "taking pictures" of me. 

My parents came to visit this weekend, and had stopped in for a short visit last weekend too...what a treat!  Both times, Addy brought her blankey up to grandpa and snuggled with him on our big comfy chair.  He was patting her cheeks, and then she reached up and patted his cheeks right back.  Too, too cute.  For the past few days, she has been walking around saying, "where's grandpa?" 

 

So it looks like little Addy is a "grandpa's girl" too.  

Extractions

Rachel has had a few teeth that have needed to come out for a while.  In fact, two of her adult teeth were bulging on the side of her upper gums.  They couldn't come down because of these little baby stragglers.  Well, on December 23rd, 2 days before Christmas, Andy wanted to take her down to the office and extract them.  I usually do not question anything dental-related, however, this time I put my foot down and told him no way! 

 

I asked him to please wait until AFTER Christmas so that Rachel could enjoy eating our Christmas Dinner feast.  He laughed and said that he hadn't even thought about THAT part of extracting her teeth.  Seriously.  Too funny.

 

So a few days after our feasting...we had a dental procedure in the kitchen.

She was very brave.  She hates needles, and needed me to hold her hand, but she did it.

Check out the roots on that baby!  Holy Cow!  That tooth wasn't going anywhere on its own!

and here's the post Christmas lineup...

Now her adult teeth can come DOWN instead of out the side...and Rachel's super excited to finally be getting all of her adult teeth in because then she can finally get her spacer retainer out and then have braces.  Her retainer makes her have a lisp and makes it really hard to sing and enunciate well.  I miss the way my Rachel really sounds!

 



A Very Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas.  I love seeing the kids faces when they come in to see the tree and the gifts that were left for them under and around the tree.  I always look forward to watching them open gifts and seeing their cute expressions and hearing their funny exclamations as they discover one surprise after another. 

 

This year, Santa brought our little Addy her very own horsey.  She loved it.  In fact, she opened most of the rest of her presents from on top of her horse because she didn't want to get off of him. 

Lainah was SO excited because she had asked Santa to bring her a "plastic snowflake."  Where does she come up with these funny little requests?  Who knows...but luckily Santa is amazing...because that was the first thing she looked for in her stocking and loved her new plastic snowflake ornament.

Along with Addy's horse "Lucky" came a little cowgirl hat.  I love this little polka-dotted cowgirl.

Brooklynn asked for a makeup kit.  She and Rachel were conspiring to go do makeovers immediately after opening gifts.

How did Santa know that Taylor really likes Axe cologne and products?  Look out ladies...he's fully stocked now.

Rachel was grinning ear to ear before she had even opened anything.

Lainah had also asked Santa for a ballet dress.  She has been dancing around the house in her new pink leotard, long white tutu and new ballet shoes ever since Christmas morning.

Santa did something fun this year...he gave mom and dad and the Tay and Rachey movie tickets.  So we got to go out on some fun dates to some great movies!

And Matthew got the helicopter he had been hoping for...I love his cute grin and bed head hair.

Every year, the kids try to leave more and more things on Santa's plate.  They each want to leave him something.  I keep trying to tell them that Santa would be happy with veggies too...but no, they just leave him lots and lots of chocolate, cookies, carmel, fudge, and hot cocoa.  And in the morning, they check his plate to see if he finished it all.  This year, Santa left them a treat in return!  A jar of "Santa's Cookies" mix, straight from the North Pole.

And another surprise this year...it looked like Santa may have had a difficult time getting back up the fireplace...because he left a little ribbon in the doors.

And there was a large boot print in the ashes.  Matthew could not believe it!  He wanted to climb onto the roof to see if he could see the sleigh and reindeer tracks too!

Happy 1st Christmas to Emma Elyse!  She had to lick everything...and was super happy to just sit with mommy and watch everyone.

Her "My First Christmas" bib passed the goober test.

Emma is such a sweet baby.  She was just happy to be in the middle of everything and everyone.  All smiles.

Lainah made a quick change and started dancing around for all of us. 

Another fun thing we did this year was instead of having each of the kids buy everyone a gift...we had them exchange names and MAKE a HOMEMADE gift for their person.  Andy and I were also included.  In years past, it has just felt like way to much stuff when we each give everyone else a gift.  So we tried to tame it down a little.  It was a LOT more work for me, because I had to help nearly all of the kids with their gift-making...but it really was worth it. 

 

This year, the kids really thought about their gift-giving more, and when it came time to open...the giver and receiver alike were much more excited.  There was a great feeling that I think we've been lacking in years past.

 

Brooklynn received a knitting loom for her birthday in August...and so she decided to make Taylor a hat and scarf in his new school's colors.  She worked for a couple of weeks to finish these.  It was awesome!

And...here they all are with their homemade gifts.  Rachel made Matthew his soccer ball blanket all by herself without help, and everyone else had me help them make their person a blanket.  Addy had Emma...so I made Emma a "snuggly."  Lainah helped me choose a soft little stuffed animal for it, and she loves it.  She sleeps with it every night now.

In 2004, I made Andy an apron with mine and the kids handprints on it.  In 2004, it was just Taylor, Rachel, and 4 month old Brooklynn.  This year, Andy surprised me by making me an apron with everyone's handprints on it.  There's a few more hands these days. 

And Andy also surprised me with a super soft cuddly blanket of my own.  But the sweetest thing of all, besides the fact that he made it himself...was the little buzz lightyear that was sewn onto one corner. 

On the bottom of Buzz's foot is the name "Andy" of course...and Andy said this blanket was to snuggle in when I was missing him.  So even if he was away I could always have my Andy close. 

This was about the sweetest Christmas present ever.

I think the reason why I love the soft magical glow of the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve night, is because it is an illustration of how I feel in my heart when my family is all gathered around giving and receiving gifts given with love. 

Merry Christmas 2014!



Christmas Sugar Exchange

 

This year instead of drawing names and exchanging pajamas for Christmas...we decided to shake things up a bit and exchange cereal.  The kids have been complaining that we don't ever buy sugar cereals...so we told them "anything goes" and all cereal was fair game.  It was interesting to see what they chose for their person.  The only coaching I did was with Matthew.  He had Brooklynn, and out of all the sugar cereals in the cereal aisle...he wanted to get her Rice Crispies.  (To his credit, he LOVES Rice Crispies.)  I just knew that if she was the only one with a plain boring cereal, she'd feel bad...so he chose Lucky Charms instead. 

Taylor was given Hershey's Cookies n Cream...and I had to go down to his room and find his box in order to take this picture.  I think if he had a locker at home, he would have had his cereal locked up.  Too funny.  And...Andy and Lainah somehow missed the memo on getting their person a "box of cereal."  Lainah gave Rachel the huge bag of Coco Roos...there may or may not have been a little mumbling about Rachel getting a larger quantity of sugar on Christmas morning.  And little Emma was given Rice cereal with Bananas...because she was just starting to eat solid foods.  Yumm.....

 

This was SO fun!  I think we'll have to do it again next year!