Other Happenings….

 

Mother’s Day has come and gone. Here’s what I got from Sophia from school.

I loved it. Especially her artistic flowers all over the box.

Here’s Sophia at a Multicultural fair at the school. She’s pointing to her X-ray fish drawing. Her class studied Australia and did some art projects about the animals there.

For our Anniversary (8 years baby!), John rented the newest Harry Potter on video (bleh, so anticlimatic!) and made me this awesome Ice Cream sculpture of Hogwarts. Notice the hot fudge moat and sprinkles? This man knows a way to a woman’s heart, I mean a way to my sugar cravings.

 

We put batteries in this lil gorilla that sings our wedding song. Now the kids know all 15 seconds of it by heart. We’ve got another date tonight- away from the house, without children! So exciting.

 

Last but not least, I got together with some friends for a dancing night. So fun. The smiles on our faces say it all.

Thanks for the fun night, Ladies!

Monkey Man had a birthday, shout Hooray!

First, let’s get the pesky party details out of the way, so we can focus on how cute Leo is.

We made a triple chocolate monkey cake. Recipe here at Best Bites. Then we decorated the cake with vanilla wafer ears and eyes, and Cocoa Krispies for texture.

The yellow plate monkey one is 6 inches, for Leo to smash! Or in his case, it was more like POKE! You’ll see in a minute.

 

I made a little birthday sign with my Cricut.

And made a felt crown (which is pretty much the easiest thing to sew- ever. And I whipped up some party hats.

Ok, so he’s only 1, so a cute hat and a cake, that’s all he gets. Tried to reign myself in here, keep it simple. We had a BBQ at the park with our cousins for a celebration.

But first I took some shots. I borrowed a friend’s 50mm lens, so I wanted to see what kind of dreamy artsy shots I could get.

A 50 mm is pretty good if you want your kid to look like a Claritin commercial. Especially if you are using automatic focus. Once I went to manual focus, I got some good shots

Well, good for a little baby who doesn’t sit still for long. Leo didn’t seem too excited to look at me, he was more interested in the soccer practice going on next to the pavilion.

Here’s a side by side of the same shot with 50 mm vs. zoom lens, 1.8 vs. 5.6 f stop. More exposure on the second- I like the first dreamy Evie better.

Ok, so enough camera talk. Here’s the Par-TAY!

I love these giggly girls, especially together. Their conversations are hilarious. Don’t they look like a commercial for summertime?

Superhero Ninjas Unite!

 

Here’s the cake pictures. Leo told us all about the cake, he ate more when we gave him a spoon, I think he was distracted by the cocoa krispies.

At home we opened presents. Well, the girls did, and baby boo-bah looked more like this- a deer in the headlights. Looking at this picture with his puppy dog eyes makes me miss him, and he’s only been asleep napping for an hour. I’m going to be a wreck when I look at this picture in 5 years. Or 18 years when he goes on a mission.  Man. I Love you Leo!

Happy Birthday!

Leo at one year old…

Yesterday was Leo’s Birthday! This is the first time I’m commemorating such an occasion with a vast description of my child. Usually I post my party pics and call it a day, but scrapbooking has taught me to write down the little habits of my kids, because they don’t stay that way for long.

So here’s some shots of baby boo-bah and his many, many talents:

Standing up, eating with no hands, practicing for his circus tricks

Yelling at his sister to give him some space, laughing with her when she’s silly

 

Preaching to his apple during breakfast and sucking on the lids of containers

Opening the sliding glass door and climbing up to the dishwasher

Playing the piano from on top of the Love Sack, watching his sisters open his presents, WALKING!!!

Looking dreamily off into the sunset, yelling at his sisters about grass, taste testing grass

Sticking his tongue out as he charges, sitting pretty for pictures

Other talents not pictured: Biting our toes, getting into locked fireplaces, crawling up my legs as I exercise, giggling constantly whenever his sisters are around.

Little Man loves his daddy, and whenever he’s near his office tries to knock or open the door and invite John out to play. He is my first child to actually play with cars and be entertained making them go back and forth, he loves to sit and make the wheels spin on upside down wagons. His ability to find dirt and try to eat it has forced me to keep my house really really clean. He’s recently started sleeping for longer than 4 hours at a time (finally!). He loves strawberries and almost all fruit- except for bananas. He’s brought so much laughter and love with him in the past year.

Bubba, I love ya. Happy Birthday!