A month of birthdays...

Happy Birthday!!!

In our house, September is the month to party! We have one birthday every week in September, and usually by the end we are partied out! This year we had a lot of fun...

For Christina's 6th birthday, we decided to get the gift she's been asking for for the past 3 years: a cat. Jared took Christina for a surprise drive a week before her birthday. She didn't know where they were going, but she was thrilled to find out what her early birthday gift was going to be! She named him Isaac (who knows why, usually she names things "Princess"; now we have Jacob and Isaac - maybe we should have named our dog Abraham!) The other kids were thrilled also, as was our dog! He spent his first night curled up next to Goggles!

The following week was Jacob's 8th birthday!

He had a birthday party with a few friends from school and a few of the neighbor kids. His theme: skateboarding. His gift: a skateboard and knee and elbow pads. So far, no broken bones!

This game was looking for money in the beans. It was a favorite! We had to come up with it at the last minute, because we'd planned a party at the park, and then it ended up raining.

The next day we let the kids use all the water balloons we'd made for the party but didn't get to use. They had a lot of fun!

Finally, we got to Caroline's 4th birthday. She and I went to the store to pick out a cake. She picked out the Cinderella one. It had little figurines of Cinderella and the prince. Caroline wanted to have some when we got home, but I told her we had to wait until the next day when all her friends would come over for a party. When we got home, I carried the cake in the house, then went back out to carry in the rest of the groceries we had bought. When I finally finished and came up the stairs, Caroline was standing there with a very guilty look on her face. I said, "Caroline, what did you do?" She said defiantly, "It's my cake!" I went to the table where I had set the cake to find it looking like this...

She had taken all the cute figurines and cutouts off and eaten a lot of the frosting! Fortunately I had the presence of mind to take a picture so I could laugh about it later. At least I was able to salvage it enough so we could still use it for the party!

The next day she had several friends over from church to celebrate with her. Our friend Tina painted their faces for one of the activities. Caroline and her friend Emma wanted to be cats.

Our little baby, now four years old. She now tells us how she can drive the car, open cans, wear makeup, and many other things, because "now she's four!"

School Days...

Everyone was very excited for school to start this year! (Except Jared, who could have stood a few more months of summer before heading to Grad. school!) I thought that things would calm down a little bit with kids in school part of the day. However, I have yet to find a moment with nothing that needs to get done so I can sit on the couch and eat bon bons!

Jacob's first day of 2nd grade!

Christina getting ready for her first day of Kindergarten!

A rare moment...

Jacob was not thrilled to learn that he'd have to share a bus ride with his sister!

The whole family waiting at the bus stop at 7 a.m.

(Including our good friend Tina who's currently staying with us, Goggles our dog, and Elmo...)

The long awaited bus ride!

Caroline's first day of preschool. She told me the other day she missed having Christina at school with her - that now it was boring.

(Last year the girls went to preschool together, and Caroline referred to it as Christina's school.)