the man party

this weekend was larry's birthday.

in the past we haven't been very good about celebrating each others birthday's.

i'm not really sure why this is. i think it might have something to do with the fact that we tend to be out of town on our birthday's.

or it could be that as a kid my parents didn't really celebrate theirs.

anyway, i decided that it's time for that to change!

so i tried to quickly organize a man party for larry.

and no man party is complete without a "manly" cake.

our friend stacey is such a cake genius!

she only had a couple days notice and this was what she was able to put together

larry loved it of course.

the trophy pose

the entire cake was edible so we couldn't resist

getting some silly shots of the disassembled body parts

the only pictures i got guest wise were the two dans

dan h. enjoying an ear

dan r. chomping on an antler

and even though it was a "man" party, i couldn't leave the kids out

when the cake was so awesome!

bella chowing on.... i'm not even really sure what that is

after cake the men went off to see sherlock holmes and had a good ol time.

all in all, i would consider the first man party a success.

of course without the rocking cake it would have been lacking so thanks stac for taking an idea and bringing it to life! you are the best!!

happy birthday brookie

last week brooke turned 5. five is such a big birthday. it marks the beginning of the academic career. and once they get into school the time flys so fast! it still seems like yesterday to me that brendan started school and he's in fifth grade this year. so in many ways i was dreading this birthday. i don't like that my kids are growing up so fast.

to keep the blog birthday tradition going, here's our little birth story (minuses all the gory details)brooke was a little bit of a surprise. i got a new promotion at work and found out i was expecting all in the same month. it was crazy! i was sure that i wouldn't be able to work after i had her but the thought of giving up the career that i had worked so hard at was a big decision. and working while pregnant is just not a fun thing to do. running to the bathroom to puke, hoping that whoever was in the stall next to me wouldn't recognize my shoes, trying not to fall asleep at my desk fifty times a day, trying not to take my raging hormones out on everyone in fits that would have resembled a two year old tantrum. and of course there's the whole "i'm pregnant so my brain is on vacation" issue. it was a great time those last few months. i have to say that i prefer being at home, having kids running around and screaming to working in the office while pregnant any day ;) but we made it through and she was so precious!


as far as labors go, her's was the easiest out of all the kids. the only complication we had was that the epidural would only take on one side for awhile. i learned during that time that natural birth is not something i am interested in. bring on the drugs baby!! the funniest part of her delivery is that in the packing bags for the other two kids in the middle of the night i forgot shoes. so brendan had to wear a pair of cowboy boots that belonged to my friend amy's girl. i felt so silly when she told me what happened. how could i forget the shoes?!? he of course didn't care one bit.

for the first several months brooke's hair stood up all the time. one of my friends dubbed her the fraggle rock baby. and it was so fitting. her hair was insanely crazy. and we totally stole her name from my friend michelle. larry and i just couldn't agree on anything and she told me she had always loved the name brookelyn. i immediately fell in love with it and asked her permission to use it since they were not going to have anymore kids. her full name is brookelyn paige and my brother in law teased us stating that she was the only baby he knew of that all three names were a noun. so true. i didn't even think of it. but even if i had, i wouldn't have changed it. i love her name.

she was a very happy and content baby. but when she did get mad - look out! i guess that was a prelude of things to come. but we love brooke so much. she brings joy to our lives everyday and we are so grateful to have her in our family.

Happy Birthday Bellaruski!!

Bella turned 8 on the 6th of July. It is positively amazing to me that she is already 8! Where oh where does the time go! Bella has always been beautiful. I know that I am biased because she is my daughter, but it's the truth. When she was born, the nurses couldn't stop gushing about how beautiful she was and how perfect her coloring was. That was after she lost her initial purple hue. When they brought her back to me after her bath the nurse confessed that they had been playing with her hair in the nursery. Trying to style it. They were really sweet. Bella was born about two weeks early. With Brendan I had to be induced so when labor started in the middle of the night I was really nervous about what was going on and didn't know what to expect. But out of the kids, Bella's delivery was by far the easiest. I got to the hospital about 6 and she was born at 10:30. Not as fast as some other people I know, but it was fast to me. And my dr was great. We all laughed the whole time. Not kidding! I got the giggles about something and couldn't stop and then the laughs caught on to everyone else. The only complication was my epidural. For some reason the dr couldn't find the right spot and she actually put four holes in my spinal sac. That meant that I had a greater risk for getting a spinal migraine which can be horrible. To try and prevent that from happening they kept my iv in and gave me a lot of caffeine to drink. It worked and I was migraine free. However the increased fluid made me swell really bad. My eyes swelled so badly that I just had little slits for a couple of days.
Bella and I had a birthday party together up at the lake and then this Friday I took her, Brooke and two of her friends to see Kung Fu Panda. Which, if you have not seen it, is a really funny movie. We all really liked it. The girls were hysterical. When I told them that it was getting close to movie time they decided that they had to have some jewels. Because, when you get ready for a girls night out you have to put on your jewelry and makeup. Gee - where could they have gotten that idea from I wonder......
Bella with her cake. I opted not to make one this year so Larry got a black forest one. It was lovely to look at and tasted divine.
We turned our backs for a second and found Lily stealing the rest of the cherries off the cake.
No party is complete at our house without jumping on the tramp.

Look at how much air Brooke got on this jump (she's in orange). I was shocked when I looked at the picture and realized how high up in the air she is!!

Bella is such a special part of our family. I could never list all of her wonderful qualities but here are a few. Bella is:

1. honestly one of the most loving children I have ever met in my life. She is always concerned about others and tries really hard to make sure that everyone is included.
2. very compassionate. I don't like to watch the news with her around because she gets really worked up about the newstories.
3. very thoughtful and quick to give people compliments.
4. honest and genuine.
5. full of energy and fun loving!

Bella always:

1. has a smile on her face.
2. tries really hard to help out. Especially with Lily
3. is singing. She loves to sing and make up her own songs.
   

We love you Bella!