The party

Better late than never...here's a rundown of Zach and Ben's birthday party from April. We lucked up with great weather, and were so happy to see all those that were able to make it! I know as the boys get older their tastes will begin to differ, so for now I'm grateful that they can still agree on some things, and an Angry Birds theme is what they wanted, so that's what they got!

Making decorations for their party was easy (albeit a bit time consuming) and lots of fun. 

I was in a pretty foul mood when I started making the decorations for their cake, but it was impossible for me to stay grouchy after I got underway. I had so much fun making the birds and piggies. 

This was the boys' first party with guests and presents, so they had no etiquette when it came to the gifts. They were ripping into some of them before it was present time. My bad for not prepping them for that! 

The Angry Birds' 'missing eggs' tied in perfectly to it being Easter weekend.  I'm not a big fan of egg hunts (to competitive for my liking) so I tried to come up with a way to make it fun and fair, but ultimately ended up just telling each of the kids to find 10 eggs and then stop. They did and it was the most pleasant egg hunt I've witnessed!

 

 

Thanks to all the beautiful faces pictured here (and those that are not) for coming and spending time to celebrate with us!

Six years...what!? Time flew. 

 Oh, and thanks to Carrie and Bobby's sweet camera (used to take all these shots) I'm now disgusted with my own to the point where I find myself cursing under my breath whenever I use it now.

March...and April

I'm behind as usual...again.

Rather than a lengthy post I think I'll stick to some photos to recap the highlights. :) Forgive me for taking the lazy approach.

A bunch of us got together for a little bowling to celebrate Joy's birthday.  It was a lot of fun, and we definitely need to do it again soon. 

A birthday morning is as good as Christmas morning for this cow-licked duo. Since we planned to head out to FL on the boys' birthday, we promised them an early start and managed to squeeze a lot into their day. 

We were planning on a birthday party for the boys, so I promised them a big Angry Birds cake for it. I had no intentions of throwing together a cake before we were scheduled to leave, but the look on Ben's face when I told him no cake was enough to make me feel like poo, so this is what he and I came up with. Ben did all the decorating himself. 

Regardless of the sad circumstances for our FL visit, we had absolutely no problem enjoying the beautiful weather and our wonderful friends' company while we were there. I was really grateful for the opportunity to spend so much time with Emma. Her personality is something else, and I thoroughly enjoyed all the time I had with her.

Brandi asked me to make a birthday cake for her mom, Debbie's, surprise party. Debbie is a huge Disney fan, and I was excited for such a fun theme. After returning home and feeling a little down, this was a wonderfully fun distraction. 

We got incredibly lucky this year and have been enjoying pretty mild weather now for a couple of months. It's fun to be in a home where we get seasonal surprises for the first year. I had bulbs to plant in the fall and waited too long and missed my window. I was happy to see the last tenants had some planted some and we were treated to a flower bed of tulips. We also had the most gorgeous (and unfortunately super stinky) blossoms on the tree in our front yard.  

Another Canfield member joined the world. Preston James was born on April 8. I'm so excited to meet him in May. :) Congrats again James, Brooke, Jaydaka and Madison!

I was all excited for clear skies and a reasonable hour to view the lunar eclipse. I was awake but had set my alarm in case I dozed off....good thing I went out early to check if things had started because I had looked at the wrong time zone and nearly missed it.

I was in the worst of moods before I started the boys' birthday party cake and was no mood for making decorations or hosting a party, but after I got started on these figures for it and saw the boys' excitement grow with each one I finished, my spirits lifted tremendously. :)

While D and the boys went on a fishing trip with my dad to Lake Powell, I headed out to MN to spend some time relaxing and talking the ears off of my dear friend Lyndsay. One of these days I'll figure out how not to be such a chatterbox! 

Zach has no problem pooping and peeing wherever, whenever. He layed down some serious stink in a bucket on the boat during their fishing trip, and it was so bad that Ben puked over the side of the boat.