Happy Birthday Baby Animals

We took the kids and their friend Brianna to the birthday party for the baby animals at Farm Country. Carter was so excited he could hardly contain himself and couldn't wait to tell all the animals Happy Birthday. He seriously loves birthdays more than any kid I've ever met. He gets so excited! We saw the new baby animals (and Carter personally wished each one Happy Birthday), ate birthday cake, rode a cow train, and played farm games. The girls won poppers from a game and were thrilled--they love those little plastic poppers and play with them forever.

Carter loved this feeding trough that was filled with sawdust. We couldn't even get him out of it to eat the cake...pretty shocking for Carter to turn down food.

Right as we were leaving we got to see this baby horse that had just been born. He was 10 minutes old and still all wet and matted down from birth. We got to stand right by him and pet him, but his mama was pretty protective and kept nudging herself between him and the eager kids who wanted to pet him. It was the highlight of the animal birthday party.

Here's a video of Carter wishing the animals Happy Birthday. Note to grandparents: the videos don't come through the email so you'll have to pull up the blog if you want to see a video that's posted. :)

It's a....

BOY!

Cast Off Day

Doesn't he look excited to get his cast off? Turns out the broken leg/cast was only traumatic for his parents. Carter loved his cast and I think he especially loved the attention he got everywhere he went. He lives for attention and being in the spotlight and ate up people asking him about his leg. He walked, ran, and climbed the ladders on slides with a cast on--so I guess he saw no need to get it off. Plus, he hates any kind of change at all.

A couple nights before "cast off" day I was telling him how great it was going to be to get it off. He got mad and kept saying "no" "no" "I want my cast". I insisted that he really did have to get it off and it would be fun to be able to play and jump again. He thought about that and then in a chipper voice said, "Then I'll jump off the slide and break this leg (pointing to his good leg). And then I'll get a new cast!" He was so thrilled with his new idea.

John and I were pretty disturbed at his thought process and tried to remind him that it hurt to break his leg, but he had no memory of that. He just wanted another cast!

He was terrified by the process of cutting the cast off and cried the whole time and told the doctor "I want my cast on". Here is his leg right after getting the cast off. We'd heard that his leg would be little and shriveled up and scaly, but it looked normal. His skin was dry and red around his ankle, but that was about it.

We had a "cast off" party for him. The girls made posters and hung them all over his room and we celebrated with a cake. He insisted on lighting a candle and having us sing "Happy Cast Off Day to You". (He really enjoys the birthday song and candle thing and any occasion is a good one :) This was the first smile he cracked all day. He was so upset about having his cast taken off and he thought he was crippled without it and refused to walk. This party cheered him up and a couple hours later he started walking on it...and now he's back to normal. Hooray!

Happy Easter

Easter Clothes

This was spontaneous, I promise. He reached up to kiss Emmie and I caught it on camera. Proves that there are sweet little moments that come shining through his crazy, wild boy exterior.

Easter Morning:

Easter Egg Hunt!

First Tooth

Emily found her first wiggly tooth and was so excited to join the world of lost teeth and tooth fairy visits. When that tooth finally fell out (literally) she was thrilled. She took great care to leave her tooth in the perfect spot for the tooth fairy. But, her greatest concern was waiting for morning to come so she could run across the street and show her best friend that she had lost her tooth!In the morning she headed over to show off her new smile to her friend and we were surprised to see that Lizzie had lost her first tooth the night before too--the exact same tooth. So here is a picture of the little twinner girls together. Such a fun memory for these two little soul sisters.

About a week later, she lost the other bottom front tooth. It fell out while she was walking up the stairs. She really waits until they come out on their own! So now she's got an adorable smile with a big hole. I still can't believe she's losing teeth already. She's still my little preschooler and seems way too little. She may be missing half her teeth by the time she starts kindergarten in the fall. :)

Cookie Cutters...Times Three

Expensive. But worth it. I can see my kids eyes again!