Doesn’t she look proud! Her teeth are so tiny you can barely even see it in her hand.

The rest of the story…. her big 10 yr old brother, Jared, pulled it out for her!! LOL We have it all on video thanks to Papa as I could not stand to watch. I could hardly believe she sat right there and trusted him so much and never said as much as an ouch. Very sweet.

The boys wanted me to show you their finished lego projects.

Both lego constructions are over 700 pieces!

I suppose it shouldn’t surprise those of you that know me well that I am very conservative in most areas of our life. As I watch my girls grow up I am only becoming more insistent that my girls (and myself) learn to always be modest in their apparel. For years I have to admit I tended to mock those who were like this and thought they were over board. However, having my twin girlies now has completely changed my thinking! (If you think this is bad wait until you see what I am like when a boy tries to court them!!! )

Seriously, are these not the cutest, most feminine swim suits?! Phoebe is showing you that under the skirt is the full suit that goes down to just above her knees like you would see in a normal UV suit that I typically have them wear. I love the modesty addition of the skirt on these though! I do wish the sleeves went down further not for modesty, but for sun coverage like the UV suits. Regardless, they are adorable and my desire for modesty is definitely met with these! You can find them at Swim Modest. Although, they seem to be out of inventory currently. My girls are wearing the waikiki color.

Would you believe we were blessed by getting them half off the normal price too? Yup! A local homeschool Mom ordered these for her two girls, but found them just a bit too small so she offered them to us at half the price. They are brand new, never worn and rather than go through the return process while she was also making a move overseas she blessed us. Perfect for our upcoming trip to MO! Thank you, Lord!

The morning started out like this after receiving a package from “Mini” his Grandmother. I didn’t think I was going to get him to do anything else for the day! lol You see Mini was a third grade teacher so she has all these great books hidden away at her house. Caleb recently has been into Robin Hood and that time period. (I have more pics to show you of his Robin Hood obsession later.) Anyway, Caleb started screaming out of excitement when he opened this present from his Mini!! This is pretty much all we saw for quite some time when he dived into the book. He is already analyzing the difference from the movie and the book.

He even dared to give me the “one second” finger when I called his name! Good thing it was his birthday because he normally would not have gotten away with that!

Siblings lovin’ on the birthday boy! The balloons at the top are hanging off my chandelier.

There is a story here… On Jared’s b-day, only three days beforehand, we were getting ready to go out the door when I realized Caleb had sweatpants on that had a tiny hole in the knee. Obviously, I had to tell him to please go change into something nicer before going out in public. He obeyed respectfully, but then asked if on his birthday if he could wear sweatpants all day. I told him yes, but not one’s with a hole in the knee. This kid hates denim jeans or any pants that feel cold. I guess sweatpants feel better and are never cold when you put them on according to Caleb. Can we say sensory integration issues still? So. Back to his birthday and this picture…. He wore is absolute favorite sweatpants which happen to be camo. Papa had found the camo wrapping paper on one of his excursions. Caleb immediately noticing the camo paper throws his leg up and says, “LOOK MAMA! The wrapping paper and my pants match!” Simple things make Caleb happy that is for sure!

Birthday Dinner Time! Caleb picked tacos. As you can see he is making his own here.

Is there a tortilla under all of that?!

Papa and Caleb enjoyed a blue corn shell for their second round.

Caleb proudly displays his cards!

The first reaction of his favorite gift from Mama and Papa. (Ignore the snowman blanket over our loveseat. We are trying to think cold in the heat wave. j/k We all just like the fleece to cuddle with during movies. Guess I need to get some fleece lap blankets with a different seasonal theme!)

Caleb got real excited telling us all about what he loved about the gift, Lego Creator Stegosaurus. It actually creates three huge dinos -Stego, T-Rex and Pterodactyl. His favorite part…the eyes all glow red!

Still beaming!

Time to blow the candles out!  I love his round little cheeks! This was a tricky cake to make interesting for the candle time. Caleb wanted a ginger bread cake with whip cream for his birthday dessert. Seeing that it’s the most yummy warm and we couldn’t put cream on it and have it last I had to come up with a quick way to decorate. I just grabbed the frosting candy decorations to plop on top and used my stone wear as I knew Caleb would think it was very earthy and dino like. He loved it!! Again, I love how simple things really do make Caleb happy.

Here’s the whip cream and the three candies he picked –one balloon,
one swirly and the letter T. Not sure why that letter? T-Rex maybe? lol

Caleb told me, after seeing his birthday pics, that I had to put this one on my blog because he liked that it was of him and me together. Aw!

Jared picked Lasagna for his birthday meal. Notice he recently just lost two teeth?

Siblings and Best Friends!

The Bowling Lane Cake! I let Jared put the final bowling ball on that was going down the lane. Actually it was his idea! If you look back at the pictures I showed you of what I was planning on doing they didn’t put this ball going down the lane. As you see I ended up going with the fruit strips rather than the twizzlers. I tried with the twizzlers but they were too annoying and twisty to work with.

Jared does a practice run on whether he can blow the candles from the beginning of the lane. He had the most fun with this cake!!

Getting ready to make his strike on his birthday candles (aka pins). Can he do it?!

STRIKE!!! He got all ten out in one blow on the first try!!! Even he couldn’t believe it. (I’ll have to tell his allergist/asthma doc this one! They always have him blow out candles on a computer screen to test his lung function at the time of visit) I have this moment on the other video camera that Eric was operating while I was taking pics. You will have to take my word for it.

I did ask him do it again for me a couple more times to see if I could get a quick video on the point and shoot for you all, but he wasn’t able to get a strike again. Here’s the two I captured that way… (I couldn’t decide which one I liked better)

After the candles were blown out Jared played with the gumball (I mean bowling ball) and knocked the candles down for a strike! He thanked me over and over for making him a “special cake.” I’m so glad he like it!

Look at all these cards he got!! My kids all love their cards from Grandparents. In this picture he is looking at three photos that Grammy Dena gave him from his piano recital. He ran and got his wallet immediately to hide his money away that was found in some of the cards.

The grand moment when he opened up his favorite gift from Mama and Papa. I thought he was going jump right out his skin! Papa actually got this gift on one of his ministry trips as there was only one left in practically our entire state! We called every Toys R Us there was. It was just fortunate the only Toys R Us that had ONE left was in the very city that Eric had to travel too. We had them hold it for us. Hooray for Papa on this one!!

If only you could hear his reaction at this point!! Unfortunately, all video was taken on my new HD camera and I don’t have the software yet to download videos for you.

 

Here it is! The Lego Technic Cherry Picker and Dump Truck MOTORIZED! This kid flipped when he opened this thing!! Look at that smile!

He was beaming for a LOOONG time! He even came running across the room right after this shot and jumped onto my lap giving me a big hug. I will have to get you a pic of the finished project. He did NOTHING (with the exception of minor necessities like eating meals) all day on Sunday but put this thing together. I have never seen my son so attentive to one thing before. I guess I know what to look for next Christmas as there are more in this series.

Off to candlepin bowling! The kids loved that everything was computerized. Especially the cartoons on the screen above your head to show what you got after hitting the pins. It was great to have the bumpers automatically go up when the computer knew it was a child’s turn and then go down for Eric and I. Things certainly have come a long way since I was a child!

The birthday boy working hard to beat us all! He did on the first game, but Mama gave him good competition on the second game. Jared had a blast trying to beat me! He liked that he won one and I won one.

Phoebe always ended up with her hands in the air after throwing her ball at about 1.57 mph. Yup, a long wait to get that thing down to end of the lane! She got better by the end of the night though to really give it a good heave forward. See the yellow ball there? That was the most loved ball of the night with my kids. Of course, there only had to be ONE so who ever was up always wanted to wait until the ball came back. Silly kids!

Caleb giving his all to get that ball rolling!

Then there is Chloe… the oh so dainty one who I believe won the award for the slowest ball. Here, after a bit of coaching, she decides she is just going to throw that thing! lol

My favorite pic of the whole day! Btw, if you look close you can see we were in lane 10 for Jared’s 10th birthday.