Sis is Two!

Yes, its true little miss Sis, you're two. Noelle has been anticipating this day because she just knew that you'd instantly turn terrible, at least that's what she told me. She was partly right. On your second birthday, while having dinner with some friends at their house you did bite their daughter. I'm sure you felt justified, like when you bite Noelle.
Despite the biting and other things that two year olds do, you're quite delightful. During your two year old exam at the doctor's office the doctor said if she ever needed to do a demonstration of how to examine a two year old that she would call you because you were so good and funny at the same time. She was amazed at your speech and you weren't even saying some of the crazy stuff you come up with. Some of my favorites are when you tell people goodbye and to "Have a good day"or when you ask for a movie, which has been a favorite past time lately, and you insist that it be a Barbie movie or the one with "Kayla the elephant." Your talking is constant and sometimes I don't know what you're saying and you look at me like I'm an idiot. I probably am.
For your birthday we gave you Barbies and a set of markers that won't draw on anything but their special paper. Noelle was very jealous of the Barbies and has cried on more than one occasion because she seems to think your birthday celebration has lasted way too long. As for the markers, you bit off the tops of all but one the first time we played with them. Lame. You are beyond markers that have a delayed markability and go straight for the pencils and pens to be just like Noelle when she draws.
You also got some clothes for your birthday. You did your best to try them all on as you unwrapped them. You even put on a skirt that Grammy gave you and then proceeded to go swimming with it on. We ended up stripping you down to nakedness and let you swim in your birthday suit.
Speaking of swimming you took your first swimming lessons this season. You're a fish and it scares the living daylights out of your parents when you dive right in. Good thing we only have a kiddie pool.
Sis, your happiness is contagious and many people love you for that. You're an easy going child and as your parents, we thank you for that. Happy birthday!

April 2011

Well folks May is nearly over and I thought I'd let you know what we did in April. These pictures are in reverse order, but you'll get the general idea.

Near the end of April I (Rachel) went to Holland!

What would a trip to Holland be with out some of the following country features?

Windmills anyone? This is looking up one of the canals at Kinderdijk. It happened to be very windy this day and we witnessed up close how fast the blades on a windmill can turn.

We got to visit with some of our favorite people who also happen to be relatives.

How about these lovely ladies? It was fun to be with cousins, even the famous one.

How cute is my Sissy?

There can never be enough tulips. We drove by many fields that were ablaze with color and then the next day they were gone. That's how they roll at the end up the tulip season.

My grandmother's family home in Breukelen.

Its been for sale if you have a few million laying around.

All of us together for dinner.

Can you seriously get over the tulips?

I brought home some crowns for the girls so that we could celebrate Queen's Day on April 30th. Happy birthday Queen Beatrix!

This was the last play group at our house, just before Easter. We had an egg hunt in our backyard while wearing dress-ups. What a fun time we've had with these girls.

I made some cowboy quilts. I did a trade with a photographer back in February and over the two or so months it took me to complete these it was really hard to pack them up and mail them off. Luckily they love them as much as I do. We assembled a shed, and the garden that we planted at the end of March began to grow. It looks a lot different now that it resembles a jungle. Maybe I'll post an update in my May post.

I celebrated my birthday. Each candle on the cake represents four years of my life.

Happy birthday to me!

Noelle Had a Birthday, Shout Hooray!

That's right folks, she made it to the fifth year of life without major incident. Its hard to believe myself. This girl is one big ball of fiery energy that keeps all of us on our toes. Don't be fooled by her silliness and charm because before you know it she'll be telling you how lame your fashion choices are and how uncool you've become overnight. Some things that make Noelle special to us besides all her wit are as follows: She is so stinkin' smart, I had to buy a Human Body book for kids so that she and I could learn together. She's quite the artist and leaves her sketches, notes, stories and all other written things all over the house. She loves to draw girls with fancy dresses and high heeled shoes and recently has been having me cut out fish so that she can illustrate each one with its own personality. She then stuffs them into an envelope and asks me to mail them to various people. My favorite was the one with a "backpack" and falling out of that backpack is a bear. There was a very elaborate story to go with the backpack fish. Noelle loves to make up songs. Just today in the car she was singing a song about leprechauns and how they will mess up your hair and your room. I tried to catch it all from the front seat of the car and laughed the whole way. Lately she has started playing with Sydney more. This makes Boo and I both very happy considering just six months ago she was still asking when we planned to return her sister to the doctors who "got her out." The best is watching them together on the swing set, it makes my little mother heart swell. Noelle still loves to dance and still loves those darn tap shoes. I have to set a timer for tapping so that we can all keep our sanity around here. Sometimes it works. Noelle is very, very excited to go to kindergarten, however she feels the need to explain to anyone who asks her about it that she will indeed need to have some shots or vaccinations done before she can go and that after this she'll be done with shots forever. If only it were really true. Five has been a long time coming for her and now that it has arrived it seems she thinks she has the power to do even more amazing things. Our dear Noelle, we are so excited for you to learn a lot more things that hopefully include tying your own shoes and riding your bike without training wheels. Swimming wouldn't be so bad either. However those are just a smidgen of the things you will embrace in the next year or so. Thank you for your sense of humor that keeps Dad and I on our toes. Hopefully you'll never take life so serious that you can't have a good laugh. We sure love your guts even if they do stink from time to time.

Here are some birthday party extravaganza pictures that pretty much sum up the birthday experience at our house. (in no particular order.)

We decorated the yard with many balloons and after the festivities one of the highlights was to gather them all together and run laps around the yard. It was also a game of keep-away from Sydney and Jackson.

Every year Noelle request some sort of bubble maker. This one was pretty awesome.

Here are the parting gifts for our birthday guests. Man did they make out like bandits.

Noelle and her friends sat in a big circle for the gift exchanging. Sis did her best to be in the middle of the action as much as possible.

Sydney thoroughly enjoyed the party, especially the cake, until Jackson came along and wanted some too.

After a fight broke out over the spoon which he won, Sis retaliated by rubbing her cakey hands in his hair. It was hilarious.

We played some fun games to make all our guest tired including sack racing, go old fashion foot races the length of the yard, poisonous snake (jumping over a rope), a pinata, and pin the tail on the donkey. Some kids were in it to win it, and other chose to stand on the sidelines and spectate.

The party riff-raff

Happy birthday Noelle.

Birthday Week Re-cap

She doesn't want me to stick a Barbie in the cake next time. Her words not mine.

The presents from Mom & Dad... or Auntie.
BTW, those bubbles are truly that large, and she filled it about a quarter full of pea gravel. I can't bring myself to throw them away. Seriously.

She has wanted paints for a very long time.

The Ariel costume that is "just like Madelyn's."

This giant bubble wand is one of those things that she saw on television and Ooo'd and Awww'd over. Thanks to her little friends who joined us for a birthday lunch and brought this coveted wand with them. She uses it also to whack at some of my plants. Does not make Mama happy.

Typical outfit - the crown was from her VIP day at school.

I had to add in this picture from the night we went to dinner with Auntie, JW and "Uncle Bictor."
We waited forever and all the kids were so good. Sydney, well she's my little ray of sunshine.

One of the other rockstars who was so good to wait forever for some dinner. Notice the sun has now gone down. Oh how I just love to snuggle him. He loves him some Auntie time too.

Birthday Celebration(s)

What would birthday week be if it didn't include celebrating for more than one day? That's how its been at our house, one perpetual celebration. We celebrated with a birthday party/ playgroup hijacking. Since I'm a one-track-brain I made some poofy princess skirts for the girls. But what do you do for boys? Capes. Tell them they are knights capes and then they'll actually wear them. Thanks to Mama Heather for talking me through birthday parties. It would have been a real bomb had she not helped me figure out what three year olds like to do.

If you need suggestions use these: pin the tail on the bunny, memory with fairy pictures from your clip art files, jump the dragon's tail (jumping back and forth over a shiny belt like thing), freeze dance, Easter egg hunt, cake & ice cream.

Memory

Jumping the dragon's tail

Freeze dance

Party friends, poofy skirts and all!
Cupcake anticipation

Lesson learned - put better candy in the plastic eggs. Note to self, Dave likes chewy Sprees.

Noelle had fun with her friend Bea. Thank you Sundahls.

After a week in Massachusetts we joined up with Grammy, Great Grammy & Great Papa, along with all the aunts, uncles and cousins would could imagine. Noelle got to have a joint family party with cousin Andrea who turned five. We took a train ride on "Dinah" which Noelle thought was great since she didn't have to sit the whole time.

Thanks to all of you who have helped us celebrate in one way or another. I think next year we'll just have a family night at Peter Piper and call it good.