saturday night funtimes

i was going to post a sweet video of my girls making each other laugh, but then i just remembered how terribler blogger is about uploading videos. so i guess that will have to wait. i just went on the greatest two hour date with my husband. we usually like to go and do things that we can't or wouldn't do with the kids- like eat mexican food, or play with knives. in true form- we went to the batting cages to hit some softballs! dangerous for adults (like me) and therefore very dangerous for children! chris and i both admittedly suck at batting. but we had a really great time! i hit a lot of wayward balls and managed to only get hit by two bad ricochets! chris actually improved his swing after googling "how to hit a softball", and i managed to disintegrate as we spent more time practicing. then we went to Ra for happy hour sushi and it was excellent! we saw lots of kids who were going to prom and it was adorable. i felt like screaming out: "i am happily married to a man who i did not know existed when i was in high school! save your virginity! you are not going to marry your prom date!" but i didn't. i enjoyed my sushi with the love of my life. and then we went to pick up our kids. great night had by all ;)

growing too fast

- mia is 5 months and a half and she is getting so big! or maybe she has been so big... she loves eating her rice cereal and veggies, and not-sleeping through the night... she is wearing 9 month old clothes and flopping around like a beached whale. i think she wants to crawl, or be set free in the ocean. either way she is SO CUTE, it is sickening.
here's a pic of mia wearing a pair of 6 month pjs today. had to get this pic cause lily has matching pjs. i had to take mia out of them which was akin to taking sausage out of its casing:


- lily has cavities. she got her first ones filled on monday and bit the heck out of her numb lip. sadness of my life. i prayed SO HARD for the babies when they were in the womb for the teeth that they would once have. i prayed that those teeth would be strong and healthy, unlike the teeth that chris and i were genetically passing on to them. but alas, my kids have weak and very crowded teeth. lily goes in for more fillings on may 8th. please pray that she remembers the pain and suffering from her actions this go around, and that she would learn from her mistakes and not commit them again. major life lesson!
here she is looking too old for my own good:


- topher is my awesome and special little man. he wants to grow up so fast- he keeps asking when he gets to be a dad. it's precious, especially since i know he wants to be an awesome dad like the awesome dad he has. he went for a tour of his potential preschool for next year and is VERY excited about going there. he keeps asking if i can pack a cookie in his lunch, and then the next day he asks me if i've done it yet. what a nut.
here's my handsome boy. love those baby brown eyes ;)


being a stay at home mom continues to be awesome and trying. mia is a bit needier now that she is 5 months old, and even though the older ones are becoming more independent- they still need lots of hugs and kisses and attention during the day as well. i may not have a lot of money, and i may have NO organizational skills, but i have lots of hugs and kisses to dish out.

how to not take pics

my friend erin, a ridiculously talented photographer, just did a few blog posts on how to take great pics of your kids. i read those posts and did not successfully achieve any great photos this easter. it's not her. it's all me. and partially the subject matter- crazy kids on crack (aka jelly beans):

a sad attempt to get a pic of the three babes:


it's hard having such a giant-young baby that cannot really be held by the 5 year old. dad is always at the ready to catch the baby and photobomb:


a great picture of my beautiful son, with lots and lots of ketchup on his shirt:


no one looking at the camera. except for gabe, who is being blinded in the process:


crying baby. always a classic pic:


kids running. the crack is really coursing through their veins now:



we had a great easter, better than mia would have you believe. we are so blessed to have family close by, but even more importantly- to have family that is excited to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour.

partied out

happy good friday to every one!
we had great hopes of going to a praise night tonight with the kids- especially since lily has been all about singing to Jesus lately. she doesn't need to know the words to songs- she just sings along anyway. it's precious. although the other day she was "singing/mumbling" along with a song, but clear as day she said something like: "hallelujah he's my savior". it was amazing.

anyhoo, i am still recovering from the last week of march. we did 3 birthday parties in 6 days. it was crazy. in fact i still have decorations up from the first birthday party. pathetic, i know.

i already posted about lily's princess party, and then on saturday we had a family party. since we watched the hunger games on friday night, i knew the cupcakes for saturday would have to be easy and ready to go. so i saved the fondant figurine of lily from thursday and used it for saturday. that worked out especially great since lily is not a fondant-eater. which is the opposite of her brother who pretty much only eats the fondant and icing and leaves the cupcake for the birds. watching lily and topher eat their sweets is funny cause lily will seriously take off her icing and leave it on her plate, and then topher will dip his cupcake into the icing and eat that up. they are the sweetest ying and yang siblings you ever did see!

here's topher eating the head off of his fondant figure:



here's lily holding out her cupcake with her mini-me on it:

i actually had to re-do the head on her figure cause the one on thursday had smudgy eyes. not like smokey eyes, smudgy. like there was some 'eye smudge' on her cheek kind of smudgy.

topher's cupcakes were an ode to power rangers jungle fury. they didn't turn out very special. sorry son:


then tuesday we had a small little party for our one and only son at peter piper pizza. i was going to keep the jungry fury theme, but topher decided he wanted 'the avengers' cupcakes. so i did that instead. i have to admit i was pretty happy with how these turned out, even though the fondant started 'sweating' a bit from the short car ride:



and that's it! next year we've gotta come up with a better plan that involves a lot less sugar.

new family tradition!!!!!

if you know my husband, you know what a "hilarious" prankster he is. so, april fools day is definitely one of his favorite holidays. but, he's made so many of my friends cry, and almost call the police on him, that he's lost some of his mojo of late.

then today i suggested we start pranking the kids on this special day, and chris was totally in. cause why else do people have kids but to mess with them, right?

so, the april fools joke we came up with was to get their favorite treat- a sprinkle donut from dunkin donuts, and you can watch the rest:



my favorite part was watching topher's face. my least favorite part was when chris ate the rest of MY donut!

happy april fools day!

from, some seriously messed up/ fun-loving parents ;)

and yes, i am aware that we have opened up a can of worms, cause i am already invisioning YEARS from now, lily and topher and mia pranking us back with heart-atta-ck-inducing stuff like: "i'm pregnant!" or "i'm in the hospital cause i got in a terrible car wreck!" or "i won the mega million jackpot and i ran away with my boyfriend!" (yes, any one of the 3 kids saying that will definitely give us a heart attack...)