July, in Fast Forward

July is of course Gabby's month, but Alex made sure to steel the spotlight from her momentarily by losing his first tooth:
We got special visitors just in time for Gabby's ninth birthday. My dad (Grandpa "Choo Choo") and step mom (Grandma Rene) stopped in to celebrate with us. The kids had such a great time and missed them terribly after they left.
Now to the main event...Gabby's 9th birthday. This year, we pulled out all the stops. Gabby decided she wanted a Paris themed party after following the blog of her namesake's aunt on designmom.com (you've probably heard of it).

I made a lemon tart in lieu of birthday cake and ordered French macarons from a local bakery.
We drank Parisian lemonade:
And I make the coolest birthday invitations ever--passports to Paris!
...complete with photo ID. We stamped the passport pages for every activity we did, starting with...
hat design:
followed by modeling:
We also had a baking class where all the girls helped make crepes, but since I was overseeing all that mayhem, I failed to take any pictures. For future reference, never, under any circumstances leave a giant bottle of Nutella unattended on a table full of girls with crepes. Furthermore, don't bother with making a cake (or in this case a lemon tart) when said girls are on such a sugar high from Nutella that thought of taking in more sugar is nauseating.
Party aftermath:
After Gabby's party, Alex realized that, although he got to go to Harry Potter land on his birthday, I never made him a cake or threw a party for him. So, I fixed the problem by letting him have a sleep over and making him a cake just about a month and a half after his actual birthday.
Favorite picture taken in July, completely unrelated to birthdays:

Legilimens (a glimpse into our summer vacation)

If you haven't heard, we just returned from our east coast vacation.

We started off in Raleigh, North Carolina where my step-brother and his family live. They hosted us for two nights and we absolutely loved every minute of it.
Alex really misses being around family, so this was a special treat for him. He LOVES cousins!
Gabby simply adores her cousin David (as seen below) and was pretty much by his side through our whole visit:
Then, it was off to Charleston, South Carolina and the beach--a first for Oliver! Turns out he's a beach bum just like the rest of us.
We found a jelly fish (but weren't stung by any, thank goodness!)
the kids worked on their body boarding skills, which was tough because the waves were pretty wimpy.
Oliver bravely dressed in drag, and pulled it off quite well I thought:
Noah had to work for three days in Charleston (poor fellow), but the kids and I got to explore.

Some how, I summoned the courage to take all three kids on a boat to Fort Sumpter (the starting point of the Civil War), since history is way more exciting when you experience it:
Oliver was a royal pain in the $%#.
And of course, we checked out the market and walked around down town. I'm sure it would have been loads more fun minus kids and minus about 50 degrees (I cannot begin to tell you how hot and humid it was). SO HOT! And SO HUMID!!!
Luckily, someone noticed our sweat (possibly our stench) and let us in on a little town secret...

Fountain Park!
This picture gives you an idea of the lengths to which we went to cool off:
And then it was time to go home... or was it?

We packed the kids in the car on Thursday afternoon telling them we were headed home and that we would stay in a hotel on the way. We arrived at our hotel at about 11 that night with sleeping children who were unaware that we drove to Orlando, Florida (home of Harry Potter World at Universal Studios--have I told you yet that Gabby just finished reading the entire series?)

The following morning was Alex's birthday and we told the kids we would take them to breakfast and then to a mall to go shopping for Alex. We made sure the kids were completely distracted with DS's and battleship as we drove by billboard after billboard advertising The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The kids missed them all.

When we got into the parking lot of Universal, we let the cat out of the bag:

so long ipad 2:

The Three Broomsticks: where we blew $60 on lunch!
Hagrid's cottage:
Oliver wasn't a big fan of roller-coasters, but he got to go on them anyway:
Since it was Alex's birthday, he got to wear a magical pin that ensured special treatment and announcement of his birthday over the loud speaker on nearly every ride we went on (much to his approval):
The magical pin most likely also contributed to his getting picked by Olivander himself at the wand shop!
Turns out the boy isn't a squib after all!!!
And of course, there were other, non Harry Potter themed parts of the park we visited (Noah loves a good fish ride!)

Best vacation (and birthday celebration) EVER!!!

3 months in 5 minutes

As you can imagine, a lot has happened since we last spoke. So here's the rundown at lightning speed...

Gabby rocked the science world with her tornado experiment (I'll post video of it--including the gasps of amazement from her classmates--when Noah shows me how).
The biggest bit of awesomeness to come out of the last two months was that my little sister, Julie, got to live with us while our parents and my youngest sibling went gallivanting out in the U.K. Sadly, she's now moved on and is somewhere in Paris missing us horribly I'm sure. Oliver today cried for the first time saying "JuJu" between sobs. I think he's finally realized that she's not here any more.
While Julie was here, she entered "Columbus Idol" and rocked it--making it into the TOP TEN!!! Truly, she deserved to win it, but who am I to say--I only have a DEGREE IN SINGING.
Miss America 2009 was one of the judges (she hails from Indiana). Noah was devastated his missed it.
Gabby ran her first race (1/2 mile) and was by far the happiest (dare I say cutest) child in it. When she got near the finish line and everyone started cheering, she grinned from ear to ear all the way to the end.
One June 10th, Alex turned 5. He requested a Mario party. And since you only turn 5 once, we went all out. Julie and I spent 2 1/2 days working on the Mario piñata--that's right folks, we MADE it--from balloons, newspaper, tissue paper, flour and water. . .

and then we watched it get destroyed in under 5 minutes. R.I.P. Mario.
I had high aspirations for Alex's cake, but it turned out looking pretty stupid and because I'd just spent 10 hours + making a piñata, I wasn't about to care enough to spend more time on something that was just going to get eaten.
And that pretty much sums up the last three months. My sister has way more pictures and I meant to get them from her, but y'know, now she's in Paris 'n stuff.

Dear Alex

Four years ago, we officially met.

I was in school at the time working to finish my bachelor's degree. You were born in the week between spring and summer terms and I attended both, carrying you in a little front pack to my choir class when you were just a few days old.

You slept almost continuously for the first two weeks of your life. I was always checking on you to make sure you were okay and you were, just tired.

You've always been my little pal. You make me happy every single day.

I love that when I tell you you're a good boy, you pat me on the back and tell me I'm a good mom. You're such a compassionate boy, it comes so naturally to you and it's a real gift.

You have one rockin' imagination! You announce nearly every day which super hero you'll be (currently you love being Batman, Spiderman, Indiana Jones, or the "blue bomb guy" on Star Wars). You spray imaginary webs around the apartment to swing on, or carry a scarf that you call your whip, or jump around doing somersaults, or carry one of your star wars guns around, protecting your baby brother from bad guys (occasionally he is the bad guy).
You're an amazing brother to both Gabby and Oliver. The first thing you ask to do in the morning is to hug Oliver or wake Gabby up. You get sad when they are sad always want to help them feel better. I'm so proud of the boy you are and of who you're becoming.

*********

As for what we did on your birthday this year, it was pretty much the best one ever. Grandpa "Choo Choo" and Grandma Rene are out visiting until Friday, which meant you got spoiled rotten (Gabby didn't fare too bad herself).

You got a day full of your favorite things: new [awesome] toys, pizza, Chuck E. Cheese's, a boat ride (which you got to drive), Cheetos, swimming in the pool, brownies, chocolate ice cream, and whip cream.
Happy birthday Alex, I Love you. I love you. I love you.