brenner's 4th birthday

brenner's birthday was tuesday.  i can't believe he is 4 already.  

he was so excited to open presents before all the kids went to school. here he is waiting patiently for breakfast.  he wanted scrambled eggs.  for breakfast and dinner.  too cute!

opening presents.  such excitement!

Captain America!

Malia opened this one for him while he was opening something else and he didn't even notice.  She was so excited about it!  It was so super funny.  

Porter got Hulk mask and gloves for his birthday, and Brenner got Captain America paraphernalia.  It's been a constant battle zone at our house!

Playing Elefun from Grandma Bev!  So much fun!

Working on new maze and dot to dot books from Grandma T!  He loves them!

Cake time!  He wanted a fire truck.  We had fun decorating it together.  The part he was most excited about were the Oreo wheels.

Dave took the 4 older kids swimming on Monday, Memorial Day, for Brenner's birthday. So Tuesday was a low-key day at home with mom.  But he was okay with it.  Nice thing about being 4, it's still okay to hang with mom on your birthday.

We love you so much Brenner!  There is definitely never a dull moment with you around!  Happy, happy Birthday!

porter's 8th birthday

porter's 8th birthday was last Sunday. we were at six flags the day before and had gone to bed way late, and he was still up before 6am asking if he could open his presents!  hold on cowboy!  and he wanted cinnamon rolls for his birthday breakfast.  all i could muster was cinnamon swirl pancakes . but boy were they yummy!  

he was very joyful opening his presents.

love the faces on the other kids too.

 lucky boy got to go to church on his birthday! 

he helped me decorate his cake. we were going for a basketball on top.

sure love this boy! and his sparkly smile.

showing 8 fingers the gangsta way.

He is looking forward to getting baptized in a few weeks!

Happy Birthday Porter!  

We love love love love love you!

{1 year} and other May randoms

June 1st marks ONE YEAR of living in New York City!
One year down, one year to go! 

Here are a few randoms from the month of May...

after grocery shopping with Brenner's favorite prize... gumballs!

unloading the groceries onto the cart to take up the elevator.  then unloading it, filling our tiny kitchen.  then driving the car back to the parking garage and walking 15 minutes back to our apartment.  i will never forget this routine.  i can't wait to have a garage hooked onto a house again.

playing at the park in between baseball practices and games... 

playing in the toy room on the 1st floor of our building. 

the first things malia finds are the puppies!

heading to Target in the rain.  huge traffic jam on the queensboro bridge.

we always get a hot dog and icee at Target before we go to Costco.  brenner and malia make the perfect pair for eating hot dogs.  brenner eats the hot dog.  malia eats the bun. i love it, so cute!  cheaper that way too, ha!

 love the Costco baskets where they can both ride up front.

walking past the school one day we heard the kids out for recess.  we saw Porter playing soccer and Lexi talking with her friends, who peeked out the fence to say Hi. i can't get over the fenced cement playgrounds.  no grass.  that's how all the schools are.  

brenner likes to pose like the statue of liberty in photos.

very fitting with his I LOVE NY t-shirt!

New York Presbyterian Hospital is the big white building behind Brenner.

Dave just started his emergency Pediatric rotation there this week.

Kyler's 4th grade class wrote an Opera.  A man from California put it to music.  It was a great performance!  Here is Kyler with the other hard-working ants.

i love this picture of malia watching. how cute is she?!!

uh-oh! look who can reach the elevator buttons! she loves to sneak out of our apartment and push the buttons and then wait for the elevator. hopefully she never does it without me!

it was rainy every day last week.  Lexi loves to walk to school under the umbrella.

Porter's class had a Roosevelt Island Arbor Day celebration at the park across the street from the school.  Malia loves seeing the kids at school and they love seeing her.

The 2nd graders recited a poem with cute actions. Porter did a fabulous job!

Then each student received a free plant.  Score!
Porter and his friend Sam with their Wax Begonias.

Wowza!  Look at this tough guy.  Pretty cool tricks going on around here.

And those are a few randoms from our month of May.

Six Flags, NJ

we went to Six Flags in New Jersey last Saturday. kind of a Memorial Day holiday thing, kind of a Porter's birthday thing, rolled into one.

it was so hot! i've never been that hot and sticky in my life. the kids were troopers.  and they had a blast. roller coasters galore!

kyler and i on the nitro, second car.

kyler was tall enough to go on every ride so he and dave had a lot of fun running from one ride to the next.  we took turns on a few and used the family pass so i could go on some of the big ones.  Nitro was super fun, but El Toro about broke my back and neck.  70mph, no thank you!  eeesh!  dave and kyler went on the tallest drop, it goes up 450 feet and down in 15 seconds.  80 mph.  so brave.  pure adrenalin. i passed on that one. tallest roller coaster in the world. they loved it! 

we went on the ferris wheel since it was the only ride we could go on as a family.  i conquered my fears, although i still panicked when it stopped at the top.  oooh i hate that, but we survived.  my kids love that they are braver than me. there were lots of kiddie rides for Brenner while the older kids went on the bigger rides.  skull mountain was a favorite of lexi and porter.  the tree drop was brenner's favorite.  his cute little shy smile was the cutest.

new jersey is gorgeous.  so many big trees.  this scenery was in the middle of six flags. so pretty.  and porter's 8th birthday was the next day so he was the man of the hour.

more kiddie rides.  i got to ride a few of them too.

malia was so cute and so patient.  it was so hot she was like a little wilted flower most of the day. clouds rolled in mid-day and it got overcast and cooled off a bit and then she did better. i thought these pictures were cute of her watching the kids on their rides.

it was a fun exhausting very long day.

i love my family!  

painting

ooops!