Happy Birthday Ezra!

This cute tough boy turned five today. His golden birthday! Five on the fifth. Oh Ezra, we love you so.
For his birthday we tried to go bowling, but they had "league" night, so we played at the arcade instead, and Oliver won the jackpot in tickets and we ended up with over 1000 tickets. We had a blast.

At five years old, Ezra:
weighs only 39 pounds. I feed him I swear!
loves super heros and costumes.
is becoming a picky eater.
so loving and sweet, a good big brother.
can have quite the temper.
is just a joy.

Happy Golden Birthday Ezra!

Miriam turns three

Shannon Hale wrote to describe the connection of mother to daughter that a girl-child is, "cut and sewn from her own soul."

Oh oh yes.

My boys, they are my heart beat.

And my girl, she is my soul.

Three years ago, my soul was born again: in my little bedroom, surrounded by the beating of my heart.

Miriam came, and she is magic.

Now she is three. She loves babies, music, drawing, reading, dirt, candy, her brothers, her daddy, the animals, the trampoline, and me. She does love me a bit too.

My little soul-sister,  how grateful I am for her. Her gentle spirit is a contrast to the man-cubs who dominant the joint. But she holds her own, with her fire and her opinions. Her brothers who we could not do without, love her fiercely. They are learning priceless life lessons about how to treat a lady. I love how they love her.

My Miriam is three.

My dream girl. I'll eat you up I love you so.

Spencer turns 8!

Oh Spencer.  How have eight years already come and gone? Just a moment ago, I was saying "hello", I'm nearly certain.

Now you are tall and handsome. You are imaginative and smart. Still you remain an early riser (oh so very early), and move at your own pace. Rushing you never ever works. Ever. It's always your schedule. And usually that's ok.

You learned to ride a bike this summer. After trying for two summers, this year was different. You just *knew* how. Same with swimming. One day, you just went.

I'm learning to trust your instincts.

You never needed to learn how. You just know.

I love you dear boy. You're a joy. Yes, you've got a temper, but you're learning not to let it control you. You're learning all the time.

Happy Birthday, babe.

(His requests, strawberry cake with lime frosting and blueberries on top, homemade lemon/lime/orange ice cream and Chuck E. Cheese's. Weird kid.)

Oliver is now SIX

A golden birthday. Six on the 6th.

Oliver is so smart, quick, and endlessly creative. He is sleepy and hungry a lot of the time.

Oliver is fierce. He is strong-willed. I'm grateful he is, except when we butt heads because of it. But most of the time I'm glad he has a strong sense of self.

We love our Oliver. I wouldn't change him in any way. I'm grateful he is ours. I'm in awe of him. He is funny and challenging. Just the perfect Oliver.
Now pictures of his day:

Happy Birthday Ezra

We have exited the realm of Ezra as a three year old and entered Ezra as a four year old. Not too much has changed from one day to the next, but a year in rewind makes it clear, Ezra has gone from a toddler to a big preschool sized kid.

Ezra continues to love sports, basketball far and away his favorite. He is excited to be on the basketball team for kids his age starting in January. He is learning letters and their sounds and numbers. I'm glad we're passed the difficult three years old stage. He was a pretty chill three year old for the most part, but still, onward and upward.

For his birthday, Ezra decided lunch at a local diner and bowling would be just right. So, that we did. This was the first year in the last three that Derek was home and not out of town for Ezra's actual birthday, so we were able to celebrate on the day of. FUN!

Truthfully, Ezra was a bit of a grump on his big day, but we managed to help him celebrate. By baths tonight, he declared, "I like my birthday today, Mom," so I guess we succeeded.

The sadness I feel at how fuzzy this picture is... oh my. But I did manage to capture the vague idea of Ezra's "form" whilst bowling. Oh my gosh. 

Birthday singing, and his poor scratched face. 

The big "four"!

Presents! So much help from older brothers too. 

Happy Birthday Ezra Lee! We love you. :) 

Henry's Golden Birthday

Henry turned 9 on the 9th. In THIS house, this means it's his GOLDEN BIRTHDAY. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to celebrate. Never again will he have a golden birthday. So that means golden decor, golden cake and fun. (When you're nine, I'm assuming if one's golden birthday is when they are 30, it's less exciting.)

We began his birthday celebration at a place with all the bouncy slides, etc. It's not my favorite place on the planet, but the kids enjoyed themselves thoroughly so who I am to judge?

His actual birthday we had golden ice cream cake (to be exact, he wanted ice cream cake with oreos, carmel, whipped cream and cherries. ODDLY specific, bu whatever.) And presents. Then a couple days later, he got the opportunity to use the gift cards he'd been given.


If you want to please Henry give him gift cards. The first of them came from his parents and was to Harbor Freight Tools. Free money to the hardware store means that he got to buy all the gadgets. He loved it. Then to the Walmart for toys. Oh he's so funny and careful. He THINKS about his purchases. It is great. And takes a super long time.

Basically, his birthday lasted for days, just the way he likes it.

Birthday Adventures

With Miriam's birthday yesterday and mine on Tuesday, we decided that an afternoon off on an adventure was definitely in order.

Tomorrow is too busy, so Derek played hooky. And we went to Maine. See, when you live in New England, like 13 states are all just a quick drive away. I'd heard rumors that this particular quick drive up was VERY worth it, so we threw a picnic in the back, grabbed some diapers and went.

We should have put a BIT more thought into what to bring along... like towels... or extra clothes...

Anyway, first stop, Nubble Lighthouse! It was beautiful, and closed to the public which was a tragedy indeed. But we did get the chance to watch a Mainer fisherman who was CLEARLY extremely experienced save the life of a sea bird that had tried to steal the bait off another fisherman's hook and failed. The bird and lesser experienced fisherman were struggling a lot. Mr. Experienced saw from across a rocky cliff, took off running and in a matter of tense minutes had the bird free and on his way. It was amazing, and we all applauded.

I wanted to break into the lighthouse and move in. I mean, and never ever leave. Squat there for the rest of my days. Oh it was beautiful.

Then we headed to Short Sand Beach. It was COOL today, so I had veto'd swim suits. I demanded that the boys wade and not get soaked. We had no extra clothes after all!

Yeah. That worked.

For about three minutes.

The freezing water did not slow them down one bit. We left covered in sand, having eaten sandy PB&J, soaked to the bone, and thrilled with ourselves.

Next, since we were filthy, wet and still hungry, we got a couple wholesale lobstahs to go. There wasn't anywhere to eat them except in the parking lot of the Rite Aid where we bought paper towels with which to dry off. We are KLASSY.

And, neither Ezra nor I had any interest in eating the lobster. Everyone else found it quite the adventure. It WAS an adventure, airing the car out, and ensuring that the lobster juice didn't stick to the floor and cause un-earthly stench.

Then we drove through McDonalds for the momma who won't eat lobstah.

It was the BEST Birthday Adventure I could have asked for. I love the ocean, I love the waves, the sand, the rocks, the infinity of it all. LOVE. It was amazing. I could go back everyday. Too bad ocean front shacks cost a million dollars.

So so fun.