The Birthday Month

Well, we just finished our 4^th and final birthday for the year (Whew!!). The kids got spoiled… but that's ok since they got a pretty weak Christmas.

For Trevor's birthday we had the traditional Jason/Brandon/Trevor conversation that always goes like this…. Jason: " Trevor, how old are you?... Brandon, how old are you?.. HA HAHA HA!!" repeated a couple times. For those of you that don't know, Trevor and his older brother are the same age for 2 weeks, and it's downright hilarious when we have this conversation. Brandon hates it, but Trevor doesn't care; but that's what makes it so funny! Here's a sneak peak of how it went down with Trev…

Of course we can't sit on the couch without a Phoebe-dog snuggling up with us.

Jaden was especially spoiled since he got a party with his friends in Kentucky and one with his Ohio friends and dad. We had his party in Kentucky at the park. He was so excited to see all his friends! It's been so long that Jaden ran right past Connor at the park and didn't recognize him! It was funny! Jaden has been into Spongebob lately, so we threw a Spongebob party. Lucky for me, it's the 10^th Anniversary of Spongebob so there were lots of little party favors and nick-nacks. I was so impressed with the cake! I went to the bakery at like 10am and asked if they could have a Spongebob cake ready by 3 and they sure did…

Playing Duck, Duck, Goose. Being rough with the boys. Lots of frosting, just the way he likes it!


The chocolate princess. Total troublemakers. Blowing out the candles!

It wasn't a fancy party, but the kids had fun. They played on the playground, had pizza and cupcakes, and played games. I think Jaden misses his little boy buddies to run around and be rough with.

Our spoiled little boy had his party in Ohio yesterday. He had fun with all his cute little friends playing games. They played Hullaballoo, hot potato, and we had them do a relay game where they have to run with a balloon between their knees, it was pretty funny! A big thanks to Miss Christine (Miss Preschool) for helping me out with games for the kiddos.



Time for cake and presents… boy did we have a surprise in store for Jaden! We've been wanting to get him a Power Wheels, but the outrageous prices of $300-400 made us decide that we would just wait till they had a big sale, or just buy a used one. We went to Walmart to get party stuff and checked them out a bit, again. There was a really cute John Deer tractor with 2 seats, too expensive. Of course we are only going to get one with 2 seats. There was a really cute Mustang that was even more. And a really cute Dodge Viper in a box, no display or price. I thought let's just forget it, we'll get one later. But Trevor insisted that I have someone check the price on that and a couple others. When it rang up for less than $200 there was no stopping Trevor, it was a done deal! Plus it was the last one. I don't know what was up with it, we came home and checked it online and it was over $300. They must have had it specially priced just for us! It worked out so perfect since both grandparents and my sister sent money for his birthday, we really didn't spend much more than we did for KynnLee's birthday.


He had so much fun giving all his friends a ride. It was quite the surprise!! We had him open presents outside because the Viper was in the garage. I'll have to take pics of the inside, it's so cute! It has a GPS (sticker), a working radio that he can plug his "iPod" (mp3) into, and 2 cup holders! Did we hit the jackpot on that or what?

Stay tuned for more pics of the Viper!

Grandma and Grandpa Hellewell

I was tagged by Shanna to write some memories of Grandma and Grandpa. I notice I share some favorites with Shanna, I'm sure we all do. Here goes...

Raspberry Jam (who got dibs on all that jam in her basement?!?! I want some!)
picking raspberries
making jam
playing on the clothes line outside
climbing and playing in the cherry tree
the porch swing out back
Grandpa irrigating the lawn so we could play in "the ditch"
eating raspberries with sugar and milk
roasting hot dogs and marshmallows in the basement fire on Christmas Eve
Grandpa reading "Twas The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve
Skinny little grandpa dressed as Santa
the Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving
Grandma asking me to play christmas songs or church songs on the piano (even though they were very basic)
making quilts
poster paper, glitter, glue, crayons, etc.
daring each other (cousins) to go down in the potato cellar
riding my bike or walking to their house after school
Grandpa's dog bark!
Grandpa on his riding lawnmower with ginormous ear-muff/plug thingies mowing all his rental properties
making cinnamon rolls
the green room, the pink room, the earwig room
the record player
"The Store" in the basement
Love dollars
"Karie darlins"
"you turken-goose!"
the awesome breakfast in the morning while watching The Price is Right
their van that had a sink in it
the "Familes are Forever" bumper sticker on the van
Grandma's fluffy socks with dress flats

Oh my gosh I can go on too! I thought Shanna had pretty much mentioned everything.

I do have a story about the wall-to-wall bed in the basement. I was down there with a bunch of the cousins and we were getting ready to go to bed when a big ugly spider ran from the fireplace, jumped off and ran across the room. We were all too afraid to smash it, so we sprayed it with hairspray until it died. Then we were talking how when you see one spider, there's usually lots more close by that you don't see... then another one did the same thing! So we sprayed it until it died. Then it happened again TWO more times! I couldn't sleep in the basement after that.

Tag!

Rules: It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, and enter yours. Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real, nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You must put the first answer that comes to mind! You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name twice for the boy/girl name.

1. What is your name: Karie
2. A four Letter Word: Kite
3. A boy's Name: Kent
4. A girl's Name: KynnLee
5. An occupation: Kindergarden Teacher
6. A color: Khaki
7. Something you wear: Kilt
8. A food: Kiwi
9. Something found in the bathroom: Kleenex
10. A place: Kentucky!
11. A reason for being late: Keys missing
12. Something you shout: Keep out!
13. A movie title: King Kong
14. Something you drink: Kool-aid
15. A musical group: KISS
16. An animal: Kangaroo

I tag anyone and everyone! Have fun!!

Words of advice...

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Cleveland Zoo

We had to take advantage of the weather yesterday, so we went to the zoo. It was a blazin' 55 degrees! The highest we've seen in a while.

The camera died before we got to the actual zoo, but we got some pics in The Rainforest. It was pretty cool.

The spider monkeys came right up to talk to us. They were cute! The alligator wasn't so cute, he just stared us down. They had a LOT of different kinds of monkeys, I think they were the favorites. They are behind a screen so the pic isn't very good. It's certainly not my photography skills to blame....

It's always funny to go up to an exhibit and have to search for the animal. Here's a couple of frogs, and they're actually pretty big. And also a couple of kids on a frog...

See him now??

I was so excited when I finally got a pic of this face!! She is such an animated little baby, it was funny to see her get so excited at seeing the animals. This face also has a sound effect to go with it, you can imagine! She always does it when we go down the girlie toy aisle at the store, cracks me up!!! I think the fishies were one of her favorites too.

Can you see the lizard that was looking at her?

Of course we couldn't get out of the zoo without a souvineer. I don't know what posessed me to take a pic of their toys, I guess because I thought KynnLee's little Elephant was so cute.

NASA

We took the kids to the NASA space museum on Tuesday. It was pretty cool, it's fun that KynnLee can run around and enjoy this kind of stuff too. You have to be a US citizen with photo ID to get in. And they searched our car, it was a little weird. You would think it was the federal reserve or something, in fact, they didn't even search our car at the federal reserve in Kentucky. They did, however, tell us to not slow down or take pics... so we did =). Anyway, the space museum had all kinds of space suits, rocket models, and hands on stuff for the kids.

When we told Jaden we were going to the space musum, he had to go get his little Buzz Lightyear toys (below) to bring along. You know, so the space man can go into orbit... =).

Jaden thought the "space motorcycle" was pretty cool (above right).

And of course we can't make it out of there without a souvineer, so we let Jaden smash a penny. He thought it was pretty dang cool. He also got a super-annoying propeller thing that he spins between his hands and it flies up into the air, and lands on our heads, and in our faces. It's just fantastic... (there should be an annoyance warning on these kind of toys!).

Valentine's, Birthdays, and Spring Break, OH MY!

Valentine's Day 2009:

We had a great Valentine's Day. We had Josh and Dina, and Dave and Melissa over for a little dinner and some games. Here's a few pics of the par-tay, I didn't get pics of our guests, I'm so rude...
I tried my sewing skills again and made the table runner. It was kinda fun. Pretty easy, just took more time than I had remembered.


We got out the fancy dishes and gold flatware. It was fun to eat on them. We haven't used them in a LONG time.


As most of you know, it is our birthday month. All of our birthdays are within a month... KynnLee 2/19, Trevor 2/24, Karie 3/12, Jaden 3/23. Well, 2 down, 2 to go. Here's how the princess's first birthday went down...

A couple weeks before her birthday, I consulted my "cake specialist" (Laurie) and we decided that the princess needed a castle cake for her birthday. It was pretty cool, if I do say so myself. I don't own any fancy cake stuff, as a matter of fact I don't have ANY cake stuff. So it was a little rough around the edges, but it was fun.
Since both kids were still kinda sick, we took it easy all day. But what else do you do for a first birthday? She thought it was pretty cool when we all sang to her and Jaden helped her blow out the candle. She got a doll stroller, and a kitchen set for her birthday. Fun, fun!

Trevor was lucky enough to have his birthday during test week. He spent the ENTIRE day studying. His friends and I surprised him at school with pizza and cupcakes (a BIG thanks to Dina and Julie!). And then he decided to pull an all-nighter and study all night. I don't know how they can function like that.

Well, test week is all over and now it's SPRING BREAK!! We'll be sure to get lots of pics of our adventures. Today we kinda took it easy, did some cleaning, had to have Trevor's lemon... I mean car... towed. Sounds like it might need a whole new engine... thank goodness for warranties. Now we're going to eat dinner, put the kids to bed, and watch THE BACHELOR! Yeah baby!