Cheap Entertainment

Just a quick post with some fun pics of Will's new favorite thing to do. We re-arranged our living room before Christmas so we could place our Christmas tree in front of the big window. Now that the tree is gone, I kind of like this space with nothing in it. So does Will! This is his new game........

1. Go hide behind the curtains.

2. Wait for someone to ask, "Where is Will?"

3. Then come bursting out from behind the curtains with squeals of delight.

4. Enjoy all of the laughter from your audience.

Repeat.

MANY times.

This can seriously go on for a LONG time and provides tons of laughter for everyone!

Will T. brings SO much joy to our family! What fun!

Helen's Big Birthday Post

So this is going to be a big post with lots of pictures, but turning 5 is a big deal, so we wanted to remember Helen's special celebrations! Her birthday was last Thursday and she was fortunate enough to have both sets of her grandparents join us that night for birthday dinner! Nana, Papa, Grankaki and Granbob all came over for pizza and brownie sundaes! Nana brought a bunch of clothes for Helen from her older cousin Lillie and she had fun trying them all on and giving us a fashion show. She spent most of the evening in Lillie's old gymnastics leotards! Here she is with her birthday gifts!

Posing in her birthday crown that she got at school that day!
Helen wanted brownie sundaes instead of a birthday cake! Here she is with the pan of brownies! (Notice the leotard change!)

We don't do big birthday parties each year, but #5 is a biggie around here, so we let the kids pick a special place to have a friend party for their fifth birthday! Helen chose The Cupcakery and it was a great party. We were able to do the party on the Monday morning after her birthday. The ONLY problem with her party was that space was limited and she could only invite 12 friends! She wanted EVERYONE to come! It was so hard for her to pick which friends to invite! She told everyone that she saw to please come to her party! :) Here is a picture of Helen with her balloons before her guests arrived! Check out all of those yummy cupcakes behind her! Oh their cupcakes are delicious!

Helen's cousin Lillie had the perfect shirt for the party!

Here is the table with all of the kiddos getting ready to decorate their aprons!

Lots of beautiful aprons were designed!

Helen getting some help putting on her apron!

After Helen opened her gifts, the ladies at the Cupcakery gave the kids some instructions about putting the icing on their cupcakes.

Helen's cousin Connor getting ready to load up his cupcake with chocolate icing!

The birthday girl with her cupcake creation!

We added five candles to Helen's cupcake and sang the happy birthday song to her!

Some of the girls were trying to sneak a peek at the lady in the kitchen who was decorating cupcakes! They were having so much fun! I don't think they realized that the window was there so that you could look in if you wanted to!

Well, Helen has sufficiently celebrated her fifth birthday! We successfully spread the celebrating out over several days and I think she fully enjoyed herself! We are so blessed by her precious life and love this little girl so much! I love being Helen's mommy!

Five.

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl! Helen turns five years old today! She is at Mother's Day Out right now, but this is a picture of her before she left for school. They have been working on the letter "P" this week and today is Pajama day. That is why she still has on her nightgown! They are also having Pizza for lunch! She thinks it is pretty cool that she gets to wear pajamas and have pizza on her birthday! Here she is with our birthday flag this morning!
Helen's friend Sophie turned five yesterday, so we got them a cookie with their names on it to share with their friends at school today! Here is a picture that I took of the girls before I left. I'm sure they are having a very fun day!

Just a couple of pictures of Will after his bath! I've been meaning to take some pics of him with his little hoodie towels for some time now, and I finally did it yesterday! I just think babies looks so cute when they are all wrapped up in their bath towels!

Serious cuteness!

And here is Beckett last Saturday morning before his first basketball game. He is playing basketball for the third year and they started their season last week! He had a fun time playing and scored two or three baskets! He is getting so big! Love him!

New post over at The Slam! Check out Beckett's turkey adventure!

Melkam Yelidet Beaal!

If my research is correct, my title is the way to say Merry Christmas in Amharic. January 7th is the day that they celebrate Christmas (Gena) in Ethiopia and this is based on the Orthodox calendar. I won't claim to understand their calendar, but I continue to try! They are eight years behind the Gregorian calendar. Gena is Ethiopia's main religious occasion with people going to churches for special ceremonies commemorating Jesus Christ's birthday. We have tried to learn a little bit about how they celebrate Gena and we look forward to sharing this with Will as he gets older! In the meantime, I just had fun dressing him up in one of the traditional outfits that we bought for him and taking a few pictures!

Will says, "Melkam Yelidet Beaal!"I thought I'd show two of my favorite things that I purchased when we were in Ethiopia. I love this nativity scene that was handmade by Ethiopian crafters.

I also loved this piece that portrays the birth of Christ as well. The left side closes and the wood on the outside is beautifully carved.

In the future I hope to learn how to cook some Ethiopian foods and we can have some traditional Ethiopian meals to celebrate Gena!

Easy Baking Girl!

I know that I still need (and want) to post some pics of Christmas, but this was too cute not to go ahead and put on here! Last night while the boys were at BSF, Helen and I tried out her new Easy Bake oven! So fun! She likes to bake with me, but she was beyond excited to use her new oven to bake some goodies for Beckett and Sean! Not only did she receive the Easy Bake oven, but Nana got her the apron, hat and oven mitt to go with it. Here she is modeling her ensemble:
Here she is mixing the yellow cake batter. All she had to do was add water! Now this girl can crack eggs and measure all kinds of ingredients, but this was BIG time! I guess it was because it was all hers!

What is the saying? A watched Easy Bake oven never cooks? It seemed like it took forever for that little lightbulb to bake her cake!

I didn't take any pics of her mixing or spreading on the frosting, but here is the final product! She was so proud! She cut it in half and gave the other half to her big brother. He went on and on about how it was the best thing he had ever tasted! So sweet!

I think that she liked it too!

She is going to make brownies tomorrow while Beckett goes to his enrichment class. We'll let you know how it goes!