5 Year old Westyn

Westyn is pretty difficult to get to sit still for pictures so we're rather limited on pictures to choose from.  He knew exactly what he wanted for his birthday party and made sure I knew every detail.  Will said it's my fault for setting the bar high from previous parties I've done for Lilyanah.  When Westyn started asking for a lego batman cake with every color of the rainbow I knew Will was right.  Instead he got a white cake with a road coming off it so I could set his Lego batcave & batcar on it.  We put the candles on the corner so less pieces were ruined by his blowing them out spit.  : )  Since we were doing a little party we decided to all dress up like superheroes or villians mostly from Batman.  Daddy was Superman again but Lilyanah dressed like Cat girl, Ethne like Harley Quinn (who the kids called "Harry Queen" up until about a month ago because they thought that was her name, Westyn was obviously Batman & I'm Robin Girl wearing Ethne's tank top which explains why the R is so low.  I just love Westyn's serious face, that's what he does when you tell him to pose like Batman.  I think he's captured his essence quite well.  : )  The costumes arrived a couple of days before Westyn's party and the kids spent hours running around playing hero and villians.  You can see Batman and Harley Quinn battling it out in one of the pictures.

We had a few of Westyn's friends over for a dinner party on Sunday night, the day before his birthday.  Grandpa made an obstacle course for them to go through downstairs including a red yarn 'laser field".  It was a great way to get some energy out and entertain 5 highly energetic boys.  I don't know how we made it without getting pictures of all of them.  Mason Hinman is the son of one of the women that comes to Bible study at our home.  He and Westyn are adorable and get along perfectly.  Jackson, Trace, & Ty Sorensen also came and dressed as Captain America, Ironman & baby Superman.  Westyn loves having them over.  That's Mason in his Spiderman pajamas.  He and Westyn were taking turns trying to throw something through the ring.
 I probably don't need to point out that Westyn's costume is at least one size too big!  It should fit perfectly next Halloween, so spoiler for our next Halloween post.  I had to include a picture of Ethne in her costume with her eyes open.  With five people in our family it's nearly impossible to get a picture with everyone looking at the camera, eyes open, let alone actually smiling!  I just love her costume, the reviews on it were awful on amazon but apparently we got a good one that you'll also be seeing next Halloween.  : )  Fortunately, the costume Lilyanah chose is very versatile.  She can be Bat girl, Cat girl, a super spy, a thief, a panther. . . .  the possibilities are endless, so you'll just have to check in next Halloween to see what she chooses.
The final picture is Westyn covered in his birthday cake.  I'll admit I had a little crumb on my chin too but nothing like his face.  : )  I'm wearing a shirt that Will and I got after completing my first 5k & our first 5k together The Workforce Challenge in downtown Albany, NY. 
I can hardly believe our little Westyn is already 5 years old.  On his actual birthday I gave him the choice of what he wanted to do and as result spent over 4 hours playing Batman Lego on the Wii that Dad and Mom gave us for Christmas.  Four hours was my limit,with a headache from looking at the tv for too long I had to quit! Needless ot say, his favorite thing is anything Batman.  When I asked him his favorite colors he said yellow and black.
 Westyn is such a laid back little boy and such a joy to all of us. I am so immensely blessed not only to be his mommy, but to get to spend every day at home with him.  He has so much joy in his little heart, laughing through most of our days and most importantly will tell you how much he loves God.  In fact, when I talk to him about how much I'm going to miss him when he leaves for kindergarten next year he says, "don't worry Mommy, God is with you, you won't be alone."  If I teach him nothing else but that God is always with Him I will have done my job.  .  I feel so humbled to be raising a little man who will some day have a family of his own.  We are doing our best to try to teach him to be a gentleman and good helper around the house.  He takes being a gentleman quite seriously but REALLY does NOT like doing housework.  : (  I have my work cut out for me.  He is a very talented chef.  The kid can break eggs and stir things without spilling them all over the place.  Just the other morning he mixed pancake batter up for himself.  I was supervising of course.  Mom measured him and he and Ethne are separated now only by 1/2".  He is 45 1/2" tall and weighs about 53 lbs.  He's our little cuddler and can melt my heart as much now as the day he was born.  Thanks be to God for blessing our family with our Westyn Jack.

Halloween 2013

  Last year the kids weren't allowed to dress up for Halloween so they were extra excited to be able to wear costumes this year.  I am proud to announce that this was our first year since the girls have had an opportunity to dress up that we have been "princess-free".  Lilyanah chose to be a ballerina and Ethne went as "Robin girl".  My favorite part of her homemade costume is the R patch that my lovely and talented mama sewed for her.  She loved her costume so much she wore it for three days afterwards!  Next to Lilyanah is one of her best friends Maddie from up the street and by Ethne is little Madison, also a neighbor from around a couple of corners.

  

 The night of Halloween we had friends over for dinner (ghost shaped homemade pizza & mummy weinerwraps) before heading out to trick-or-treat together.  Lilyanah chose to be batgirl, Ethne was still Robin girl and Westyn went as Batman.  Rather than spend more than $100 on costumes we took the homemade costume route.  Will had the wig and glasses from being Will-I-am for a kareoke thing at work so he just went and bought a shirt and surprised us as Superman!  Since I'm writing it here I ruin it for later but Will joked about having me see what Dad wore that day and getting something to try to match as closely as possible and go around mimicking him all night.  Dad should take that as a compliment I think that the only thing keeping Will's costume from being Superman vs. dad is the clothes.  : )
Unforunately I only got one picture of little Westyn in his costume.  I had a full outfit for him including a black batman shirt and black pants but he was comfortable in what he was wearing.

  Trick-or-treating has changed significantly over the years.  This was the first year that we had to chase the kids down vs. leading them from house to house.  The kids never did seem to learn that you're only as fast as your slowest team mate.  The youngest little guy Jack was only 2 so they were waiting A LOT.  : )  Once they got t to the door they all wanted to ring the doorbell so we had to have them all take turns which worked out well.  It was drizzling the entire time but fortunately held off the hard rain until we were almost done.  You can see all the rain on Will's shirt where he was photo bombing the picture of Ayumi  

and Lilyanah.  Ayumi is one of Lilyanah's best friends in her class.  She moved here from Idaho this year after being there for 2 years (like us).  Her family originally came from Japan and she has been very sweet to Lilyanah writing her notes about how kind Lilyanah is.  She has also taught Lilyanah quite a bit of origami.  I think she was a pirate.
Halloween is also the end of budget season for Will and since the kids wanted him to be a part of our pumpkin carving we didn't end up carving our pumpkins until the night of Halloween.  Lilyanah was actually the only one who really cared to carve pumpkins.  So of course it was her pumpkin that had, shall we say, more than we bargained for?
Grandpa was helping cut the pumpkins open and when he cut open Lilyanah's they found little black bugs crawling all around inside of it.  Lilyanah was DEVASTATED.  Grandpa did everything he could to make it right, driving all over to try to find a pumpkin for her but there were none to be found. I had what I thought was a brilliant idea to set the pumpkin on fire and have a Halloween bonfire in the front.  Kill those nasty little buggers!  Lilyanah warmed up after quite a few "MYYYYY PUMPKINNNNNN" sobs.  The kids all roasted some hot dogs before calling it a night.  I told the kids anyone can carve a pumpkin but how many people do you know having a pumpkin bonfire!?

The next day grandpa found a cooking pumpkin in the grocery store and brought that home making Lilyanah, who FINALLY got to carve her very own pumpkin, very happy.

Happy Halloween!

WHAT!?

A new picture, that's just crazy!

That's what you're all thinking right?  Well, it isn't the most attractive picture of the kids but I love how mom (who is here visiting) captured their different expressions "attitudes"  : ).  At that point Ethne was NOT happy about her costume and was trying to transform her pirate into a pirate princess.  I got a hold of her & afterwards she was completely content.

I hope you all had a fantastic halloween & I will do my best to update more often.

Love to the two of you who still check this blog. . .  and those who use it to get to the links.  : )

Smiling,

Wendy.

Girl's Room

 Here's the view into the girl's room.  It's not done yet, there's still a lot of work to do but here's where we're at now. 

 I kinda just threw some things up, I'm sure I'll be moving things around a bit once I'm done with other projects.

 This sign needs "sweet" above it still & I think I'll shorten the ribbon on the dreams so it's up higher and can be seen better from the ground.  We made the dots out of clay & hot glued them to the letters.

 I have a few different ideas for lighting under their bed.  At this point we put some rope lights around the edge for lack of something better.

End of October. . .

 Our sweet Meme came to town October 25th through November 1st.  We LOVE her visits & had such a wonderful time.  Unfortunately, she was taking all the pictures so I don't have any with her and the kids : ( but here they are sporting some of their fun new clothes courtesy of Meme.    While she was here I got to sleep in every morning, my own little mini-vacation at home.  : )   She watched the kids on Halloween while Will & I went on a date so we don't have that official pic of the kids in their costumes, I'll see if I can stage one in the next couple of days.  : )

Here's Ethne looking WAY too grown up for me in her costume.  Mom & Dad brought me a pair of Will's old fatigues from Air National Guard days that I cut in half & made this dress out of one of the legs.  As tight as it was she could have been a camo mermaid!  I could have sewn a little tighter in the arms but she didn't mind.  : )  That pic was actually taken on the 30th before we went to a Halloween party at the Corry's house up the street. 

 This pic of Lilyanah was taken AFTER trick-or-treating (where she wore Ethne's Cinderella wedding dress).  Ethne actually wore this wig trick-or-treating since Lilyanah decided to be a princess instead.  Lilyanah had apparently forgotten that she could wear the wig if she dressed up like Scarlett (the GIJoe) & was pretty devastated that Ethne got to wear it instead of her.  Which, I assume is why she is wearing her GIJoe outfit and the wig in this pic after the festivities, (we were on a date).  : )

This last pic is from today.  Our sweet princess fell off a 'self-made chair' (consisting of a lego table and wooden box), and gashed her lip pretty bad on the 4th of November.  She lost ANOTHER tooth, knocked the other one pretty loose & was bleeding so badly I grabbed my things & took her up to the hospital in Saratoga.  We were fortunate enough to be there when our neighbor, (who is an ER doctor) was there.  Her cut didn't require stitches, I wish I had a pic where you could see the relief on her face when the Dr. said no stitches, SUCH RELIEF! 

It was one of those times I probably didn't need to take her to the ER but better safe than sorry.  In the end she came away with some princess stickers & a cute bear named Tender Care.  Good times!  Last November, on my birthday actually, we were at the ER with Westyn for the cut above his eye.  This year 3 days after my birthday I was at the hospital with Lilyanah, next November I'm padding the kids in pillows and keeping them in padded rooms, no more ER please!  : )  Love you all!

Errand Day. . .

I usually limit stops with kids to 2 per outing but we had a lot to do today.  Stop 1, Social Security office, which ironically is also the first step to getting my New York license before my Oregon one expires on the 1st.   Next was Home Depot, followed by Lowes, Bank of America, & ending at JoAnns Fabric.  My superstar shoppers who should have been asleep at the time were having a ball in the Halloween section at our last stop.  Unfortunately for Westyn they had no boy headbands, though he didn't seem to care.

In the next aisle Westyn found these, and guess what I heard. . .  "I stuck, I stuck!"  He pulled so hard on the incredibly cheaply made plastic chain it came off the hook on the wall & he fell back on his cute little bum.  It's okay, we all three laughed.  As I started walking to the next aisle he seriously didn't follow me, just kept calling, "I stuck Mommy".  Someone likes being stuck, which is good cause' that little man is stuck with me. .
Here's the kicker, after Lilyanah got home the girls were having some difficulty connecting so I had them sit beside each other and tell the other about their day, Ethne first.  And here's what she says, "I played barbies ALL DAY LONG!"  Seriously, crazy kid hadn't touched a barbie all day long!  : )  And on that note, have a great night/day!

I STUCK!

 One night, I was cleaning up after dinner when I heard Westyn say, "I STUCK, MOMMY!"  I turned around to see what you see in the picture above.  I actually refrained from picking up my camera & taking a picture to document the silly moment & instead hurried to his rescue only to find he was just kidding.  His hands easily slipped through the opening and nearly as soon as I had them out he stuck them back up & repeated, "I stuck!"  At that point, yes, I grabbed my camera for this pic!

 I know I have been incredibly neglectful with this blog for the past month, (yikes) and I apologize to those of you who take the time to check up on our little family.  : )  I have been spending my time trying to get the house all put together and although I know I could just post a couple of pictures with one sentence and you'd be happy, I haven't even made the time to do that.  So, here I am, at nearly midnight, taking some time to post a few pics so you know what we've been up to.  Lilyanah is halfway through soccer lessons at our local community center, quite an adventure. . .

 While Mom & Dad were up visiting at the beginning of the month we went to practice a little early and stopped at the library, (which is also in the community center building).  Ethne got some time reading with Grandma while Lilyanah looked over books herself & Westyn sat on my lap.  I must mention that we read a book that Westyn was literally laughing out loud at.  It was crazy adorable!

You'll actually have to enlarge the below picture of the house to be able to see the kids & the spiderweb made of a combination of electrical & duct tape. That 8 is new too, I bought it at Hobby Lobby.  I LOVE HOBBY LOBBY!  Not because of the 8, just wait till you see the beautiful material our new curtains are made of!  The spiderweb looks much beter up close, it's disappointing that the further away you get from the house the more obvious it is that I need to add some height to it.  We'll see if that happens.  : )  I would love suggestions regarding what color I should paint the door though.  I'm hoping to paint it before the weather turns so cold I don't have the option.

 Both the above and below picture were taken Thursday after we picked Lilyanah up from school.  Homecoming was this weekend for Ballston Spa so the kids had to wear themed outfits all week.  This day she was suppose to wear her favorite team colors/outfit.  All we had OU was my t-shirts or a cheerleader outfit passed down from Kaylyn.  She opted for the cheerleader outfit & represented OU quite well!  : )  Both girls thought they were pretty funny putting our glittery fake spiders on their heads.

Oh girls! 

And with that last picture of these two sweet little faces I have got to get to bed.  My almost 35 year old body does not do well with these late nights/ early mornings!  Love you all sweet friends and family!