Birthdays, Balls, and the Blue&White Game

I don't know if it's having three kids, or being involved in more activities or what, but the time for blogging is hard to find these days... here's the last couple weeks in pictures: Evan will be three months next week. He's talking and cooing and so cute. He's getting so big that he's down to only one feeding at night so I'm excited about that! My Mom's Birthday was April 22 and since she's alone during the weeks, she came to visit us to celebrate. We went to Panera for a birthday lunch.

Had a special dinner... Natalie said we had to have balloons. :)

I made a Mocha Cheesecake...complete with trick sparklers.

Love you Mom! So glad you could be with us! :)

"Ahhh-oooo" --Evan's favorite word :)

We went to a kid's fun place in Altoona with some friends. It had tubes and climbing things and ball pits... Natalie was all over the place but Blake pretty much stuck with the balls. Looking at Natalie above us.

Natalie is into spelling words these days. She asks how to spell it and then finds the letters. Unfortunately, we only have one letter of each so there's many words she can't do... guess we need to get a few more letters.

Dr. Daddy

Out on a walk... we definitely live in the middle of a construction site with all the new houses going up around us. The kids love it!

Our big boy!Penn State has a Blue and White game every spring with free admission. Brian's family came down and went with Brian and Natalie.

She lasted about 5 minutes and then colored the rest. :)

We grilled hamburgers for dinner when they got home.

Building a house with Aunt Bethany

My 29th birthday was on April 27th. We made cupcakes during the day and then went on a picnic at Black Moshannon State Park. It was a beautiful evening with my family. :)
Before someone asks... the how-to: melt any kind of choc. chips (these are PB) in a small baggie in the microwave. Snip a tiny piece off one corner and make letters or designs on wax paper (can draw it on paper and stick it underneath to trace). Let them set up in fridge for a few minutes. Oh yeah, it helps if you make a little "tail" on your letters so you have something to stick into the cupcake. Have fun! :) It was so pretty. Thanks honey for making me feel special!

Brian planned it all and grilled chicken with baked beans, chips and fruit. Blake ate three platefuls of the beans!!

Happy Birthday to me!
(Another cupcake trick I just learned: pack them in the little containers that strawberries come in.. it worked great!)

Hope all is well... and hopefully it won't be so long til next time! :)

White House Easter Egg Roll

For those of you who don't know, my dad was appointed by the Obama Administration to be the Special Envoy to Sudan (and the Darfur region.) We're really proud of him and he's already had a great trip there and was able to accomplish a lot. It's really exciting to see how God is using him to help the people of that region. Along with the job come a few perks... one is that he was able to get us tickets for the Easter Egg Roll at the White House! It's definitely a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing so we jumped at the chance, even though the kids won't remember--they'll have pictures. I actually went when I was 2...and no, I don't remember, but I this picture to prove it! :)
We drove down to DC on Sunday afternoon, stayed in a hotel and then met up with my parents in the morning. It was a long day with metro rides, long lines, and lots of walking, but the kids did pretty well even though our time slot was during nap time. Well, Blake was sick and slept on Brian and cried the rest of it, but Natalie enjoyed the event. (Actually, Natalie and Blake have been sick since we've been home... not fun!)

Waiting to enter the South Lawn.

Here's Natalie's shot just like mine.

Blake was definitely not interested!

We took this so Evan could remember he was there too. :)

They had all kinds of activities set up around the lawn... the actual egg roll, an egg hunt, face painting, jump rope, cooking, music, etc, etc. Most of the lines were too long and since our kids didn't really care, we just took it all in and stuck with meeting the characters. They had a bunch of different people from the various PBS shows, plus a few others like Elmo and Bugs Bunny. I think that was definitely their favorite part of the whole day.

Natalie kept saying she was at "Obama's House"

Natalie did get to participate in a little Yoga session. Blake just watched.

When we left, all the kids got souvenir wooden eggs signed by President and Mrs. Obama. We went out to dinner with my mom and then drove back up to PA that night. We realized that it's a bit more stressful to travel and do things now that we have three kids but it was definitely worth it and will be an awesome memory. Thanks so much, Mom and Dad!

Easter Weekend

Thursday night, Bill and Bethany came to pick up all three kids for a few days. We had to go to Brian's Army Dining Out and the offered to watch them for us. Here they are loaded up in the back of our car ready to go. They were so excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's!

Brian and I had a great time... we went to our Life Group, out to a movie (can't do that very easily with kids!), slept ALL night long, slept in, and then went to Brian's Dining Out Friday night. It was wonderful to just be together.... Thank you guys! We REALLY appreciated it. It's so nice being close to family... and I guess this is one advantage of not being able to nurse! :) At the ball. It was fun to meet Brian's friends. As always, I was proud to be his Army wife. Saturday morning, we drove down to reclaim our children. We love them but it was fun to be without them for a little bit. :) The kids went on an Easter Egg Hunt in the yard.

Yay!!

Eating some of the loot-Blake was so excited once he figured out there was chocolate in the eggs! Thanks for all your hard work Bethany.

Love you babe!

Later, we colored eggs.

Making deep dish pizzas for dinner.We celebrated Grandpa's birthday.

Somehow forgot to take pics of their Easter Baskets... but they loved them. We went to church, had a great meal together, and then we headed to DC that afternoon.

Guess Evan's not very good at pictures yet.

LOVE this one though!! :)

One more batch of pics left... check back soon! :)