Matthew turns 5!

Our sweet Matthew turned five on May 29th! Time flies so fast, we can't believe Matthew's been part of our life for five whole years. :)  This kid is super sweet--he has such a kind heart and is always so loving toward his brothers. He's sensitive, but has a pretty goofy sense of humor. Matthew really looks up to Daniel, and can't wait to start playing soccer on his own team in the fall, just like his big brother. He loves riding on his glider bike, playing football, and wrestling with his brothers. He has some great friends in his preschool class this year, which really made all the difference for him at school. Matthew is such a blessing in our family. We love him to pieces!

Chris was going to be out of town the weekend of Matthew's actual birthday, so we had a little party for him the week before. You can never have too much celebrating, right?

 Matthew received lots of generous gifts from his friends and family.

 A real treat for breakfast on his big day...froot loops!

 We usually open gifts during dinnertime on birthdays, but with Daddy leaving town, we made an exception and Matthew was super excited to get to open this big package!

 It is always so much fun to watch Matthew open gifts. Hooray for his very own Seahawks helmet and jersey set!

 I think he was happy.

The afternoon was spent throwing rocks in the water at Golden Gardens with Auntie Laura. What fun!

 Great-Aunt Bea dropped off a cupcake cake for the birthday boy!

 Yum!

 A new husky shirt! 

(Love the blue frosting lips...)

 "My very own shinguards?!"

 "Thank you, Daniel!"

 Flight suit sent all the way from Auntie Karen, Uncle Jesse and the Maryland cousins.

He couldn't wait to try it out. :)

One last celebration for our favorite second son--a little park playdate with his classmates! 

 

What a great time, for such a great kid. Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Waiting for baby

I This baby has officially made us wait longer than any other baby here...we're at 9 days late today. In the meantime, we've had lots of things going on to keep us busy, like birthday parties, soccer games, and visits with friends. Here's a few other things we've been up to while waiting for this newest little one to join us.

Cookie baking! All throughout Lent I've been craving peanut butter cookies. Last week we made the dream a reality.

Checking out the fountains and other yard ornaments at Fred Meyer. Aaron loves to visit the "waterfalls" and recently became acquainted with this stone cat statue.

Running errands, trying to finish all the "to do before baby" jobs done. Of course, the longer it takes baby to come, the more jobs get added to the list.

Napping. This kid gave up his regular nap  a few weeks ago, but he's needed some extra rest lately so we've been taking little naps together.

Celebrating daddy's birthday! If baby had come yesterday he/she would've shared a birthday with both daddy and Auntie Karen. Looks like this little one wants their own birthday, though.

Going to the park. The little boys and I went to North Acres park this morning to play and walk the trails.

And, it turns out the extra napping is due to a sinus infection. Poor kid. We've got the medicine now and hopefully he'll perk up in time to meet his new baby brother or sister.

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Aaron turned three on the 16th. 

I think this was the most fun birthday to witness so far (although, I may be forgetting Daniel and Matthew's earlier birthdays...). 

Aaron was so excited to have a birthday, and he just LOVED having people sing the birthday song to him. 

 

 We sang and lit candles many times in the days surrounding his birthday, and every time he just sat there beaming as if having us all there celebrating him made this the best day of his life. Which makes sense (because he is three, after all)...

...but there was just something different about him than other birthday boys who have been a little uncomfortable with the attention (which also makes sense...they are their mother's sons, after all).

 Aaron had a fun birthday, especially because Auntie Laura had literally just gotten back from China.

 And of course, there were presents.

 Like bath toys.

And airplanes.

 And books. (His exact words were "Yes! A book!")

 And olives.

 And Dick's cheeseburgers and milkshakes for dinner!

 

 And let's not forget about the cake.

 A few days later we celebrated with the rest of the family...which meant more presents...

 ...and more cake!

Three-year-old Aaron's Top Ten Favorite Things (in no particular order)

1. His brothers
2. The Swedish Chef from the Muppets
3. Airplanes...especially the P51 Mustang
4. Baths
5. Olives. All kinds
6. Auntie Laura (or LaLa, as he calls her)
7. Cats, especially Auntie Laura's cat, Finn. (We play a lot of pretend games where he is Finn and I am LaLa)
8. Cake (this was also one of his first words)
9. Mom (because she makes the food)
10. Dad (because he plays the rough, tickling games)


Three-year-old Aaron is:

1. Passionate. There is no medium with Aaron. He is either really happy (and he'll tell you "I so happy!") or really mad. He has a fair amount of rage in him that shows itself anytime he is even slightly disappointed. This earned him the nickname "Angry Aaron" early on, and though we don't really call him that now, he still fits the bill.

2. Polite. When he isn't raging mad at you, he is very polite. He rarely ever asks for something without politely using "please," and is the one kid who most often says "thank you for the ______" without being prompted. (This is especially nice at mealtime).

3. Athletic. This kid is the most athletic toddler I've seen. He is super agile and has incredible balance. He will jump fearlessly off of anything (so watch out if you're within arms reach), and climbs as high as he can on any play structure we meet. He flips over in one fluid motion if you hold him by his hands in the air, and also learned to do this on the rings on our play structure. He flies down our sidewalk on his scooter, which makes anyone who doesn't know him nervous, but manages to stay upright and in control 99% of the time.

4. Independent. He takes after big brother Daniel in this department--usually saying "I do it myself" if you offer to help him with anything. Putting shoes on, buckling himself into the car seat, getting dressed, you name it and Aaron will want to do it himself. Or at least try for 10 minutes before accepting your help.

5. Helpful. Anything we do, Aaron is asking to help. Chores are now taking quite a bit longer to complete with all the "help" we're getting, but at least he's learning how to do things...right?

6. Sweet. If you say "I love you" or "I missed you" to Aaron, he usually replies in his very cute little voice "I love you, too" or "I missed you, too." Melt my heart.

Happy birthday, buddy! We love you oh so much. :)

Happy Birthday, Daniel!

Daniel is seven.

Where does the time go??! He is such a joy to have in our lives... He is a wonderful big brother. He's incredibly bright and he's really loving his first grade class at St. Alphonsus. Daniel is affectionately known as our little engineer, as he loves to invent and build all sorts of structures and contraptions. He really enjoys playing soccer, and can often be found practicing his kicks in the back yard (one of which actually broke a board in the fence...). He's an avid bike rider--he wishes we lived closer to school so he could ride his bike there. Best of all, he is caring and compassionate, always looking to make sure people are taken care of. We love this guy!

Daniel's birthday weekend was a bit overshadowed by some other family events, so his birthday celebrations were drawn out over the next week or so. Here are the highlights:

Birthday pancake, the morning of.

The following weekend we had a birthday party at the park for his classmates. Daniel announced a few days before the party that he wanted it to be "Messi" themed...

We had lots of light blue and white Argentina decorations.

Hooray for friends and cupcakes!

Presents!

A couple days later we had a little birthday dinner with the extended family.

It's starting to take some real effort to blow all the candles out.

Can't believe this goofy guy is seven already. Love you, Daniel!

Happy Birthday, Matthew!

Our sweet Matthew turned four yesterday! It was a very exciting day for him: he brought rice krispie treats with sprinkles to school to share with his class AND it was his show n' tell day.... big stuff!

Here's what's going on in Matthew-land right now:
-Matthew is still really goofy--he LOVES to do and say silly things in order to make people laugh. However, he is still quite shy and doesn't like having the attention of a group of people.

-He has a great time in his preschool class, but he doesn't like the idea of going to school. Every day he asks "is it my school day?" and if the answer is "yes," there are some tears and protests. I think Matthew thinks that if he goes to school, he'll be missing out on some super-secret fun at home. His teachers always say that he's fine when he's there. It's just the idea of going that bothers him.

-Matthew's favorite toys right now (or, still, rather) are trains. He loves setting up train tracks and running the trains on them. His favorite track configuration is a straight line (which really bothers his brothers, since he uses most of the straight pieces and leaves none for them).

-He still goes everywhere with his lovey, Saggy, and is an avid thumb-sucker.

-Matthew is a pretty good eater, but does not like "seeds" in his bread, and prefers his toast uncooked.

-He is really getting into cooperative imaginative play, which is wonderful in that he can now play more with Daniel. In fact, the other day I overheard them playing some pretend game together and just as I was thinking "wow! They're able to play the same pretend game nicely together," Matthew exclaimed "Daniel! You're letting me play with you!" Daniel was pretty nonchalant about it, but it was pretty sweet how excited Matthew was to really be playing along.

-Matthew has a few idiosyncrasies right now that are a bit difficult for us. One is that he doesn't like pants that are long enough to touch his feet. That makes getting dressed pretty difficult most days. For awhile all he wanted to wear were tight pajama pants....not quite appropriate for going out and about. Needless to say, we are very excited for summer so he can just wear shorts and we don't need to argue about the pants issue anymore. (And hopefully, after a long time not wearing pants, he will have forgotten about his trouble with them, too.)

-Matthew loves to sing. He can often be heard singing songs to himself. :)  His favorite TV show is "Wonder Pets," which is made in a sort of opera-style, and since watching it lately Matthew sometimes sings his sentences instead of just speaking. It's awfully cute.

-Matthew is an early riser. He wakes up around five every morning and comes into bed with us. Sometimes he shows up earlier, and often we have no idea when he came in. This would be fine if Matthew didn't like to sleep sideways and kick blankets off of him (and us). I'm hoping this is just a phase.

All in all, Matthew is a super sweet kid and we love him very much. He brings so much joy to our family and we can't wait to see how he grows over the next year. :)

 We had a little party for Matthew over the weekend. He was pretty excited about the cake...

With his buddies, Luca and Estela.

 Look how tall I am!

 All smiles on the way to school.

 It is so much fun to watch Matthew open gifts. He has such wonderful expressions and gets so excited about every gift.

 Auntie Laura helps Matthew figure out how to use the yo-yo that Aaron picked out for him.

 Boogie Board from Auntie Karen, Uncle Jesse and cousins in Maryland! This thing is awesome!

 Model bullet train! [Matthew has had some very specific gift requests for this birthday and last Christmas. Any time you ask him what he'd like, he says "model bullet train." He's never seen this before, so we're counting ourselves lucky that there actually is a model train set made for four-year-olds and there's a bullet train version. Oh, and it was reasonably priced, too. Here's hoping next time is that easy.]

 Extra cars for the train from Daniel! [At this point, Matthew was giving us a live version of that  video from a few years ago of a boy getting an xbox 360 for Christmas...]

 "My OWN binoculars?! Thanks Auntie Laura!"

 Since we had cake over the weekend, birthday dessert was homemade strawberry ice cream sundaes.

 Then it was off to the living room to set up that train!

 Making tunnels for the train to go through.

Learning all about how it works.

 Love.