Friends Came to Visit

Last week some friends came to stay with us for a couple days. These are dear friends of ours from CWR (one of our favorite places on earth). Hard to believe we have 5 kids between us now! It was a great treat and we all really enjoyed having them. Hope they can come again soon!

John and Mark with all the kids.

Sorry there are no shots of me or Emily (one camera had dead batteries- another had a full memory card).

Our eldest children. All the kids did great with company - our kids loving having people over and Livy was crazy about their little baby!

They turned 2!

It's true - the twins turned two! Can you believe it?? We have made it two years!! Although it is still pretty intense having twins (and another) I think after making it two years we will keep them! This picture sums up Miss Livy pretty well. She tries to rule our house (but particularly her brothers).

And, this picture sums up Isaac pretty well. he is incredibly sweet and has a great smile.

Opening presents- notice Ethan is right in the mix.

"What more toys? I thought we had enough of these things!"



The favorite of the day - the new keyboard. Isaac is fascinated with the attached microphone.

Ethan has been enjoying it too.

Livy's favorite- her new bath time doll.

Daddy helps diaper the doll. He is actually pretty good at playing dolls.

He turned 5!

That's right! He is 5! We have been busy with Birthday Season at the Hoots' House- beginning with Ethan turning 5. Hard to believe it- soon he will be off to college! He favorite present was this new train table.

At our house birthday's start with cupcakes for breakfast- you cannot tell here - but it has become a fun tradition here (and like many traditions was just an accident - we did it one year - but now Ethan will not let us forget it!).
Of all his gifts he was the most excited to receive (along with his present) a one dollar bill from his Great Granny in the mail.

Here is the cool guy in all his five year old glory.

Birthday Season

Christmas is not the only big season in our house, we also have birthday season. With all three kids celebrating within 10 days we are partied out by mid April. Not too mention my sister, our nephew, some close family friends, and my own birthday are all within the same couple of weeks. It is a fun time, but I am already "caked out".

On Saturday we had a birthday party for the three kiddos. Ethan picked a Jurassic theme this year and it was a lot of fun. We decided to have the birthday party at home this year and it was great. I know this is not for everyone, but we have decided birthday parties are getting a little out of hand... and so we decided to do a throw back birthday party. For us this meant close friends, at the house, order pizza, mom decorates the house and makes the cake, play some party games, and rip open presents too fast to tell who they were from! Ethan's dinosaur theme was a big hit. Everyone loved the t-rex tracks that were found all over the house (pictured above).

Ethan insisted on party hats and kazoo like things.

Here is the cake. I am pretty proud of how it turned out. If you can't tell - it's a volcano (with real smoke (thanks to dry ice)) and a dinosaur scene. I think it tasted pretty good too.

Enjoying some lunch with good friends. Nothing like some pepperoni pizza and some 4 and 5 year old chatter.

The babes enjoyed themselves. Can you believe they are nearly two!!

My grandparents, and therefore the kiddos GREAT grandparents were able to come (from Ohio) which was a real treat.

Probably the favorite activity of the day was painting dinosaur eggs. All the big kids got really into it. Above Samuel and River are straight serious about their eggs.

Kieran and Gavin get into painting.

Ethan showed us all a new technique on his miniature egg.

Another fun game was the dinosaur toss. Pretty straight forward... throw the dinosaurs into the "volcano". Only a few people were hit by flying dinosaurs. No, really... only a few.

They showed the dinosaurs who was king now.

The final game was Pin the Horn on the Triceratops. A big hit. And, the poster did not turn out too bad, if I do say so myself!!

A dizzy Ethan gives it a try.

Dizzy Samuel.

Thanks to all our friends and family who made the day so great for the kids!

St. Patrick's Day: a comparison

St. Patrick's Day 2008 St. Patrick's Day 2009

Sorry, this is nearly a week late. Hope everyone had a good St. Patrick's Day. We spent last week being sick and then going out of town. Blogging was low on the list of priorities. You get it, I know. Anyway... I wanted you all to see how much the babies have changed in a year!! I cannot believe how chubby and bald they were - just one year ago.

Check out the St. Patrick's Day hairbow.

Captain Ethan

Our local MOPS group recently had a Pirate and Princess Party. I am usually pretty down on the whole pirate thing, but for the party I let Ethan get dressed up. He was pretty excited. He said... "Mom I can't believe you are going to let me be a pirate!" and "Don't worry mom, I will be a nice pirate... I will be Captain Crunch!". He came up with that all on his own- I don't remember ever even discussing that Captain Crunch is a pirate. But, after thinking about it he decided, "I changed my mind Mom, I am just going to be Captain Ethan, because I already know how to be him".