King's Big Day

We did it! We made it to 1 year old. King's birthday was on my 4th and he is growing like a weed. He is 90th percentile for height and 50th for weight. Taking after his daddy. As far as his birthday goes we kept it simple with just family. King had a lot of fun and a lot of help opening the presents.

As soon as we put the cake in front of him he tore into it. He was by far the messiest of all the kids with their first cakes.

It was like Netta knew that he was beating her in the messy category and she refused to let him have all the glory so she decided to give herself a bath with frosting. EZ of course wanted nothing to do with the mess.

One of King's presents was this awesome trike from his grandma and grandpa. There is going to be a bike theme this year for all the birthdays so watch out for more pics of that later.

Random Fun

One day earlier in May we were just playing around and got some fun pictures. King started pulling up on furniture about a month ago, so at around 11 months old, and I love it cause he can get in my face while I am sitting on the floor taking pictures and you end up with ones like this:

(King is still setting records at our house with his mobility and I am guessing he will be walking around 13 months). That day we also got a package in the mail which included a ton of bubble wrap, which of course we promptly popped and then we were left with these really long pieces of plastic that the kids then wore as belts. Why I don't know, but again it made for some fun pictures.

Easter Extravaganza

Easter was quite the event this year with 3 different celebrations. First we had an egg hunt at the Church that runs EZ's preschool. Sadly the pictures are on my phone and I am so behind on blogging that I am not going to take the time to upload them, but it was really fun. There were an insane amount of eggs. Oh and one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed happened thanks to that egg hunt. While we were there I saw Netta pick up this little white egg with black spots and I thought "that is probably a real egg" so I told her to put it back on the ground. Well later that day EZ came to me saying he "ate something yuck" and I looked in his hand and saw remnants of that little white and black shell, so I told him to spit it out and sure enough he spit out a bunch of shell and what was clearly an egg yolk. I guess Netta didn't put it back on the ground after all!

The next week our Church put on an awesome egg hunt/party. There was face painting, cookie decorating and a cake walk as well. The whole time I couldn't believe how they had pulled together such an amazing party with just a bunch of people volunteering to bring supplies and help run the activities. The face painting was a huge hit with my kids. Netta kept going back for more.

EZ was a content to just have one cheek done.

My dad was actually able to join us thanks to one of his work trips and of course that made it all the better. Uncle Casey and Aunt Sarah also joined us for some egg dying. After that EZ, Netta and Casey put their own rock band together. Gotta love the capes!

My dad had to leave Easter morning, but there was enough time for him to watch the kids find their baskets. In honor of my grandma, who used to do an egg hunt for us and put random things like underwear and tights in the eggs, EZ and Netta each got to hunt for some special eggs filled with underwear. EZ thought it was the funniest thing. He just couldn't believe that the Easter bunny would fill a bunch of eggs with underwear!

Diva Dash

Back in February I was reading Shape magazine and stumbled upon an ad for the first annual Diva Dash in Austin to be held in April. It is a 5k with obstacles every half mile or so and it is to raise money for a charity that promotes self esteem building for girls. Sarah is a runner and I am not, but I thought it would be fun to train for something to help get rid of some of the baby weight and it would be awesome to run it with my sister. I did my best to prepare at the gym and all and all I think we did a pretty good job. They didn't do a good job tracking times but we are guessing we came in at around 39 minutes. Sarah probably could have finished faster, but she was kind enough to hang around for me. The time is nothing stellar, but it is faster than I was expecting. There were moments when I got a little depressed thinking about how I ran cross country in high school and how slow I am now, but seeing as how I haven't actually run a 5k in like 8 years I think it was pretty good. It was hotter than Hades, which was something I was not prepared for after doing most of my training in the gym and I would definitely not sign up to run any later in the year than April, but it was actually kind of fun and at least helped build my self esteem a bit. That and we got free stuff. haha. Here is a pic, which as you can probably guess by our red faces, was taken after we finished the race.

Trying to be Homemakey

This St. Patrick's Day, which yes was like a month and a half ago, I decided to be all homemakey and do something creative with the kids. I saw the cutest rainbow cupcakes online and of course they said they were super easy so I decided to give em a whirl. While not quite as super easy as they made it sound, they actually turned out looking and tasting pretty good. Amazingly however, Netta the girl who eats everything wanted nothing to do with them. She took one bite and said "Too yuck" and made this face like she was going to throw up.

EZ loved them and as you can see King loved them as well.

Netta finally agreed to eat one when I put a bunch of whipped cream on top and then of course she just licked off all the whipped cream. I have always loved cake so this obsession with only eating the icing and none of the cake is mind boggling. Especially since Netta seriously eats anything and everything and is constantly stealing food from other kids. I just can't believe she won't eat cake.

Speich is in the House

One of my best friends from high school Elly Speicher was able to come visit mid-March and it was awesome! She had a conference to go to in Houston and just extended her stay over the weekend so she could come up and visit. The last time I saw Elly was last summer when I was staying in Pittsburgh without John after just having King. It was fun then, but I think the craziness of my life may at that time may have frightened her away from ever wanting to have kids. Heck it frightened me. Luckily, this time around things were not so crazy and she had fun with the kids and they loved her. In fact Netta will still talk about her friend Elly. John was great and took care of the kids so we could do as much as possible while she was here. In fact I was able to be kidless pretty much all day Saturday, which is by far the most I have been since King was born. Of course we ate and ate and ate and shopped and shopped. We also got to see a movie at Alamo Drafthouse, where you can order food and eat it during the movie. John has been there a couple times, but I never have and it was awesome. We also toured the state capitol, which I have been wanting to do for while. Yes it's nerdy and it means we are old, but we liked it. (I kind of skipped a post where I turned 30, but I did in February and I think it is starting to show). It was a bummer when she had to leave, but as it turns out this conference happens in Houston every year so for as long as she is at that job we should be able to get together! Here is a pic of Elly and I thanks to our photographer EZ.

Texas Day

To say that Texans are proud of their state would be a huge understatement. On March 10th, EZ's preschool celebrated Texas Day with stories about cowboys, pony rides, making a book about Texas and a picnic lunch for the whole family. I am pretty sure we never celebrated Pennsylvania day. I volunteered to help out EZ's class and Netta was so excited when she found out that she got to go to school. The girl couldn't be more ready and she jumped right in and did everything the class did. (EZ is sitting to her right in the orange and white plain with the huge cowboy hat from when I was Jesse for Halloween). We have already registered Netta for next year and I am just as excited for her to go as she is.

John was able to join us for lunch and we attempted to get a picture of him with the kids, but as usual not everyone was cooperative.

EZ really loves to take pictures and he took this one of me and Netta. I have finally again reached the point where I don't mind having my picture taken. I decided back in January to really crack down on my diet and it has helped a lot. Now I just need to ween King so I can really cut the calories.

EZ also took this picture of his friend Emme. She often proclaims that she wants to marry him and got in trouble for kissing him on the lips during music class. EZ really loves to play with her, but he has also said that he is marrying a girl named Ashley from his class. I am blown away by how much EZ has changed since he turned 4. Last year he couldn't even name the kids in his preschool class and now he is ready to get married! I would say that he has made quite a leap in his social development.