Zoe turns 2!!

So we apparently don't take as many photos anymore.  I guess I only have two pictures from Zoe's birthday party.  I was just talking to my mom about this tonight because I was putting together some videos of the kids and I realized we didn't have any videos of us at the hospital with Zoe when she was born.  Caleb on the other hand, we recorded everything.  I guess life is busier with two kids??


Anyway, I'm finally getting to Zoe's 2nd birthday post.  We had family down for her birthday and it started out with a bang....or maybe it was water shooting out of the wall as my dad was trying to hang a large, heavy picture.  My brother and I scrambled to find the main water valve to shut it off immediately.  Dave so happened to be in the shower when we turned it off and within seconds Dave yells "Hey is there a reason the water shut off?"  Ummm, yes dear, it's because we don't want water shooting out of our wall.  I had to chuckle though because he literally had bubbles all over his body. 


Of course I knew everything would be fine because my dad is Mr. Handy Dandy himself.  He just went to local hardware store and purchased a little $140 tool to fix the water pipe.  What seemed like an innocent picture hanging ended up being quite expensive.  He said he has wanted that tool for awhile now so I guess it's a plus!?!  Merry Christmas dad!! :)


My dad fixed it right up and we were able to clean everything up before the rest of the guests arrived.  To them, it seemed like a normal birthday party and little did they know that if they would've arrived 30 minutes earlier they'd be welcomed with some water to the face as they entered the house.  Hey another bonus, my windows are nice and clean!  Oh and it sure kept the kids busy cleaning up the floor.  Dave and I joked that if we ever need a break from the kids we will just dump water on the floor for them to clean up.


Zoe was excited that everyone was there to see her and she was excited about all the presents too!!  Oh and let's not forget about the frosting on her cupcake...but once the frosting was gone she thought that was enough and figured eating the cake wasn't necessary.  Her screams while opening her presents was so adorable.  I remember at Caleb's 2nd birthday party he screamed the same way when he opened his Dusty airplane.  It's fun to see the similarities at the same age.


Zoe girl you are a true JOY to be around.  Your laughter is contagious.  Your hugs warm my heart.  Your smile is infectious.  You are a bit stubborn which clearly you get from Caleb and Daddy (wink wink)....I can just see my mom laughing right now.  Ok ok, maybe I'm a bit stubborn too.  Anyway, never ever stop being the beautiful, loving, silly girl that you are because you are absolutely PERFECT!!  LOVE YOU ALWAYS with all my heart.

Halloween

Halloween in December?  No, I'm just behind and playing catch up per usual.  Kids had three Halloween celebrations, those lucky ducks.  One at their school, a trick or treat trail at my work and then of course our neighborhood on Halloween.


Two months leading up to Halloween Caleb kept telling us his Halloween disguise would be Batman and it worked out great because Dave spied a Batman kit on clearance before Caleb's birthday!!  So Caleb and Zoe were quite the duo of Batman and Cat woman.  Zoe's costume basically existed of cat ears that we had to distract her attention while we put them on otherwise they'd be pulled off her head within .2 seconds.  Dave and I screamed "LOOK ZOE, WHAT'S THAT OVER THERE?"  She was probably thinking, uh that's a tree over there why are you so ecstatic?  Nonetheless, our excitement distracted her just enough to gently place those ears on her head without knowing.  Man, we are geniuses!!


Kids following the trick or treat trail at my work.

My work always has a cube decorating contest and we were the defending champs.  Last year we won with an Avengers theme and this year we took home the gold with a Nintendo theme.  It was so much fun decorating and the kids really enjoyed walking through all the decorated cubical rows.  I chose to decorate my cube like Duck Hunt and my stellar mom made me the PERFECT dog costume.  It received a boat load of compliments.

Here are the kids all dressed up on the night of Halloween.

And our cute cat pumpkins we did this year...

Lastly these two ninja turtle buddies.  They happened to wear the same thing to school again.  It wasn't on Halloween but somewhat fitting.

Green and Gold and Purple

This year's football season is nearing the end and it's really coming down to the wire.  NFC North has three potential teams to get into the playoffs and the Lions are in the lead.  That almost never happens.  Our neighborhood has the entire NFC North division represented so it makes for some great competition nearby.


Caleb and Zoe go back and forth with who they cheer for.  When the Vikings are playing they say "SKOL Vikings"!  When the Packers are playing they say "Go Pack Go"!  When they play each other they are forced to take sides (Caleb=Vikes, Zoe=Pack attack) Either way they both look extremely adorable in their football gear.

Here is Zoe hugging our Pastor's daughter.  Two little Packer girls...although Zoe doesn't look little next to her.

The odds are very very slim but here's to hoping both the Packers and the Vikings make it into the playoffs this year!

Messy hair don't care

This girl has some amazing hair.  Her natural bedhead came straight out of the 80s.

And that's not the only thing that's messy when it comes to Zoe.  Most of the time our house looks like a bomb went off.  At least she helps pick up at the end of the day.  Along with a messy house her eating is on another level.  This is almost a daily site at our house with Zoe.  It almost makes me want to get a dog...almost.  But then I realize that taking care of a dog is more work than just cleaning up the floor.  Zoe actually now helps clean up her messes.

Eating food in general is messy but can you blame her!?!  Spaghetti is goooooooooood!

And who doesn't like ICE CREAM!?!?!?

Zoe, you can continue to be messy because I know this stage goes so fast and you look OH SO CUTE with that messy face and messy hair!!  XOXO!

Caleb turns 4!

Caleb turns 4!!  And if you ask him right now he says, "I'm almost 5".  He actually said that the day after his birthday and did the countdown of months until his next birthday.  Haha!  The boy is all about his birthday I guess. 


This was Caleb's first birthday party in our new house.  We had family and friends over to celebrate his life!!  He truly is such a blessing as you all know.  His mind is so incredibly inquisitive, his sensitivity to his sister when she's crying (most of the time, although sometimes he's the reason she's crying) is so heart warming, his silliness and laughter is so wonderfully contagious and his loudness rivals a jet engine during take off.  Yes he can be naughty, yes he's stubborn, but he truly brings so much joy to those around him and I'm excited to see his personality continue to flourish and who he will become someday.  All I know is he will do GREAT things and we will continue to sow so much love into this little guy.  Love you Caleb and HAPPY 4TH BIRTHDAY!!!


Getting ready to cut up the HUGE watermelon from Grandpa & Grandma's garden.

Party people, food, fun and toys!

 

Caleb was stung by a big bad bee during his party so Grandpa Harley told him next time to shoot the bee with his new Nerf gun.  Caleb is now prepared to shoot that bee next time....

Rainbow and Santa Jammies

Does it get any cuter than rainbows and Santa jammies?!?! (Caleb, you're cute too)



Patio

My mom gently reminded me that I haven't wrote in my blog in awhile so you can thank her for my blog resurrecting from the dead.


So for some reason I thought I already wrote a post about our patio but am not seeing it so I guess I was just dreaming that I wrote a post.  Dave's dad kindly lent us his truck so we could pick up all the pavers.  It was a very tiring task, mainly for Dave because I was only able to lift the small and medium pavers and those only made up about 5% of our patio.  Dave was wiped and sore just from loading them into the truck and then unloading them into the garage.  We have such an awesome neighborhood that one of our neighbors even came over for a bit to help Dave unload the pavers from the truck into the garage.  By the time we were done, Mike's truck was making a weird noise and we were so concerned that we broke his truck from all the heavy hauling but it turns out that all it needed was power steering fluid.  Whew.  Thanks again Mike for letting us use your truck, I don't know how many trips it would've taken us if we had used our car.  Lol!


The pavers sat in our garage just awaiting the day to build a beautiful patio.  My dad, my brother, Tom (Dave's high school friend) and David (one of our business friends) came over to help build our patio.  Our two friends and Dave did all the heavy lifting from the garage to the back of our house.  My dad and my brother did all the foundation and patio building part.  Dave and I sprinkled in some help too.  Everyone worked so hard and we were able to get it done in less than a day!  It's pretty safe to say that we were all wiped by the end of it.  But as you can see in the picture below, we could not have asked for better weather!  It was gorgeous out!!

Even Zoe decided to help out a bit by playing in the Paver Base box.

It's so true that boxes make the best toys!  My mom (who had a tough job herself for the day by taking care of all the kids) came up with the idea of bringing in the Paver Base boxes for the kids to play with.  Creativity at it's finest below.  What better than box beds??  And guess what??  We had exactly 3 boxes for the 3 kiddos!  How fun!!

This extension of our house has already been utilized a lot in the past couple months for MANY bonfires along with extra seating at Caleb's birthday party too.

Below are the kids anxiously awaiting our guests to arrive for the bonfire party!!

We are so incredibly grateful for everyone who helped create this space which will forever create lasting memories.  THANK YOU!!!  We love you all so very much!!