Big birthdays!

April is definitely a big month for birthdays around us! This year we celebrated Emily's first birthday at her Nana's house. So strange, this is the first family baby (other than my own!) I've been around to see grow up. I visited Whitney in the hospital just a day after baby Emily was born, and got to hold her. I saw her at all the in-between stages, of laying and doing nothing, of sitting up and crawling, of pulling up and finally deciding to walk.

Happy first birthday Emily!

Last weekend we traveled to Charlotte for Lily's 3rd birthday. She had a Princesses & Pirates theme, and Hayden had a blast! We watched the kids color and play in the castle and pirate ship, eat yummy food, sing and eat cake. I was most amazed at how much baby Reid had changed in a year! At Lily's party last year Reid was on her monitor in the baby bouncer, and still so small. One year later, she was sitting up in the high chair, eating cake and walking around and exploring. What a difference time makes!

Lily had a blast with all her friends! She opened presents and thanked everyone for her gifts. She played and was the perfect princess!

At the end of the party, she was excited to hand out her princess & pirate favors. The hat, sword, eye patch and gold coins made for a fun ride home. Hayden didn't want to leave, and on the way home kept asking, "Can we go to Charlotte to Lily's party?" Those two got along great!

Ax man

We had a tree in the backyard that was basically a nuisance. No good could come from it, and Jay couldn't take it anymore, so he spent three days cutting it down with a chainsaw. One of my least favorite noises, the end of this project could not come fast enough for me. Hayden loved it, and so did the dogs. Even Lila didn't mind, snoozing outside in the nice weather while Jay cut and cut and cut some more.

Because of the fences, the deck and the proximity of the tree to our neighbor's yard, Jay had to take the smaller branches first, then the bigger branches and then finally the trunk.

Luckily for Hayden and the dogs, he left the trunk in a few big pieces in the yard for two days, which proved to be hours of entertainment! Literally hours. One night Hayden was out there until almost 9pm, and I had to serve his dinner on the deck because he refused to come in. You're only young once!

Happy Easter!

What a fun time of year this is! Flowers blooming, grass growing, and of course, Easter. This was Lila's first Easter, but Hayden was no stranger to the Easter bunny, Easter basket and hunting for eggs! We started the day off with a quick trip downstairs to see what the bunny brought the little ones! Hayden enjoyed a few new puzzles, two movies, cars and candy. Lila got a play gym, with fun zoo animals hanging around to entertain her. We made a small lunch for us and Gloria, which Lila slept all the way through (until my first bite of coconut cake)!

Hanging out with grandma!

Checking out the play gym!

After lunch we headed to Aunt Jana's for more lunch and an Easter egg hunt! Lila was content to be passed around amongst family while Hayden was more than happy to hunt eggs with the big kids. He did an awesome job finding eggs, and helping his cousins find them too!

Hayden and Zoe found a caterpillar too! They wanted to race them, but only had one. Good news...he won every time!

And when Lila got a little fussy, we handed her over to the baby whisperer, aka Uncle Eric...

All in all, it was a great day but super exhausting! We were so tired when we got home, we all just relaxed and spent the evening doing a big bunch of nothing. Fine with me!

Family

Lila and Hayden are blessed with such a large family. They have four grandparents, three great-grandmothers (one passed away just a month before Lila was born), and even one great-great grandmother! They have three cousins, two uncles, an aunt and of course, each other! They have a whole host of extended family as well, but I was really excited to snap this picture the other day of Lila with her great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother. She actually bears a pretty strong resemblance to her great-great-grandmother Oakley sometimes!

Did I forget to mention...

We added a new family member to the mix! Meet Onyx...

Onyx is a three-month old blue female pit bull. She fits right into this crazy family. She loves to snuggle, eat and make messes. Whoever thought it was a bad idea to get a new puppy just after bringing home a newborn certainly didn't factor in Oscar. He's SO excited to have a playmate. They run and fight and bite and snuggle and she likes to try to share his crate. Though hers is nearly identical, she always runs to his first.

Baby girls

I can't get over how different my kids are. In reading some of my old blogs about Hayden's newborn stage and the first few months, they don't seem all that different. They have the same sweet disposition, the same snuggle-into-your-neck when you pick them up, the same baby smile. But Lila is much more calm and laid back than Hayden ever was. She bears a strong resemblance to him at this age, but she's less of a mini-Jay and more like a half-Hayden. The response isn't overwhelmingly "oh she looks just like her dad" like it was with Hayden, mainly because we can see much of her other family members in her. But man is she a doll!

She loves to stick out that little tongue, and she LOVES to be held. She's starting to respond to our voices more, and definitely knows when mom, dad or Hayden is talking. She recently discovered those little things at the end of her legs the other night, and was absolutely fascinated watching her feet and toes move.

She started daycare last Monday and is doing really well! They just adore her at daycare and she's in a room with about four other babies under six months. They have a variety of swings and bouncy seats and boppies, so it's not much different from home. She eats like a champ of course, and is getting better at sleeping there. At night she's doing a pretty consistent 6+ hours and I cannot complain a bit, as Hayden was six months old before he ever entertained the idea of 6 hours.

Everything about her seems much more petite and delicate. Hayden had these huge man hands and Flintstone feet from the start, but she has these long skinny fingers and tiny little feet and loooooong legs. Her legs are slim, but she does have the baby-girl-rolls in her upper thighs which are just so cute. Her umbilical hernia has started going down (!) and her cradle cap has migrated up to her scalp where it belongs. Not a day goes by that I don't realize how lucky we are to have two perfectly healthy, completely different children. I know many people that would give anything to be able to say that, and these little miracles are not lost on me.

Spicy Thai Noodles

I had been DYING for thai food, so I was super excited to try out this recipe. The recipe itself is simple enough, and I made some modifications including additions. Done in 15 minutes and a hit at the table!

Box of linguine, boiled and drained
1/2 cup peanut oil
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 T crushed red pepper
6 T honey
6 T soy sauce
1/2 cup shredded carrots
1/4 cup green onion
1/4 cup peanuts
2 T sesame seeds
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In a small saucepan, add oils and crushed red pepper. Cook over low heat (otherwise the peppers will scorch), stirring for about 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat, strain peppers and reserve oil. To the oil, whisk in the honey and soy sauce. Pour over the noodles and mix thoroughly (there will still be some sauce at the bottom of the noodles). Refrigerate overnight, serve cold with carrots, peanuts and green onion on top.

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I made several changes. Right off the bat, I had no desire to eat this cold. I also read reviews that the peppers were too hot, and since I cut the whole recipe in half anyway, I further cut the peppers. So I did about 1/4 cup peanut oil, half the vegetable oil, and only a teaspoon of peppers. This was DYING to be turned into pad thai, so I added one chopped chicken breast, sauteed in peanut oil with ginger, sesame seeds and zucchini, and I tossed in two handfuls of shrimp to the last minute of the boiling noodles. It was AWESOME.