Tonight Alexander celebrated his first birthday party a few days shy of his real birthday.
Birthday cakes made by Merridith, my mom, Janna, and Leah while I mostly played with the kiddos. {Don't the monkey cupcakes look familiar? :) }

Alexander's Happy Birthday Cupcake

Pickin his nose. Perhaps trying to dig out some cake :)

Gotta sneak in some pictures of my lil guy

Ethan and Colin playing soccer

I love that silly sweet face

Hope you had a great birthday party Alexander and Happy Birthday Janna.

Dear Paulina -
Welcome to this wonderful world baby girl. You made your grand entrance into this world today at 2.45am weighing 7 pounds 15 ounces with dark already stylish brown hair, your Daddy's eyes, and your Mommy's beautiful face. Unfortunately we will not be able to meet you for a little while. However we don't even need to be in the same room to know we already love you. Know that we love you more than each long mile that separates us. We can't wait to hold you, cuddle you, and love on you.

Welcome to the family Paulina or as your cousin Colin would say baby Pabina. Don't worry - we'll continue working on it :)

With all our love -
Uncle Mike, Aunt Kristi and Colin

Norah Elizabeth made her grand enterance into this world today! Welcome Miss Norah and good luck with all these crazy boys!

{copied from my Project 365 Blog. Again sorry Norah that I don't have a better picture of you! I promise to fix that soon!}

I've been dying to get some colorful fall pictures of Colin. Last week, the weather and leaves were perfect, so we hit up the park with Merridith and Alexander in hopes of getting a few cute fall pictures. Alexander's pictures turned out much better than Colin's but whereas Alexander was interested in sleeping, Colin was interested in everything other than standing still.

Merridith and James welcomed sweet little Alexander Joseph into the world this morning. Weighing in at 7lb 13oz and 20 1/2 inches long, he has a wonderful amount of dark brown hair. Mike, Colin and I stopped up at the hospital tonight to a full house. It's nice to be surrounded by so many people who love you, huh Alexander?

Mike had Wednesday off. Ethan is on spring break. It was Micah's birthday. So we all stayed at our house today. Mike and the older boys walked to a local playground while C napped to wear off some energy. We had a fun lunch and then headed downtown to the Children's Museum.

in the boat fishing. I love how big Colin's life jacket is.

The Birthday Boy standing in the middle of a giant bubble.

Colin loved all the mirrors.

When we came home, we decorated Easter Eggs.

Micah coloring his egg.
Colin coloring his egg.
Ethan coloring his egg.

Dyeing his creation.

the world just became.

Brandon and Shaina's little girl was born early this morning. Welcome to the world Lauryn Melissa. We can't wait to see you tomorrow!

EDIT: Added picture from our visit on Sunday

As I'm sure everyone knows but for those who don't, my SIL Janna and I each watch each other's kid(s) one day a week. Wednesdays are my day to watch Colin, Micah (almost 2.5) and Ethan (5.5). Since Colin is still at the age where he can sleep in a pack-n-play, his toys can be brought along (and they have great little kid's toys still at their house), I don't have big boy toys at my house, and Ethan is in Kindergarten and gets dropped off from the bus, I watch the boys at their house.

I took my camera along today to snap a picture of Ethan getting off the bus today but totally forgot by the time he actually was dropped off. Ooops! But here are some pictures from today, starting from this morning at my house. Here is a typical (although I use that word very loosely when watching 3 boys!) Wednesday for me ...

Here is what happens when I leave the room for literally less than one minute. Please ignore the dust ::hanging head in shame::

Since he didn't want to sit in his exersaucer, I put him in here so I could finish putting together his diaper bag, getting his clothes and toys.

Micah and Colin playing together.

Ethan trying to get Colin to stop crawling away.

I couldn't get Micah to look forward. He didn't like that Ethan was sitting in Colin and his "car" or that we had to stop playing to take a picture.

Colin has his 4 month Dr's appointment this morning. He weighed in at 18 and is 26 1/2" long which puts him in the 90+ percentile for both if you register it for 4 months and not his true almost 5 month age. Poor baby had to get another 4 shots today. He did amazing - only cried for a minute until we could scoop him into our arms. The nurse at checkout even commented on how smiley he was for just getting shots. Judging from this picture this afternoon, I'd say he's feeling pretty good, huh?
I think partly why he did so well was because of his sweet cousin, Ethan. He is such a thoughtful little boy and we are so blessed to have him our lives. You can read about it here. Thank you Ethan for your prayers and for how much you care about baby Colin! He loves you too -- yes, he loves you the most-ests.

Colin was finally able to meet Uncle Jason, Aunt Janna (from a distance), Ethan and Micah. The boys seemed to love Colin especially Micah. I think it's because Colin has the same pipey as Micah.

Here is a cute video in the post below of Ethan and Micah singing to Colin. Sorry for it being a little jerky and that I couldn't get it in one post.

Mike and I ventured over to the East side of the state to visit his dad, Amy and the kids. It was the perfect day to spend outside -- sunny and 70.

Mike only printed one page of directions and as luck would have it the last few turns were on the second page. We twisted our way around the bends and corners before seeing a driveway down a beautiful street with bikes and toys on the driveway. When we heard a small child singing to himself in a big wheel and a cute little girl flying up and down the sidewalk on her two wheel bike, we knew we found the right house!

The kids were beyond excited to see us. Each one wanting to show off the house and why their bedroom was the coolest :) We spent some time coloring inside where the funniest conversation occurred.

Russell: I'm the first one done coloring
Emma: Because your scribbled
Russell: No I didn't
Emma: Yes you did -- in the face. And you only used blue for his clothes
Russell: Blue is my favorite color!
Emma: (covering mouth to speak to me) Kristi, I'm a quality color-er

I had to cover my mouth to hold in the laughter. Here is are a few quick, but not quality, picture of us in the craft room.


We then decided to walk to the playground so the kids could show us where they like to play, the swimming pool that holds 100 people, and the lake. It was a nice long walk. It's great to see how well they get along together. It's nice to see how much they want to show off to us. Each one tries to scream louder than the other in order to get our attention. I've never heard Mike or Kristi used more in my life. Here's a picture from Mike's phone. I cropped myself out since I hated how I looked.


When we got back to the house, Amy was back from running some errands kidsfree. We drank some "magic juice" and had great conversation before having a fun pizza dinner. Shortly after dinner, Emma donned her "pretty pretty" dress and showed us her dance skills.


They are coming to Grand Rapids for Mother's Day. The kids are excited to see us in "14 Days!" and truthfully we are counting down the days just like they are :)