Christian's Birthday Bash...

We celebrated Christian's birthday on Saturday. It was a nice little family affair: No hype, no friends, no fancy cake - just us. It was nice. Birthdays are a big deal to me. I totally plan some fancy theme party, order a fancy cake, buy fancy decorations, hand make fancy invitations - you name it. I do this because I figure I'll only be able to do this for them for a few years before they're "too cool" for it. We started the day with a trip to Toys "R" Us so that Mom, JD and Camryn could pick out some fun presents for Christian. Christian has been enjoying his wooden train set, so I loaded up on Thomas the Train and Imaginarium train accessories. My attention drifted down the aisle to the Geo-Trax set up. Whoa...pretty cool I must say. Anyway, I dumped my original idea for the new and improved one. During Christian's nap, I set up the decorations and baked a cake. Dad brought home sandwiches, we all put on the appropriate party gear (old Scooby-Do party hats from JD's 3rd birthday party) and the party was underway.


Before you witness my masterpiece of a cake, I must warn you.....many women have tried to be as fabulous a cake decorator as your's truly, but have failed miserably. I know you're going to be knocking down my door for a lesson in cake fabulocity, but my skills will be too much for the average seeker. Anyway, check this baby out. I call it the "Dirty Dum-Dum Cake"

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Nice, huh?

This cake was all about what Mom had in the pantry (chocolate cake mix, cream cheese frosting - homemade of course - and oreo's). I had to add the Dum-Dum suckers because they are Christian's favorite treat in the world (I always have one in my purse for emergencies!) The kids didn't really get into the "Dirty Dum-Dum Cake" or the freezer burned ice cream - they just liked the Dum-Dums! At one point, Christian packed 3 in his mouth.



The kids had fun opening their presents. Yes, I said "their" presents. We have a tradition of having the birthday sibling (a.k.a Mama) buy the other siblings a present to avoid any jealousy. It usually works out nicely (except when the present is some cheap plasticized China product - like what JD got - and it breaks. More on that below). We set up the GeoTrax city 'o trains and JD and Camryn had a great time. Christian soon got the hang of the remote controller and had a great time. As you can see by the picture, the Geo city is taking up the last of our free space in the house - it was going to happen sooner or later. I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to store all of this new stuff - maybe in our bathtub.


Anyway, I have to brag a bit before I quit for tonight. So I mentioned earlier about JD's cheap toy that broke. Well, it was a floor air hockey table and the air wasn't flowing up through the holes (kind of an important part as far as air hockey tables go). JD, in expected JD style, cried and said he wanted to trade the junkie toy in for something new. I said, "Sorry babe, but Mama bought it on clearance after Christmas so you just need to push the disc around with your finger." I thought that was funny. He didn't. After a long night of playing GeoTrax, I was determined to fix the China toy. I was like a freak'n mechanic - I took it entirely apart, fixed the problem, put it back together and impressed the heck out my 7 year old! We played a game of air hockey after that. Rock'n awesome Mom - 1, whiny little man - 0.


Man, I set out to write a sentence or two about our little party, and then all of that happened!


Until next time...

Just for fun...

So I realize that I just put forth a whole lot of effort for two little clips, but I thought they were cute. I wanted to learn how to upload a video onto my blog. I realize that these clips won't make it into my soon-to-be blog book, but I have a feeling some of you will enjoy them.


In a previous post, I mentioned the kids having a "moment" at night. This is one of the many moments that keeps replaying itself night after night...

It doesn't seem to get old...

I'm going to show this to the kids when they're teanagers - they'll need to see that they used to love each other!




Since it's Chistian's birthday tomorrow, I looked for a clip that showcased my main man. When JD would leave for the bus in the morning, Christian didn't want his bro to leave him so he'd promptly chase him each and every morning. Most mornings were like this one. Christian loved wearing his sister's "clicky" shoes. It didn't seem to bother him that it was the middle of January in Michigan (brrr...). You'll notice that Camryn is decked out in her "Belle" dress at 8:30 in the morning eating string cheese...doesn't it feel good knowing you're a better mom than I?

Spotlight of the Month: Christian...

My Birthday Boy!

Christian decided to join our family in March of 2006. We had just bought our house in Erie, PA and I was working myself sick every day trying to fix it up. I was under a lot of stress (we all were) because I knew that we were going to have to move the following year so that Joel could complete his surgical internship year for his ENT residency. You see, Erie was a small enough city that it couldn't support a surgical internship so we were going to have to rent our house out for a year and live in Cleveland, Buffalo or Pittsburgh so Joel could finish. Yuck! I was so stressed. It was about time to think about having #3 and I had this timeline in my head of when it could actually work. The Lord knew I was serious about July being the last possible month to get prego because it finally happened after a few months of trying. I was excited and very nervous about how I was going to handle all of the upcoming changes. I mean we had just moved across the entire country the month before! Luckily, Joel switched fields to Anesthesia, but we were still going to have to move to Michigan in a year.

The pregnancy was difficult: I was sick for about 17 weeks and I was in a lot of pain the last 2 months. Joel broke his foot and had surgery on a Friday and I delivered Christian the following Wednesday. The delivery was miserable (I had no pain medicine and Joel was passed out next to me with enough pain medication for the both of us!). Once Christian was born the inept nurse passed him off with flying colors. Thank goodness there was a shift change because the new nurse noticed he was blue and took immediate control. After a scary first couple of hours, his lungs ended up working just fine.

Considering all of the stress that surrounded this little guy's entry into the world, you'd think he would be a little stinker. He was at first - he had a ton of "man gas" that Joel & I had to work out! For a long time, the only pacifier that calmed him was Mom's pinkie finger.




Now, 2 years later, Christian is such a joy in each of our lives. Once he was old enough to start interacting with JD & Camryn, he brought with him this ability to bring us all together in laughter and joy. I really felt like we were a full-fledged family with his arrival.

Before writing this post, I put the kids to bed and we had a special moment together. I felt bad that Joel couldn't be there (he had just received a page to go back to the hospital - so sad). Anyway, Christian finished his usual "goodnight wrestle" with JD and Camryn, but instead of pulling him off and wisking him to bed, I just kind of let things "happen" and kicked back to observe.

I loved it. JD jumped over to Camryn's bed and they all made a "Christian Sandwich." Christian just did his thing (pushing, smashing, tickling, hitting - you name it), and JD & Camryn ate it up. There was this great feeling of joy between the 3 of them. Things settled down and Christian nestled in with JD on his bed while Camryn and I snuggled together on her bed. We turned out the lights and there was this silence that was magical. We all relaxed together for quite a while before I snatched Christian up & put him in his crib.


That kind of stuff just happens with Christian around.



I love you birthday boy!