Connor & Emery's Birthday Parties

A few weeks ago we had a joint birthday party for Connor's 5th birthday and Emery's 2nd birthday!  The day included: food, cake, presents, playing, a water balloon fight, and swimming.  Connor and Emery had the best day and we loved celebrating them!  Connor wanted a mario-kart party and Emery wanted a mickey party!

 The cakes!

 Papa Lindvall made Emery a mickey chair and Connor an Indy 500 track!

 Singing to Emery.  She loved it and we let her blow out her candles twice!

 The birthday kiddos!

 Connor got a drum set....I'm still not sure how I feel about this!!

 Birthday girl was getting cranky, so we turned on mickey for her!

Thanks to all who came to celebrate our kiddos!!

Connor is FIVE

Connor turned FIVE on August 16th and I still have a hard time believing that he is that old!!  I've actually been dreading his fifth birthday for the past year.  Five just seems so old and if I could stop time and keep him at this age, I probably would.  I'm crazy about this kid and I think he's the coolest five year old I know!
Connor is super shy and we are continually working on having him come out of his shell.  He is wild at home....I mean runs around like crazy screaming.....but is so shy out in public.  

Connor loves nerf guns, trains, star wars, transformers, and remote control cars.  He wants to be the monorail conductor at Disney when he gets older which I'm all in favor of if that means we get in free to Disney :)  He talks about poop more than anyone I've ever met and will randomly put the word 'poop' in a sentence while having a normal conversation.  Really....its kind of unreal how much he talks about it.  He is silly and is always trying to make Emery (and the rest of us laugh).  

Connor continues to be somewhat picky, but we don't have as much trouble with him eating as we used to.  He hates spiders and isn't the biggest fan of kisses or hugs.  Scott and I have come to the conclusion that he is SO much like me and Elli is SO much like Scott.  It's crazy how similar he and I are.

 Connor is definitely a 'gamer.'  He loves, loves, loves video games.  He loves playing racing games on his iPad.  On the wii, he loves mariokart, angry birds and wii sports.  He asks to play one of these things every sing day.

Connor's favorite food is peanut butter and jelly.  He also loves panda express, chicken nuggets, guacamole, cherry tomatoes, and french fries.

 Below is the last picture I took of Connor as a 4 year old.  They were reading before bed and it describes his personality perfectly.  Always silly!

Happy Happy 5th Birthday to the coolest boy I know!!

Emery is 2

Emery officially turned 2 on August 5th.  She is sweet, silly, sassy and my little buddy.  

Emery started off her birthday a little rough, as she ended up getting sick the night before and didn't fully recover until about a week later.  We felt bad, as it wasn't until her birthday party that she could actually eat some cake.  But she loved having everyone sing to her and blow out her candles.

The picture above is the last picture we took of her as a 1 year old....right as she was going to sleep the night before her birthday.

Emery continues to be super small and is only in the first percentile for weight!  She is a decent eater, but somewhat picky.  We try to give her fatty foods and often give her different dips just to add in more calories.  

Emery goes to bed around 8 each night and typically wakes up around 7:30 each morning.  She is still taking about a 2 hour nap every afternoon.  She is extremely attached to her 'niney' and we have started not letting her bring it in the car or out in public anymore as a way to break the extreme attachment.  Emery will be starting school in a week and won't be able to bring it.  She will go one morning a week for 4 hours....I don't think she will enjoy it at the beginning, but it will be really good for her to go.

I love the picture above because it shows off her 'high maintenance' personality.  As soon as I bring out our big camera, she instantly starts whining and squinting her eyes.  She hates the flash on it and makes such a big deal about it.  Ha!

 Emery loves sweets and ice cream!  Her favorite foods (besides sweets) are speggito's, mac & cheese, cheese, and veggie straws.  She loves mickey mouse and ariel and often talks about them nonstop during the day.  Whenever she sees a pencil and paper, she always makes us draw a picture of 'ninnie."

Emery really doesn't have a favorite toy, but loves to play with all different things.  She loves babies, trains, trucks, jewelry, books, balls and airplanes.  She loves carrying around lipgloss or my billfold.  We bought her her own billfold for her birthday, but it hasn't really stopped her obsession for mine!

 Emery is still really obsessed with her big brother.  I can't describe just how much she loves him!  They've been playing pretty well together since Elli has been at school.  She loves when he gives her attention.  Emery loves playing and feeling like one of the big kids.  She doesn't like sitting in a high chair or booster seat anymore to eat, but loves sitting in a regular seat!

 Emery still follows me around and is my little buddy.  Emery's personality reminds me so much of Elli's when Elli was that age.  She keeps me on my toes and she's never been the easiest kid, but she is so sweet.  There isn't a thing we'd change about her!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our Emery Rose!!

Elli- 1st day of 1st grade

Elli's first day of 1st grade was last Wednesday, August 10th.  This is her first time going to school all day, riding a bus and eating the school lunch.  She has Mrs. Novack this year for school.  

 Waiting at the bus stop with the neighborhood kids.

Elli loves school so far.  She came home from school last Thursday with 6 books in her bag....she told us the teacher said they could pick out as many as she wanted in the library.  She even got a football book for Connor....a Tom Brady one:)  Elli's already made a trip to the nurses office after a fall on the playground and a banged up chin.  I underestimated how exhausted she would be after the first couple of days.  We are getting used to this new routine and schedule.  It feels like she is gone forever during the day!

Grand Haven, MI

We took the kids to Michigan for a long weekend before the start of school.  We left on Friday morning and headed to Silver Lake, MI to take dune buggy rides.  This was definitely a highlight of the trip and we all had so much fun!  We will definitely be doing this again at some point.

 On our dune buggy!

We took the ride to Lake Michigan and were able to get out and play in the water for a bit.  Emery was soaked within seconds and the kids loved playing in the sand.

After our dune buggy ride, we decided to do go-karts.  Connor chose to ride on the ones that he could drive himself.  He was able to do it 2 times and was the only one there.  They let him go around the track about 500 times!  

Elli and Emery wanted Scott to drive them around on the big track.  Since Emery was just shy of her 2nd birthday, they let her get on.  Although it doesn't look like it, she was so excited!  

 After go-karts, we headed an hour south to Grand Haven (where we were staying).  We walked around the town for a bit and got dinner and ice cream.

Emery was beyond excited that she got her own ice cream cone.

 After ice cream, we headed back to the hotel to swim before bed.

 We rented a pontoon boat on Saturday morning.  We got a late start to the day, as Emery didn't wake up until 10am. We got on the boat around 11 and stayed on it until around 6 at night.  The kids had a blast and now Scott is wanting a boat soon!

 They loved helping Scott drive!

 Connor went tubing for the first time.  He loved it and spent most of the time doing this.  He kept saying 'faster, faster.'

 Tubing again!  Elli loved going, but always wanted to go with Connor.

 Emery also wanted to give tubing a try!  She enjoyed it!

 Connor driving the boat!

We had plans to go to the state park on Sunday morning, but woke up to storms.  We decided to spend the morning in the pool...then did some shopping on our way home!  We had a great time and loved Grand Haven!  We'd love to go back for a long weekend....maybe next year!