Five!

David is five. Wow, do I love five year olds! He has been so stinking cute anticipating this birthday. The celebration is a bit spread out between friends and family, so I had to draw him a chart of what was happening on which days this week so he wouldn't be disappointed to get no cake or gifts on his actual birthday. But even before any cake or gifts, he proclaimed yesterday evening that this was "the best birthday EVER!" What else can a mom possibly want to hear?

I cheated the system a bit. I had told him that he could invite a couple of friends to go somewhere fun - he chose the bounce house. He also chose 3 friends, who are conveniently the children of some of our closest friends, which works out great. They also have siblings that are great playmates for my other children, so before you know it, it's a bigger party than you intended. However...we found a groupon for pizza and bounce during their open bounce time, which we were able to buy for all 4 families (including ours) for less than a third of the price of having a party there. When I called to schedule the 4 families to come at the same time, the lady warned me in a stern voice that we canNOT have a birthday party during open bounce. No gifts, no singing, no cake. Luckily my friends are good sports and we all had a laugh about whispering "Happy Birthday" while we ate pizza. And they all followed me to McDonald's afterward to have an ice cream cone and sing Happy Birthday as loudly as we wanted. Like I said: great friends.

It was a long day while Daddy was at work, waiting for 5pm to arrive. We went to Sonic for the first time (the only place I can imagine taking the kids "out to eat" by myself), and he LOVED it.

Oh my. Unsupervised 2-year old eats lunch in back seat of van while mother eats optimistically in the driver's seat. (and he is the one who buckled that chest strap to sit and eat - hilarious)

Time to bounce! David and his friend Buddy take a slide. David was so red-faced and sweaty the whole time.

Katy had a blast bouncing all over the place with Buddy's sisters, Elizabeth and Reagan.

Once Landon warmed up - he was a bouncing maniac!

Ta-da!!

These 3 boys (David, Buddy, and Frank) would NOT stop moving so I could take a picture of them. Had to catch them as they piled up at the bottom of the slide.

The girls, smiling politely.

The boys. Being boys (so nice to be somewhere you can let them just be boys).

The groupon came with game tokens, too. Landon loves anything to do with basketball!

Taking up the whole bar at McDonald's. Singing LOUDLY. :)

My mom came and got Anna and took her home, which was an amazing help. It's still not sinking in how awesome it will be to have grandparents in town.

David got some new Lego sets, and I was blown away at how well he put them together - just following the picture instructions with very little help from me. And THEN he spent 45 minutes diligently writing "Thank you" notes. I guess he is really living up to being five? Hard to believe...

Cake and presents with family coming up...

Blue Jackets

- More plan changes...Melanie gave in to the stomach bug on Wednesday night, and the poor girl falls hard when she gets the flu. Grammy and Papa John were supposed to come on Friday night to take Katy and David to a Columbus Blue Jackets game (ice hockey) as a kick-off for David's birthday. But with Mel sick, everyone thought it was best to reschedule so that we didn't give our extended family the flu twice in one year, and to let Melanie stay comfy in her room. But Brian still took the kids to the game, and got to invite David's BFF Frank and his dad to come along and use the extra tickets. Thanks to Kathy and John for the tickets - they all had such a blast!

Dinner at Buca di Beppo's. So many memories of this place from my single days...they make the BIGGEST deal out of singing to you on your birthday (one time they made everyone in the room sing to me "We won't shut up until you skip around the room, skip around the room, skip around the room..." until I did it. They had David stand on a chair, which he LOVED.

She told Grammy they ate at a "fancy restaurant."

At the stadium, they got free hats, and they looked so cute coming home in them.

Excitement.

Cutest fans in the stands! Up waaaayyyy past their bedtime.

Now...we are supposed to take a day trip to visit all the great-grandparents on Monday, but they are predicting 5-9" of snow!!! Urgh!!!!!! So I'm not sure if we'll get to go, and every other day this week has scheduling challenges. I'm so ready for spring!

Tidbits: Deliver Us From the Stomach Bug edition

- I really thought that we adults had escaped this time. But alas, I gave into the stomach bug, again, this weekend. Spent the better part of 3 days in bed. While my saint of a husband took care of 4 kids and one sick mommy, including bringing the baby to me every time she was hungry (nursing with stomach flu - not my favorite).  But I'm much better now, and I'm really ready to move on from this piece of evil, so please, please, please, may Brian and Melanie be spared, for the love!! We've got lots of plans starting this weekend, so if there is a bright side to all of this, I hope it is that we'll be healthy as horses for spring break! *please!*

- My mom is in contract on a house that is ONE MILE from ours. Amazing. I love the location. Her house in Pittsburgh is getting all fixed up and will be on the market this coming weekend. She isn't feeling well today and I am really hoping that we didn't get her sick in the brief time that we saw her last week. :(

- My friend Kate and I were just talking last week about how our almost 5 year old boys had ZERO interest in coloring, and always only scribbled across the page and ran off to play. About two days later, David opened a superhero coloring book that we've owned for at least a year, colored Iron Man, and was SO proud of himself that he continued to do another one, and another one and another. Half an hour later I walked by the fridge and it looked like this:

But he won't color anything else. Just superheros.

I was especially impressed with the smiling sunshine over Iron Man's shoulder.

- Luke's potty training is back to ground zero. Literally. He had some veeeeeerrrrryyyy unfortunate accidents while he had The Bug, which led to wearing a diaper for a couple of days. He was having frequent accidents before, but after that it was all over. Took the diaper back off and he just peed and pooped in his clothes all day long and never ever sat on the potty. So. Back to square one - December 1st, 2012. Naked. Set the timer. Make him sit on the potty every hour. Progress.

- Katy's had a good week at school. We're not worry-free but I'm hoping we're climbing out of the hole.

- Anna has changed so much! And we've been too sick to capture it! So extra attention for her...

A beautiful smile. I love that moment when she's done nursing and she just smiles and smiles and smiles at me. It's like she's just daring me to try to put her down now that I'm holding her.

That scab on her forehead is from Luke dropping a monster truck on her face. Poor baby sister.

Practicing sitting up - she likes to do pilates moves on her back - they look like ab crunches. And when she's in the mood - she imitates facial expressions - it's amazing! Sticks her tongue out when you do, tries to blow raspberries when you do, etc.

And her most impressive goal - trying to get that thumb in her mouth! She's been working on it constantly lately, and getting better every day. The pacifier won't be around much longer.

Another thing that won't be around much longer...she's going to outgrow the bassinet in the next few weeks. I have mixed feelings - I like having her so close at night, but it's really crowded in our room with the extra furniture (bassinet, glider, dresser). And just as difficult as moving her to her room is moving Luke in with the big kids. I'm not sure how he's going to do. (for example, he likes it pitch black and they like a light on.)  But in a few months I'm sure the new set up will seem normal and everyone will be sleeping as well as they were before (right?).