I had a great, great birthday on Thursday!! Thanks to everyone for all the texts, emails, and phone calls, and visits. It made the celebration even more special.

Blowing out the candles is the most magical part for them...isn't a birthday without candles in their eyes!

They brought me flowers!

Vivian was excited to eat the cake. If you look closely below, you can see how a toddler eats cake...very clever.

She was sneaking some bites from her sister's cake while she wasn't looking.

Aaron wiped the cake all over Vivian's face!

She thought it was hysterical.

Cake face kissing

I like this picture because you can see the tears in her eyes...she was laughing so hard she was crying. It was a joy to watch her laugh so hard! Another funny moment was the way she looked very hesistant when Aaron told her to smear cake on my face...she did it, though! And giggled the whole time :)

Aaron coaxed Kate into kissing him when he had cake all over his mouth.

Big messy smooch!

You're not surprised that she didn't like it, are you?

This necklace is my favorite birthday gift! Thanks Kristen and Crystal!

Each morning after they finish breakfast, they watch a worship DVD while I clean up. Usually it's a Praise Baby (sweet), Cedarmont Kids (super super cheesy), or Hillsong kids concert (great songs but wacky teaching interludes) DVDs. Once it starts playing, they are completely glued. Vivian especially will not take her eyes off...she loves it! Sometimes they will get up and dance around. They are starting to copy the hand motions on the Hillsong DVD and are learning the lyrics fast!Aaron and I were talking last night about whether they look alike or not. Several people have mentioned recently that they are starting to resemble each other more and more as they grow. It's so mind-boggling for me to think about...it's as if they do look like each other but they don't at the same time :) I'm sure any mom with multiple children can attest to the mystery of this!

This morning the girls hosted me at their preschool for some muffins and juice. Vivian devoured her muffins, while Kate ran around the fellowship hall squealing and dancing. We've had a fun start to the day! They gave me their classic my-handprints-make-flowers-on-a-vine Mother's Day craft.

At some point this week, before Sunday is over, I will make a very, very long-awaited post to this blog. Not everyone should look forward to this because only a few of you will care anything about it :) But anyway, it's coming, so look for it!In the meantime, any ideas about what it could be? Here's a photo sneak peek! Happy guessing!

Aaron has given me such a great Mother's Day! It has really been an all-weekend affair...on Friday he sent me to Richmond with some close girlfriends for a shopping trip :) I had been anticipating it for a couple of months and cannot explain how excited I was without sounding like a middle schooler (we made this joke a lot during the weekend because we all felt the same way).We stayed in a hotel right in the shopping area, so all we had to do on Saturday morning was walk out and start shopping. We got there early enough on Friday to relax in the hotel room before dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, where we stayed for several hours taking our time enjoying our food and desserts. We stayed up late talking on Friday night of course!

thought this short video from the wedding deserved its own separate post
you have to know them to appreciate it :)

We had a very memorable weekend celebrating Keegan and Carissa's marriage! These are just a few photos; I didn't take many because I knew Casey would capture everything so perfectly!

My dad put up an awesome swing at the shop for the girls last weekend and today we had a chance to try it out. Vivian loved every second of it.

Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.
-CHSpurgeon

Kate is 21 months old today, so I thought I would take the opportunity to give an update on how she's growing and learning.

She is already starting to want to do things "by self," like coming down the stairs or buckling herself in the car seat. I am amazed at some of the things that she can do by herself...I would have never believed that she could climb in the swing and buckle herself in it if I hadn't seen it!

We've had something different happen at our house this week. In one more month it will be the one year anniversary of Vivian being in a bed. Yesterday, for the first time, she got out of her bed during naptime. During the past year, she has never once tried to get out. We always thought it was so strange...it was almost as if the thought never crossed her mind to do it! Yesterday about 30 minutes into her nap, I went in to check to see if she was asleep because she was so quiet. She had gotten out of her bed to get books and then got back in, and was reading under the covers. I was dumbfounded. I just couldn't believe it because we had gone so long without having to deal with this!

Recently the girls took a class picture at preschool. They turned out so well-all the kids are smiling!- so I thought I'd share.

Saturday (the 30th) was my brother Joey's 30th birthday! Sierra threw him a surprise party that night but we weren't able to go, so we had a small family party for him on Sunday afternoon after we swam.

We had mom's homemade lasagna for dinner (that's why I didn't bother to put their clothes back on after we took the bathing suits off).
Uncle Joey enjoys his birthday song serenade...Kate can sing the whole song by herself, every word is so clear! Stephen was here for the weekend (went to the wedding), so he was able to join our party. He went back to New Jersey today for finals. He will finish his first year of law school this month!

We had a fun evening...thanks, Mom, for cooking for us.

He had a trick candle, so they really loved helping him blow it out each time it lit back up.

On Sunday afternoon we went swimming! We are going to have a blast this summer at Papa and Gramme's pool...who wants to come join us?
Compare this with last year's post with the same title...time is passing too quickly!

On Easter Sunday after church we headed over to the Cannon's house (very close to ours) to spend the rest of the day. We ate together, did an egg hunt, played cornhole, sat and talked, and in all these things celebrated the resurrection of Christ. It was such an awesome day of relaxation. Kate took a long nap while we were there, and Vivian played so well with her friends that we felt like our parenting duties had even subsided for the afternoon. We also had lots of help when they were both awake and active. It was a beautiful day and we are so thankful for our church family!

On Friday night before Easter we had our small group over on our regularly scheduled night, but this time we planned to have a more casual social gathering and let the kids do an egg hunt. Aaron got all the kids together in the starting place...I love how ready they look.
After they found all the eggs, we made them sit on the couch for a picture and some more instructions. This picture is priceless with all our little ones together! But we were missing Mason, Tyson, Loren, and Daniel :(
Aaron was explaining to them that there was a golden egg hidden with $20 in it...most of the kids didn't understand at all what he was talking about, but the older ones were pretty interested! It was hidden in the top of Mason's diaper and Ansley was the one to find it! Kate and Lilah didn't care anything about the money...just give them some candy! This is so sweet. Kate LOVES Lilah.