Belen is 6!!

Between snow days, friends' birthdays and our own birthdays we did some serious partying in February.  Bel turned the mighty mature age of 6.
She got to have a tea party with some of her favorite girls (clockwise from the top my sweet bel, Alexa Zarkou, Kinley Zarkou, Morgan Ferris, Annie Warner, Hallie Warner, Eliza Kizzar, Zoey Zarkou)

Making a wish on her pink sprinkled cupcakes.

Being showered with gifts

She had so much fun with all these girls.

 

Her actual birthday was kind of a series of disappointments.  We were hoping to have a family dinner at Golden Corral (which she loves), but Ryan had to work late so we opted for a salad, nuggets and fries at the burger king play place.

Then it was soccer night at the Y, which the kids have been loving.  So we went home to pick up dad, because he loves watching them play and cheering them on and this beauty of a flat happened on the treacherous, pothole covered road on the way there,

which meant soccer was out too. Then we all had to chill in the van till our friend could come pick us up, ryan waited for the tow truck (free tow, thanks to blessed AAA! we get our money's worth every. single. year.) dropped off the van and postponed the party till ryan could get home to join in the festivities.

After all that waiting, she was pretty excited about some deeeelicious mud pie - oreos, ice cream, hot fudge and more oreos and strawberries on top - another specific birthday treat request this year.

then very thoughtful about her birthday wish

She was equally stoked on her pile of presents and finally getting to open them all (she asked for days if she could open her birthday presents.)

 

There were some tears and some teaching moments along the way, but in the end she had a pretty awesome birthday and we think she's pretty awesome.

 

A glimpse of what Bel is like right now...

 

She loves to sing - in the kitchen, in the car, dancing around the living room, at church, walking down the street.  And she's quite good - i love listening to her sing. 

Bel loves to cuddle and chat at night.  It is so fun to be one on one with her, when she is not competing for attention, she'll just let her true self come out as she talks about her day, the things she's looking forward, ideas she has for art projects or plans for the next day.  It's complete parent child bliss.

She is creative and loves to create things - she often says she wants to be an artist when she grows up.

She is competitive - she is driven to be the fastest, or the smartest, or the best at things and gets frustrated when she's not.  When she sees that Jack or one of her friends has learned something new or is better than her at something she will make an effort to practice and learn this skill.  For example, last summer her friend Morgan learned to jump out of the swing when it is at it's highest poing and man this girl would just launch into the air.  This got some reactions out of us moms and the younger brothers and Bel immediately came home and started learning to jump out of the swing.  Which leads right in to her next quality...

She is a determined learner.  When she decides that she is going to learn to do something, she commits to it, practices, concentrates and does it everyday. 

Bel is nurturing.  She is so sweet to Sage, she loves to get her out of her crib when she wakes up, cheers her up when she's sad, helps her learn and do things she can't do and plays with her.  She plays with Jack and they come up with all kinds of imaginative games and things to do together. She is such a help to me.

She is a helper - when asked and rewarded properly and when she's in the right mood - it sounds like the stars have to allign but really she is becoming so capable and helpful and is such a helper as long as her needs are being met.

 

Gosh we love this girl of ours!!  Happy birthday to our trailblazing oldest daughter!!

Jack is 4!!

February is pretty eventful around here since we celebrate both Belen and Jack's birthdays. 

Jack got to celebrate with a few of his friends - they opened presents and played with the toys and had a good time. 

(from left to right : Jack Kizzar (whom he calls by his full name since they have the same first name - this cracks me up), Connor Ferris, Barry Warner)
When it was time to sing Happy Birthday he suddenly became overwhelmed by all the attention focused on him, so he hid...

as the song went on, he came around...

and in the end decided to blow out his candles with enthusaism.

On February 9th Jack turned 4 and we celebrated as a family.  Jack gets pretty excited about his birthday and this year was super opinionated about his cake. This year he wanted as many layers as we could make.  I think the inspiration for this came from one of our favorite story books - Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming - in the story, the main character, Jack, makes a cake for the princess for her birthday and has quite the adventure getting it to the castle - the cake Jack makes has layers, and the royal cake at the end of the book has lots of layers.  Anyway, he wanted layers.  His birthday landed on a Sunday and I realized I only had one cake mix (and was much too lasy to do anything from scratch) so we borrowed a few cake pans and made 4 skinny layers - appropriate since he is turning 4.  We had a great time dying each layer of the cake with food coloring, pouring the batter into the pans and licking our fingers all along the way.  Each step of the way was pretty exciting as we baked them, cooled each colorful circle on the counter and finally piled them up, frosted them, decorated the top like a 3 eyed monster and devoured it with ice cream and milk.

Jack loves music, he already knows the words to a bunch of rock classics, some michael jackson a few pop songs and all the words to let it go from frozen, plus he'll belt out some church songs too.
He doesn't dance as much as he used to (sadly), but still has some killer moves.
He's opinionated about what he wears - he prefers sweat pants and t-shirts, but he sure cleans up nice when he wears jeans and a collared shirt or when he gets spiffed up for church.
He loves to pretend to be a dinosaur, bird or dog and often stays in character for over an hour (this includes only growling/gnashing his teeth, tweeting, or barking and of course crawling around on all fours)  This is often how we get him to eat his dinner - "dinosaurs love green beans" and suddenly there's 17 beans in his mouth being ripped to shreads as he growls - it's a little bit gross at times, but pretty effective.
He is loud, has a short fuse, and an explosive temper but on the flip side is so loving and tender hearted - he loves to cuddle and read stories, he loves his sisters and is such a good friend and brother to both of them.
He wants to obey the rules, sometimes this is hard for him and lots of the time he doesn't BUT he wants to be good - for example, sometimes when he is sneaking treats (an almost daily occurrence), he'll sneak a vegetable first.

He has a very active imagination and will tell stories in great detail - very fun to listen to, not always easy to comprehend.
He has no shortage of personality and we love him oh so much - Happy birthday to my favorite 4 year old boy in the world!