Trevor's 7th Birthday Party. Ya!

Trevor had a ninja training party for his 7th birthday. John made a very comprehensive ninja training obstacle course for the kids. He was quite one with the ninja. 

This is my favorite picture--the kids are lined up and watching John explain the course. When John saw this picture he likened Trevor to being Captain Kirk and Ethan (left in blue stripes) as Spock. Other Ethan on the far left might be a red suit guy... 

John explaining how you have to transport the power orb across the stones, rounding the pillars of destiny. Or something like that. It was all very crucial. 

Ninja Trevor striking a ninja warrior pose

Shaky balance beam thing of doom or victory or something.

Pretty ninjas do stunts too. 

Ninja Will doing some tricks



Ninja Ethan being a ninja tree.

 The kids transporting orbs of power or destiny or something to that affect.

 Ya! Megan attack!

Ya! Zach attack!

And Ry-guy attack! Ya!

Kevin helping the kiddos scale the mountain of something towering majestic something

Ninja Nora woke up to find quite a bit more going on in her back yard than anticipated.

Ninja food! Ya!

Super cute ninja Megan who saw me with a camera and said "take a picture of me!" And I was glad I did.

Then she said "take a picture of me inside now!". It is hard to say no when ninjas wield powers of cuteness

Bad guy ninja pinata 

I got a strawberry shortcake pinata on sale at the party store--super excited. Originally I was going to leave on her pink hat and a little bit of her strawberry-ness. But Trevor saw it and was mortified. To the point he decided to have a separate talk with John about how he had to get me to take all the pink remnants off, because he wasn't convinced I understood the severity of this issue. 

John brought out ninja tools for the kids to choose from--a sledgehammer, a stick, a bat, and a golf club. After finding out how heavy the hammer was, Ninja Trev went with the bat.

Ninja Jorja finding out how heavy the hammer was--ninja girl power!

Ninja Will kept up with the hammer and didn't give up--he totally made slight contact.

 Ninja Ry got in the last swing with the golf club.

Ninja cake! Those are throwing stars, NOT snowflakes. And rice krispie sushi.

Opening presents. Meghan had the ingenious idea of placing a rope and declaring all children had to be behind the barrier. Totally worked. She is a rope-present ninja.  

A warning to all other bad guy ninjas who are definitely not strawberry shortcake.

Ryan's Recital

Ry's dance class had their recital--he was a prince among princesses (and one other prince). They did a good job and were super cute.

Here's the videos from the two performances... not super great quality with the focusing. The second one I didn't realize was so out of focus until I saw it at home. Ryan's the taller boy in shorts for both performances.

 Prince Ryan, Princess Jessica, and Princess Megan

 

 

Heading over to the stage

 

Ryan sat on his crown right before the second performance... luckily there was an engineer in the group to fix it up in time for the kids to go on stage.

 

 Taking pictures after the show--Princess Jessica, Princess Katie, Princess Megan, Prince Ryan, and Buzz Lightyear

 Silly face picture

 

 Ryan goes all out for the silly pictures

 

 

 Ry doing his plié

 

 

Showing off their arabesque

May Days

Trevor had his first piano recital over the weekend. He did really well! I think he was a little nervous beforehand, but once the show got started he seemed ready to play.

Here's the video: 

Nora is on the move now--everywhere. She appears to be working on speed. And is generally pretty happy about her progress. 

Playing with bubbles in the backyard

It's warming up so I gave them some containers of water to play with in the backyard. Nora was pretty splashy. Ryan was a bit put off by this in a complaining sort of way, not a get up and go to my own container sort of way.

And I had a happy mother's day. We attempted a picture. This is as good as it gets... 

Easter

We went to an Easter hunt near the park this year. It was pretty packed and pretty warm. Nora got to do her first egg hunt--she was a pro, as one of her interests right now is putting things in other things. 

Spotting the egg...

Going to get it...

Fancy stealth ninja move to secure egg...

Success!

Longest line in the park... for snow cones. John is towards the middle with a blue grey shirt and floppy hat, to the right of the lady with an umbrella. 

As each age group went, the times to complete the egg scrambles got shorter and shorter. Ry was also an egg gathering pro. 

We ran into Katie when they finished. This is an attempt to get two small children who really want to look at their bag of eggs to look at a camera instead. 

Trevor getting ready for his dash. Ry, Nora, and I were sitting off in one of the few shady areas eating our snow cones. Trev's was so fast that when I saw him heading back towards us I thought he missed it or something went wrong because he was coming back so soon

We made the controversial Carter-ish bunny cake. This year the coconut  started to creep onto the head. There was a lot of critique about the lack of black licorice whiskers and the amount of jelly beans. There is talk of John taking over bunny cake production next year... I expect little objection if this movement actually takes place. 

The boys hunting for eggs in the backyard Easter morning--wearing their hats from the Easter bunny.

Nora was not sure the eggs were worth gathering so early in the morning

Nora playing with one of her brothers' hats before church

For as cute as everyone looked, we were not very photogenic as a group... this was the best shot:

I tried to take pictures of the kids together... also questionable results...

And some attempts at the boys all together: 

And the girls:

John and Nora

Nora's Stats and Tricks

Nora had her 1 year appointment and is keeping up with the boys.

Weight: 21.9lb-- slightly over 50th%tile
Length: 30.5 in-- slightly over 75th%tile
Head circumference: 18.5in--90th %tile

I was looking at the boys charts and Ry seems to still be in the lead in all areas at the one year mark--in comparison to Nora he was about two pounds heavier, two inches taller, and his head size an inch longer. Also compared to Nora, Trev was about a pound lighter, an inch shorter, but pretty close in head size.

And she's been working on her walking skills lately: