Lulu. Loodle. Magoodle.

Lila turned 4 this week. Here's the thing about Lila: she's awesome. Sure, she has occasional moments of being a 3-year-old and being demanding or petulant or obnoxious. But they are few and far between. Really the majority of the time she is agreeable, pleasant, funny, charming, sweet and just all around nice to be around.

She's also a little bit spoiled, but that's OK, right? I think that all comes from being the youngest and being a girl. It's really hard to be the father of a little girl and not want to give her the moon and everything else she wants. Maybe it is because she is like a mini-version of Amy and I have never been very good at telling her no, either. Today is my day off and we went to the mall. Whenever we go to the mall, we have to park in a certain spot because we know Lila will want a cookie as soon as we walk in. And we buy her one. EVERY TIME. I am wrapped around her little finger.

And as she gets older she gets funnier and more self sufficient and more delightful to be around. Sometimes she'll talk my ear off. Or sit so close to me on the couch the she is basically on top of me. But I try and remember that someday she "would rather die!" than sit right next to me and won't want to talk to me at all. So I try and be patient.

Here she is with her pony. Because of course she got a pony.



And her new princess bike (with detachable baby carrier/carriage.) Because of course she got a princess bike (with detachable baby carrier/carriage.)

Sorry that Noel's hand is in his pants. It's hard to have him in a photo without that.

Her birthday also involved a princess cake:

PS. I made that. 

And a princess castle piñata. Did you know that you don't hit piñatas with sticks anymore? You just pull strings off the bottom and then one of them opens the piñata. Whatever will AFV show anymore?

And despite the pony and the bike and a doll and a Wii game, her favorite present was an inexpensive "makeup" kit her Aunt gave her. And every morning when she wakes up she says, "I need to do my makeover!" and then sits on the floor in our bedroom and applies her makeup. And looks like this:

 Heaven help us all.

9

Jonah turned 9 last week. Which kind of blows my mind. I mean, in some ways I don't even remember life without kids (what did I spend all my time doing?) but mostly I can't believe I have been a dad for 9 years. I'm no math major, but that is like 25% of my life.

Jonah is super smart. It makes me so happy that he can do his homework by himself and usually doesn't need much help. He's very self sufficient that way. And I'm glad he figured out how to build crazy castles and obstacle courses on Minecraft without me having to help because that game is aaannnooooyiiiiinnnnng! I love that when we are at Disneyland he is obsessed with noticing all the details. He's my own little Disney Nerd. On this last trip, as we were leaving the park one night I said to him "Hey, thanks for listening to me talking about all the little details in the park." And he said, "I mean, the details are what makes it! Anyone else would just put a regular bench here!" I love that he is really funny and has a goofy laugh. I love that he gets along with other kids so easily and has boundless energy.

We let our kids pick whatever they want for breakfast on their birthday. Jonah chose strawberries, marshmallows, powdered donuts, hash browns and Sprite. Um, gross.

A little Adventure Time with breakfast. Ah, Saturday birthdays are the best...

 Yeah! Presents!

 Jonah wanted to go bowling with his friends for his birthday. The great thing about a group of 9 year-olds is that they are pretty self entertaining.

 Amy and Lila and I just sat on the table at the back and ate breadstick and drank Diet Coke. If there is any activity that I can do with my kids where I can just sit and drink Diet Cokes, I'm in.

 On Sunday we had a party with family. Here is his fancy Pokemon cake. Why yes, I AM an amazing cake decorator. Thanks for asking!

 Candles.

 And we even gave him clothes as presents, because we are just that annoying. He was slightly excited about this Domo shirt. The rest of the clothes he just dumped onto the ground.

Perhaps someday Jonah will read this blog. Thanks for being an amazing son, Jonah. I love you.

May - We are playing catch up here

May (I know, I know, it is almost July.) is home to two big events in our house. The first, though slightly smaller, is still much beloved and rejoiceful. It’s Bingham Book Day, celebrated on May 5^th. I have blogged about it 100 times before so I won’t go into detail. 

We try to support the independent bookseller for Bingham Book Day, except for the years that we are too tired and just go to Costco. And since we have lost our beloved Powell’s Books with the move to Utah, we went to Weller Book Works. It was lovely, if a little odd, but they sold book and that it what we are after. 

It was a successful outing and books were bought by all. Here was the loot:

Josh: The Family Fang - our June Bonne Heure book club choice and it is delightful.

Amy: The Art of Fielding - another winner

Jonah: Leo Geo - a kind of awesome sideways graphic novel. I 100% support the movement to graphic novels.

Noel: Some Lego Star Wars 3D book. Noel kept walking around the mall with the 3D glasses on going “Whoa! The whole world is in 3D!”

Lila: Little Bunny and Fairy board books. She insisted on getting 2 and Amy and I didn’t put up too much of a fight. 

We love Bingham book day. It is literally one of my favorite holidays. You, too should celebrate it. You can name it after your own family though. 

May also brings Lila’s birthday.  She turned 3 and she continues to be amazing and awesome and funny and delightful. 

For the months leading up to her birthday she insisted she wanted a Caillou birthday party complete with a Caillou cake. If you think I am going to let that little French-Canadian brat into my house, you have another thing coming. We tried desperately to get her to change her mind to any other theme. We even tried to get her to do a Pink Power Ranger Party (her other latest obsession) to no avail. Fortunately at the last minute, she switched to a Tinkerbell Birthday. Hallelujah.

Here is the cake I made. I’ve had to step up my cake making game now that I live in the same state as my sisters and sister-in-law who make some killer birthday cakes. Lila thought it was pretty awesome.

Here is the birthday girl with all of her (too much) loot. She is pretty spoiled. But she is cute so it is worth it. Luckily she had plenty of help opening it.

And here she is after the party in her new Tinkerbell dress, wings and red cowboy boots.

And that was May. I hope I can blog about some of the things we did in June before October.

A Victory for our Family

Aren't you glad my wife is posting now? Isn't she infinitely more interesting than me? And didn't you love all the nice things she said about me? I am too lucky.

February week 2 is really a make it or break it week for me. Amy and my anniversary is on the 8th. Amy's Birthday is on the 12th and Valentine's day is on the 14th. So if I mess up, it is a real mess. Last year Amy and I had a romantic weekend to Portland planned - and then we got the flu (all 4 of us) for about a month and we spent Amy's birthday on the couch watching American Idol waiting for the sweet release of death. So this year we tried to do it up a bit better.

The day started with breakfast in bed:
Toasted bagel with whipped cream cheese and cherry preserves. Hard-boiled egg. And strawberry white chocolate muffin. No, I didn't make any of it, except the egg. Jonah thought the idea of breakfast in bed was the coolest thing ever and has requested buttered toast on his birthday. Done and done.

In the afternoon, Amy and I went to downtown Portland, which we never do, for some shopping and lunch. Lovely. And then home for gifts. This year we wanted to boys to pick out presents for Amy themselves. So a week ago I took them to Target and tried to guide the selection process. Noel chose a plate.
And Jonah immediately knew he wanted to get lipstick. He chose a tube in "Target Red" (classy!) and this necklace. He was pleased that Amy liked it. Though seriously - the boy's got good taste.
That evening we went to dinner as a family, which always involves lots of under the breath yelling, and repeated attempts to get our kids not to kick the booth of the people sitting next too us, and paying for food that our kids won't eat, because they would rather subsist on crackers and air. So we did all that and then came home for cake. Jonah helped me in the decorating process. He insisted that Amy, being a girl, would want a pink cake with princesses on it. I told him I wasn't going to pipe any princesses so we compromised on purple flowers, another thing he insisted all girls liked.Anyone know how to get really vibrant colored frosting? I even used my food color gels that I got for Christmas, but the pink and purple cake was really more rose-ish and slightly-mauve. What am I doing wrong, oh ye cake bakers who read herein?

All in all, the day was a success (*huge sigh of relief*) I am pretty lucky to have such an amazing woman choose to spend her life with me and, evidently, enjoy it! Amy made me promise that I would not write a tribute to her, so I will just say that she has been the means by which all of the greatest blessing of my life have come to me. I love you, sweetie.