Max on the Move

Max has been working on crawling for the last couple of weeks.  He is progressing nicely. Still not all the way there, but he's getting where he wants to.  

Madison's First Communion

“I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” – John 6:51

 Saturday, May 11, 2013 

Madison received her first communion.  It was Mother's Day weekend which made the weekend all that much more special. Madison looked beautiful.  She surprised me and really didn't seem all that nervous about it.  I thought she might be scared, but she was excited and confident.

 I made her veil.  I just didn't like what I saw and decided it would be easy enough to make one myself and get just what I wanted.  So we got a  veil from the Hobby Lobby and then I hot glued on a hair comb and embellished it with rinestones and the little flowers you can see on the front. I like it because it's simple but elegant.

 She wore a pair of earrings that my mother in law gave me for my birthday. 

She wore this bracelet that my mom made for her. It was a mixture of old and new. It's made with new beads and old religious medals.  One of them is a vintage first communion medal.  It's really neat and looked really cute.

 Each of the girls carried a rose in to the Church and left it at the feet of the Mary statue. It was a beautiful gesture to honor Mary.

 Madison was one of the four kids chosen to carry the gifts up to the alter.

I love this photo. It's so precious.

 We were so glad that my friend Tricia could be there. The kids love her and she is a big help with Max and Nathan. Max slept in her arms through most of the mass.

 Father Wooten said the mass. The kids really like him.  He's a very nice man.

Finally...our family photo from the day.  Thanks to Tricia, who snapped it for us.

Nathan Turns Three!

Today was Nathan's 3rd birthday!  I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. I really can't believe that he's three years old already!  This year I knew we'd be having a Ninja Turtle party. Nathan is absolutely in love with them right now. He plays ninja turtles all the time.

So I asked Nathan if he wanted to invite a couple friends over or if he just wanted to have his family over. He said, "oh yes, just my family".  So that is what we did.

I also asked him if he wanted to buy a ninja turtle cake of help me make one.  He chose to help make one.  He wanted chocolate with vanilla icing.

After eating a few cakes made with Italian Buttercream Icing, but having paid a pretty penny for them I decided it was time to make it myself.  So I searched the internet for a good recipe and I found this one.  It's very good!  We love it!  The only thing I had to purchase was a candy thermometer, my old one had recently been broken.

 I didn't feel that I had the time to try my hand at some fancy fondant work, so I printed out some turtles and mounted them on card stock and lollipop sticks. Nathan was very happy with it.  He requested "frinkles"aka sprinkles. I was running low on green food dye, so the trim is a little minty colored instead of green.  So this is the finished product.

 We played find the ninja.  The girls hid ninja cards around the house and he had to find them.  He stuck this one on his shirt after he found it.

I also made some water bottle labels. It wasn't necessary, but it was fun and it made the table look cool. Nathan  was impressed by it, so that's good.

 We all sang "Happy Birthday" and then came the big moment of blowing out the candles or candle in our case.  He has up until this moment be terrified of birthday candles. I thought it best to go with the single number candle.  

 You can see he still didn't want to get too close.  He did it though, and he didn't seem scared, so that's good news! He was pretty proud of himself after he blew it out.  

 I had Grace take  a picture of Nathan and I so I could prove I was there!

Nathan got new Ninja Turtles.  He's been playing with Uncle Chris's old turtles and he loves them.  He also really wanted the new ones too, especially the weapons they come with. He couldn't stop playing with them.  He didn't want to eat his pizza, he just wanted to play.

He did eventually finish a slice of pizza and some fruit salad. Then he did eat some cake and ice cream.

Presents!!

We also played pin the staff on Donatello.

 Nathan got Donnie's staff and he received a Ninja Turtle backpack and masks from Grandma and Grandpa Reintjes. Mike and I got him this shirt to wear with the back pack.  He was really excited about all his gifts!

 While we were shooting this photos outside he was telling me that he thought the Ninja Turtles might think he was a real turtle and come see him.

 Here are my boys!

 Lucky for Nathan he has a big brother that still loves to play ninjas. He was in his pajamas but happily put on a mask and grabbed some weapons.  

This was his big surprise!  Mike really wanted to get him a boy power wheels. We have a pink Barbie jeep, but it wasn't very manly to ride around in.  So now he can ride his John Deere truck around.

A Photo Book

A Photo Book made in haste is better than none at all.  Don't you think?

I had to make this today, because I waited until the last minute to use a coupon for a free photo book at Shutterfly.  It expired today.  So I made it this evening!  Yikes!  Yay for procrastination!  So I pulled it off and I don't think it turned out too bad. In fact I like it and it was pretty easy to do.  I really liked how easy it was to customize.  I don't like that the coupon wasn't really for a free book. Read the fine print. It was for a free 8x8 book. I made an 8 1/2x 11 book, the most popular size, according to Shutterfly.  So the coupon took off $12.50.  Doesn't seem to me that $12.50 is the cost of an 8x8, but maybe I'm wrong.  Anyway, I worked my tail off to get it done just minutes before the clock struck midnight and my coupon turned into a pumpkin, or just became invalid, but whatever.  You get the point.  So I decided to buy the darn thing anyway, because it was finished and it was on sale.  I guess they were also 50% off, but just until midnight.  

So I'm attempting to embed the html code in this post so you can see the book.  Hopefully it works.

Enjoy!

Click here to view this photo book larger

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