Our Noah is 7

Birthdays in this house mean picture time! So here's my baby. . . I mean BIG BOY, Noah's 7 year old pictures.

He's been all about Batman this past year so naturally, we had to do Batman pictures! :-)




And as the most common words out of his mouth are, "Mom, can I play games on your phone?", we had to get some of him playing. (Angry Birds, just in case you were wondering. ;-))


And since I'm sure he'll be some handsome, suit-and-tie businessman in about 20 years, here's the proof that I knew it way back when. :-)



Happy birthday, Goo! We sure love having you in our family!

My Birthday Wish

4 years ago I was sitting at home alone when I decided that I wanted to start a blog. I was so far away from family and friends, and feeling so homesick that I hoped a blog would help me stay connected with everyone I had moved away from. Since that day, we've move another 2 times, and now I'm far away from even more friends.

So, if I could have just one birthday wish, it would be for all those that read this to please leave a comment, or reply to my new post email, and let me know that you're still here with me, even if it's just in print. I miss you all so much and am finding it hard to repeatedly leave behind so many that I care for, even though I know that there are new friends to be found wherever we land. Doing this would really be a wish come true.

With much love,

~Andrea

Operation Steve's Birthday Surprise. . .

IS A SUCCESS!!!

The polls are now closed and the total calls, emails, texts and Facebook messages is. . .

35!!

Just so this is documented for posterity, and for those that don't know the whole story, this is the email I sent out Tuesday evening:

"Friends and family,

Tomorrow is Steve's 35th birthday!! This email isn't going to him, so here's what I'd like for you all to do. At some point tomorrow, call his cell and wish him a happy birthday! He'll be at work, and may not be able to answer, but I'm hoping to have at least 35 of you call, and either tell him personally, or leave a message. He will love it! You can also send an email, but I'd like for him to hear your voice, if possible! Let's make this a birthday he'll never forget!

His number is 253-***-****. And email address is sparkomatic****@****.

Thanks in advance everyone! You all have my undying love and gratitude! =o)

~Andrea"

Those of you that know Steve well know that if he could have one wish, it would be to spend time with all his friends. But seeing as how most our friends are now scattered across a half dozen states, I wanted to give him the next best thing possible. That's what I was trying to accomplish with this email.

So thanks to all of you, Steve's 35th birthday will be UNFORGETTABLE! As I talked to him throughout the day yesterday, his excitement at all the calls and texts he was receiving was so heart-warming! He was sorry he couldn't answer them all because he was so busy, but those of you he did talk to made his day especially meaningful! And when I showed him the Facebook messages, and he checked his email. . . the day became just that much more extraordinary!

Now the point where he knew I was involved didn't happen until much later that night. Here's a little video of him finding out. (Sorry if the quality is bad, I only have digital video capabilities on my BlackBerry.)

Steve said it best, "Thank you everybody. I (we) love you so much!"

Brooklyn's 10 year old pictures

I just realized I haven't posted these yet, so without further ado. . .


Brooklyn just cut her hair for Locks of Love, so it was fun having a little different look for her 10 year old pictures!



I knew that Steve would LOVE this last picture so we bought it just for him! This is the look she gives him whenever he's being a crazy dad, which is always. It's now hanging above his desk, and still makes us laugh whenever we look at it! It's Classic Brooklyn! =oD


We sure love you, Sister Brooklyn Mary Poppins!

The Cutest Boy Ever Turns 6!

Okay, so Steve and I may be the only ones that think he's the cutest, but after seeing these new birthday pictures, you have to agree. . . he's a cutie! :-)

I love that we got these pictures taken after his first tooth fell out. It'll be a great reminder of when it happened.

I love this picture because it frames his Lego Star Wars T-shirt perfectly! He's been saying, "The Force is strong with this one!", in the most adorable way, for a couple years now and so I was really excited to find this shirt for him!

I love this next one because it shows his Airwalk shoes, that I didn't want him to wear in the pictures, but that he adamantly refused to take off. They're his current favorite pair of shoes. :-)

My baby boy is 6!

Noah's birthday was Wednesday. Since it was in the middle of the week, we decided to go out for his birthday dinner tonight. But we also wanted to do something for him on Wednesday, since he'd been making me give him the count down to his birthday for the past few weeks, and he knew that that day was his actual birthday. So that morning, kind of last minute, I decided to invite a few friends over after dinner for cake and ice cream. Boy was that fun!




For dinner tonight, Noah chose to go to Red Robin. He was excited about the waiters and waitresses singing to him and bring him an ice cream sundae.


As we were leaving Red Robin, we saw that a car show was going on in a nearby parking lot so we of course had to stop and see all the "cool cars!" One of Noah's new obsessions is taking pictures of cool cars with mommy camera phone, so he proceeded to take about a bazillion pictures. Here's a few of them...








Hey, this kid knows what he likes. :-)

He even let me have the camera for a few seconds so I could take this picture of him with his favorite MONSTER TRUCK!!!

We were even deemed worthy of being photo subjects.


We sure love our little photographer! Happy birthday, sweet boy!

Brooklyn's 9th Birthday Pictures

We hit Picture People today to get Brooklyn's birthday pictures taken. Once again, they were all so stinkin' cute that it was really hard to decide which ones I wanted, but I was finally able to narrow it down. Here are the winners! :)



This is exactly how she looks at home all the time. :)


Just had to have pictures with Dumbo-baby. :)


Brooklyn picked this one out for herself. We even bought a really cute picture frame for it and it'll be hung in her room. So cute! :)

One year older, another year. . . nope, just older. :)

We just got back from my birthday dinner date with the Nehrings and the Molloys. We had a absolute blast, of course. Our original plan was to go to The Olive Garden for dinner, but while waiting for seats, Lora brought up Luna's Italian Restaurant, so we decided to go there instead.


And boy, am I glad we did! The food was delicious!


And the company was excellent!



Lora, Kevin, Cory and Eddie. . . Thanks for sharing my birthday with me! You guys are the best and we sure love ya!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Noah and I surprised Steve today by showing up at his work with a card and a balloon!




And a big batch of birthday cupcakes for him to share with his friends! That would be John. . .


And Ivan. . .


And Mike. Awww! Nice big birthday hug! :)


We sure love you Daddy!

The first of many. . .

We went out tonight to celebrate Steve's birthday. We wanted to do something a little different this year, so we invited our friends, the Nehrings and the Molloys, to join us for dinner at the Yosemite Falls Cafe. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing, and getting to know each other better.


Lora, Cory and I made sure Steve enjoyed his "birthday gift". :)


And Eddie made sure to do the one thing Steve asked us NOT to do.



Fortunately, he survived it anyway.


Happy birthday, Steve! :)

Andrew Molloy's Birthday Party

Today we had the greatest fun at the Molloy house! It was Andrew's 5th birthday and they had an huge inflatable water slide for everyone to play on.

Brooklyn and Noah had a blast!







Here's Steve joining in the fun.




After playing on the slide for awhile, all the kids lined up to hit the pinata.



After some cake and ice cream, it was back to the water slide!





And we can't forget the cutest people at that party. :)


Thanks for the fun day, Molloys!!