Elijah's Birthday, Part IV -- Dinner at Outback

We continued the festivities and celebrated a birthday dinner at Outback with Grammie and Babo.  Outback is Elijah's favorite restaurant.  He loves the bread, the macaroni and cheese and the kids' sundaes.  Adding to the excitement of the evening he opened some birthday presents, too.  He loved his Space Book and Buzz Lightyear flier from Grammie and Babo.

He also opened his present from us -- the Lego Millennium Falcon.  Elijah's been coveting the Star Wars space ship for at least a year.  We never gave him the impression that we'd get it for him, since it's so expensive.  Lucky for him, Daddy found it after Christmas for a very good price and has saved it for months. 





After all the present excitement he did what we often find him doing these days, quietly reading.  He happily read his Space Book during some quiet moments at dinner.

Elijah's Birthday, Part III -- Birthday Lunch

We kept right on celebrating through lunchtime -- Keira and I visited Elijah for lunch at his school.  Elijah was in an incredibly festive, silly mood.  He wore his birthday crown and his goofy smile throughout lunchtime.

Keira and Elijah enjoyed eating their lunch and spending time together.  It was especially special since Keira very rarely came to eat lunch with Elijah this year.  While, I ate with him about once a month, after volunteering in his classroom.

While the three of us had a great time baking cookies the day before, they didn't turn out very well.  Fortunately, Daddy, the cookie expert, saved the day and baked a batch of gigantic cookies for the classroom.  Before Elijah and I passed out the cookies to his classroom, we were worried we wouldn't have enough for our family, so the kids decided to visit the bake sale, just in case.  As always, Elijah was an exceptionally sweet and helpful big brother.

Keira was extremely excited about her sprinkle covered goodie.

In the end, the bake sale goodies turned out to look a lot better than they tasted.  Fortunately, there were plenty of Daddy's gigantic cookies to leave both of our babies with gigantic smiles on their faces -- perfect for photo ops with Daddy.

We capped off our festive and fun lunch date by walking Elijah back to his classroom.   One of the special things the birthday boy was able to do on his special day was be line leader.  Elijah asked Mrs. Nash if Keira could be line leader with him.  They were adorable.

Elijah's Birthday, Part II -- Elijah's Birthday Message

We started celebrating Elijah's birthday first thing in the morning.  Right after he woke up, and we'd all wished him a "Happy Birthday!",  I sat him down at the computer and showed him his special birthday message that Jake and the Never Land Pirates sent him through Disney Jr.  He (and Keira) loved it!  I provided a link to the birthday message at the bottom of this post, although it will expire in a few months.

Elijah's Birthday Greeting

Elijah's Birthday, Part I -- Baking Birthday Cookies

On April 25th, Elijah decided that he wanted to bake chocolate chip cookies to bring to his class on his birthday.  This was the first time that he didn't just help, he baked.  He did a very serious and conscientious job reading the recipe, measuring, adding and mixing all the ingredients.

Quickly, Keira wanted to join in on the baking fun.  She had a ball scooping and mixing her ingredients and even sang a "Bate, bate, bate, mix, mix, mix" song from Dora while she worked.  Our little bakers had a great, messy, fun time.

More Soccer

On April 21st, Elijah played in another soccer game.  It was his first game after scoring his first goal.  Scoring his first goal seemed to improve his enthusiasm for the game as a whole.  He was often right in the middle of the action and he almost scored quite a few more goals.  In the first picture, you can see his foot kicking the ball behind the other players.

Keira's favorite diversion during the game was visiting her big brother on the team blanket and giving him lots of love.

Keira also enjoyed being a goofball, practicing her yoga and hanging upside down.





Marching Band and First Goal

Keira loves listening to music, playing music and watching OK Go videos online.  Her favorite OK Go video features a marching band and she sits transfixed.  One day, Daddy got a great idea -- make their own marching band.  He attached yarn to two of her play drums and they marched around the house playing music. 

In Elijah news from about the same time, Elijah made his first soccer goal on April 14th.  Of course, unfortunately I didn't get a picture of his wonderful moment.  But, I did get one great picture of him that day, and Emmi's mom Nikki got an even better picture of him that day.  Even though, he didn't go on to score any more goals that game, he stayed right in the action and played a great game. 

In honor of his amazing feat, I also wanted to post another cute picture from this season -- Elijah mid air.  Auntie Andrea got this picture of Elijah and appropriately it looks like he's joyful and celebrating.  :)

Spring Break, Part IV -- Easter

With all of my picture taking over the vacation, of course, my camera ran out of batteries right at the beginning of our Easter Egg Hunt.  :(  This was the only photo I got, before my camera shut itself off.

As you can see, it was dark and cold when we headed out to gather eggs in the backyard.  Keira enjoyed the experience, to a point.  This year, the Easter Bunny had labeled the lighter, pastel eggs with a "K" and the darker, more bold eggs with an "E".  Keira eagerly found her first "K" egg, but stalled a bit there.  She wanted to find an "E" next to continue spelling her name...  She did eventually recover from the misunderstanding, but she definitely didn't have the stamina that her older brother did.  She was content with a few eggs, then she wanted to get inside where it was warm and light to investigate her stash.  Fortunately, the Easter Bunny knows that Keira and Elijah only like chocolate.  Elijah, on the other hand, had a ball.  He sped around the backyard grabbing all his "E" eggs, then dutifully collected the rest of Keira's as well.  His favorite part of the morning (besides all the chocolate) was the special starred egg.  Both Elijah and Keira got an egg with a star on the outside that had a clue inside the egg.  The clue led the kids to a little present hid in the house.  Elijah loved the treasure hunt aspect so much, that maybe the Easter Bunny will continue with more clues next year...

Fortunately, in spite of my camera snafu in the morning,we did get a few iconic pictures of the kids on an Easter Egg Hunt.  Diane got a few pictures of the kids hunting for eggs at her house in the afternoon, before Easter Dinner.

As with the morning, egg hunt, Keira lost interest fairly quickly and headed inside to investigate her loot while Elijah continued hunting for eggs.

As you can see, Keira was quite happy with what she found inside her eggs -- more chocolate!

Once the rest of the family arrived, both kids enjoyed time with all their extended family.  Keira ran around like a crazy girl from one group of family to another and had a silly high five game going with Babo.

While Elijah spent a lot of his evening with Uncle Jason, making, flying, then retrieving paper airplanes.