Benjamin's birthday celebration

Some 5 year olds might ask for pizza or macaroni and cheese for their birthday dinner, but not Benjamin. He asked for chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, noodles and green beans. He loved getting mashed potatoes AND noodles together.

I went to Benjamin's class and had the kids decorate cupcakes for his birthday. They loved it! I never knew you could fit so many sprinkles and marshmallows on a cupcake!

Benjamin is 5!

It's hard to believe our Benjamin is 5 already! He's such a great kid. His smile and laugh melt our hearts. He is such a joy to have in our family. We love you Benjamin!

Birthday party pictures

Here's our 'little' (25 pound) one year old that can't keep his jeans snapped at the waist :) We had a great little party for him. We took lots of pictures of the big event.

Happy 1st birthday!

Our baby boy is one year old! Here are some of my favorite pictures of his first year:

Spring flowers in Holland

Spring Break in Holland & Belgium

5 days

3 countries

6 passports

7 cities

2 pounds of Belgian chocolate

1 million tulips in Holland

lots of windmills

countless bikes

20 floors up in a hotel in Brussels

418 pictures

16 hours in a car

100 "are we there yet?"s

4 kids

2 exhausted parents

1 great trip

Fruit snacks

The kids are out of school for spring break so we had a lay in this morning (English for we slept in). Benjamin was next to me in bed when I woke up. When I opened my eyes he said, "Mom, you smell good. You smell like...fruit snacks." He cracks us up all the time! He is such a great kid!

(This is a picture of Benjamin that I took yesterday at the museum before the egg hunt. They had 1940's clothes for the kids to try on).

Easter Egg Hunt

I took the kids to a local museum today for an Easter egg hunt. We brought our sand pails to collect eggs and the museum worker asked our kids if they were planning to dig for treasure. That's when it dawned on me that this wasn't a plastic egg sort of hunt. In fact, come to think of it, I haven't seen a single plastic egg here all season. We quietly walked our pails back to the car trying not to look too much like foreigners. Turns out it was a great egg hunt. The kids were given a map to help them find the eggs - find all the eggs and a chocolate award was given at the end. Michael was in heaven! He loves maps and clues. He dutifully found Mary's eggs for her after she lost interest so that she could get her prize too. Happy Easter!

First haircut

Before...


During...

After...

It's hard to tell a difference from pictures, but he looks so grown up now.