Jamie's Birthday, Love Hurts and Other Happenings

Jamie's Birthday

Just when you thought James couldn't outdo his last mess... mom goes and serves goulash. Go figure.

He also likes to help with the dishes, just like I did when I was little.

We celebrated Jamie's birthday in Rodanthe. Grandad got us this great place to stay so we could all be together.

This is what Caroline gets for feeding the birds without me.

Can you believe how much Mom and Dad laughed at me? I mean really, it could happen to anyone.

Et tu Mommy?

For anyone who says I look more like Dad's side of the family may I present to you Exhibit A?

Granna gave me one of her famous "princess braids." I sat still for the whole process.

I know! I can't believe it either.

Mom and Granna made one of their famous cakes. They gave it a bulldozer theme since that is the object I tend to emulate most often.

The fancy green frosting Aunt Muihri got me made a giant blob on the cake which Mom turned into a big number 1 for me. Aunt Muihri said it could be a toxic waste spill in the landfill- you choose.

Jamie is officially his own biggest fan.

James decided to stand on his own for the very first time on his first birthday! A timely milestone if you ask me.

Grandad and I got some good man to man time on this trip.
For anyone who says I look more like Dad's side of the family- Exhibit B.

Aunt Muihri made a delicious lasagne for my birthday dinner.

I liked that lasagne so much I barely had room for the cake!

...barely.

Caroline was more than helpful with the gifts.

She even taught me how to use this back hoe to check out everyone's ears.

If we were good bloggers, this next one would be its own blog so we'll just title it differently:

Love Hurts

Mom and Dad celebrated their 7th anniversary the day after Jamie's birthday. I don't know if you all remember their romantic dinner in the hospital room last year, but they say this year was almost as fun. Mom and Dad ran the Flying Pirate half marathon on Sunday April 10th, which was exactly their anniversary in practically the same place they were married. Mom agreed to let Dad coach her and promised to do everything he said in hopes to improve her time. They didn't quite reach the goal they had set, but did improve Mom's best time by over a minute. And don't worry folks, there are redemption half marathons already scheduled and in the works.

They also designed these fabulous T-shirts in hopes to incite the crowds to cheer them to the finish. It worked because along the way they got many congratulations and warm wishes from all the people they saw.

Of course, our cheering section was responsible for wearing Carolina blue and blowing lots of bubbles.

Aunt Muihri, Granna, and Aunt Beth were responsible for getting us kids to as many spots along the course to see mom and dad as they could. They did an excellent job. In fact, if you look closely at the pictures, Mom and Dad got a little teary-eyed each time they saw us.

In our defense, running a half marathon is kind of exhausting and those kids are pretty inspirational... and cute to boot!

Mom's right, half marathons are hard work!

The big finish. Mom concentrates on her sprint while Dad acknowledges his fans (us).

Family photo... FYI: The shirts say "Brie Better Half" and "Daniel Married Up."

Dad came up with the idea.

Dad says the best part of racing is the food at the end, I like to think it's the post-race snuggle.

Throughout all that training Caroline wasn't afraid to go for a few runs of her own.

After the race we went home and played with some of my new birthday presents.

For anyone who says I look more like Dad's side of the family- Exhibit C.

It's time to pretend there's another new blog post again.

Other Happenings

The Easter Bunny came to our neighborhood. He's a pretty cool guy, not as cool as me in my shades, but cool none-the-less.

We also went to an Easter egg hunt. No one told us that it hadn't actually started so Munckie Cam and I were pretty much the winners.

These are actually pictures of us re-hiding all the eggs to make it fair for all the other kids.

Do we really need an exhibit D?

That night, we dyed Easter Eggs.

We visited Great Wolf Lodge with the DeWolf cousins. Caroline was so excited she screamed every thought that entered her head, "I'm in a bathing suit!" "Yes!" "Waves!" "Yay!"



Caroline has been teaching me how to speak just like she does. She grades on a curve.





These pictures are from a photo shoot Mom did so we could send the Grandmas Mothers' Day pictures.

Mom did Locks of Love again so here are the obligatory before and after pictures.

In other news, we FINALLY replaced the van a mere seven months after the wreck. I'm over the moon with excitement. I wish I had a picture to post and even considered going out in the dark in my p.j.s to take one but the light just wasn't right in the garage. We'll definitely post a picture on the next blog and we'll poll our readers for an appropriate name for the new grocery-go-getter.