Happy 7th Birthday Joseph

Our friend Joseph had a very creative birthday party where his guests got to put together real wooden birdhouses. It was an honest to goodness woodshop party that would have made any carpenter proud. (St. Joseph included!)

And look at this cake his Mama made! Everything you see here is edible. Joseph's siblings told me they made an edible putty to form all the tools and even found a pen that wrote in edible ink to make the markings on the tape measure... which if you look closely, is pulled out to 7 inches to honor her 7 year old boy. Impressive!

The bird house assembly line.

David even got to pound a few nails. He liked that a lot.

And Lia played in the park. She liked that too.

Happy Birthday to David, captured on video

The Nelli Family has a tradition of singing as loudly and as obnoxiously as possible. I think Emily has caught on to this tradition fairly well. The birthday boy sure looked proud!

Happy 5th Birthday David!

By tradition, we have celebrated every one of David's birthdays at a local park that has live music on Sunday nights. We were treated to a beautiful evening with family and friends. Nana and Grandpa, David's Godparents, and some great friends were able to join us.


Here we are about to sing Happy Birthday! David wanted the big number 5 candle smack down in the middle of the duck. Some fun star candles were added all around the cake too.


Here is David opening presents from Grace and Jake.

Mommy got him duck pajamas!

And Daddy got him a kid-sized football. Here is David hiking the ball to Jacob. These two spent the rest of the night catching passes thrown by the Dads, running, and even tackling! Happy Birthday big boy. It was a fun night.

Getting Ready for David's 5th Birthday!

Emily had grand plans to make David's birthday cake a surprise, but... our plans to get up super early in the morning (on Saturday) fell through when she turned her alarm clock and went back to sleep. :-) So David's cake project became a family affair! Emily got it all started and did a great job using the hand mixer, and almost made it the entire 2 minutes. But as you know, holding a hand mixer for a long time makes your arms sore! And if Peg is reading, Emily LOVES her birthday apron. It is just so darn cute! I almost cringed when she got chocolate cake mix on it but luckily, it washes beautifully! Of course, a real pastry chef would never have a pristine apron, you know.
;-)It didn't take long for the other kids to figure out what we were doing. They all wanted to help. And Peg, Emily always insists on using the frosting knives you gave her last year. "They really do work better than a regular butter knife." David's got the frosting and Lia is waiting patiently for a spoon or something she can lick frosting off of.

And the finished product! David has been so crazy about his "Big Duck" this year that I wanted to make him a ducky cake. I think it came out really cute! And if Melissa is reading, your ladybug cake was my inspiration! Thank you. The "star tip" frosting technique is brilliant.

It was hard to keep the kids away from the cake. They wanted to keep looking at it... and touching it! But luckily, it did make it to David's party the next day. More pics to come.

Halloween Preview

This year we chose to dress up as Saints again. Since I was on the ball, we had our costume discussions back in September and ordered what we needed from a costume shop I found on the web. Emily decided to dress up as Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, an American Indian who lived in the 1600's. We read all about her in Kateri Tekakwitha, Mowhwak Maiden by Evelyn Brown, a beautiful book that is part of the Vision Series of books about the Saints. Lia fell in love with an angel costume and I'm so glad I indulged her. She LOVES this costume and asks to put it on constantly! David had no intrest in being any other Saint than Saint George. He didn't want to wear brown robes with a bird on his shoulder like Saint Francis, nor did he want to carry a carpenter's saw like Saint Joseph... He was perfectly happy to be his beloved Saint George again this year and didn't even want to upgrade his cardboard shield we made. This makes me happy because we worked so hard on it and it still looks awesome! We kept all his costume parts so he was very excited to "slay" his dragon again and proudly carry the dragon remains around his waist. Boys. :-)
The kids are posing outside church on our way to Emily's Halloween party for choir. Our choir director generously invited all the choir kids and thier siblings to dress up and attend. Mine were bouncing off the walls they were so excited!

And this is the day the costumes arrived on our doorstep. Emily and Lia were very excited to try them on. Lia fell in love with her angel costume and didn't want to take it off. So sweet.

Dancing with the Pirates!

Emory's got the cutest little move half way through the video...

Renaissance Festival

Our friends Lowell and Cynthia came to visit so we could all go to the Renaissance festival together. Emily was very excited to pose with her new wreath of flowers for me!

Here is David at the castle gates!

And the majority of our kids.

Lowell and Cynthia made a wise investment to rent a wagon for the day. Look at this scary guy...

Are these really sharp?

And the dragon!

Big Heads! You can see it all here.

Lia's favorite ride is always the carousel. She was very excited to pick out this frog. (As you can see by the big smile.)

David got a small wooden sword as a souvenier. Mom is happy that it isn't sharp.

Dancing with the pirates. Arrr! And yes, they are singing, "Yo-ho-ho and a Botlle of Rum!"

Emily and Emory.

And here is a cute one of me and my boy.

Big day!