Birthday Extravaganza!

Well, the celebrating is officially over. I think it's actually really fun to have two birthdays in a row. We're always kind of sad when Jordyn's B-day is over, but then we realize that we get to celebrate Evan's the next day!

Thursday night we went to Build a Bear (courtesy of Aunt Jenny and Uncle Chris) and Jordyn and Evan both picked cute dogs. You can see in the photos that Evan's dog is just wearing camouflage underwear. Very stylish. I helped Jordyn pick a cute shirt for her dog and then we bought a cool wheelchair too. Evan has been playing with that wheelchair ever since and has also been trying to sit in it himself. We keep trying to tell him his butt is too big. Then we came home and ate cake & ice cream and opened presents.

Friday we took Evan to McDonald's for the first time, to have a Happy Meal and play in the Play Land. He loved every minute of it. Then we ate his cake and he opened his presents. I think the kids had great birthdays! Click on the photo below to see all the fun!

Birthdays

Happy Birthday Evan!

And the second day of celebrating begins! Today Evan is turning two years old. We've been trying to teach him to say "two" and hold up two fingers. He says "oooo" (sounds like two without the T) and holds up one finger on each hand. Happy Birthday Evan! We love you!

Happy Birthday Jordyn!

Jordyn is turning five years old today! As I was choosing what photos to post on her birthday, I couldn't help but spend at least an hour looking at old photos of her. I love remembering the last five years of Jordyn's life and seeing how much she has changed. We'll do most of our celebrating tonight and post photos of her birthday in a few days. Happy Birthday Jordyn, we love you!

Five Years Ago Today:

• It was the first day of spring.
• It was the first day of the war in Iraq. (We still have the newspaper from this day announcing the war. Can you believe it's been 5 years!?)
• Gas prices: $1.49 - $1.55 (WOW!)
• Milk prices: $2.27
• Movies Playing: Find Nemo, Pirates of the Caribbean (1st), X2: X-Men United
• The temperature in Billings, MT: High 55 Low 32
• People with the same birthday: Big Bird, Spike Lee, John Brahm, Napoleon Bonaparte II

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday

YOU DID WHAT!?

1. I permed my hair.
2. I ran a 5 mile race on Saturday.

Here's a photo of my new hair. I have been wanting to get my hair permed for a long time. Many of you probably know that when you have straight hair, you want curly hair & when you have curly hair, you want straight hair. I have to say that I think it looks a little better in person... not the greatest photo in the world. But, I do like it and the best part is that is it SOOO easy to do in the mornings! No more blow drying for 15 + min. (I have a lot of hair) and then curling for another 15 min. We'll see how I feel in a few months and if I want curly hair permanently. Actually, I was hoping it would be a little less curly, more like big waves, but oh well. Maybe next time I'll try for bigger curls.

Saturday I ran a 5 mile race with my friend Holly. We were planning on running a 5k and at the last minute, Holly talked me into running the 5 mile instead! It was tough, but we ran the whole way and it went great! Now that I've run a 5 mile race, I feel like I can train for a half marathon that's coming up in May. I think it will feel so cool to say that I ran a five mile race when Carter was 2 1/2 months old and a half marathon when I had a 5 month old. Actually, maybe that just sounds crazy!

Just a few other things going on in my life. I got a new calling at church and now I'm the first counselor in Young Women's. That is always a great calling. It's fun to hang out with the girls and we have a really great bunch. I also think it's so hilarious to hear all of the "drama" that goes on in their lives. The funny thing is that it is soooo trivial, but they think it's such a big deal! I just listen to them and laugh to myself!

After having Carter, I was pretty excited to lose the baby weight (as you can imagine). I started keeping track of my weight loss when he was about 1 month old. I feel like after a month you kind of plateau and actually have to start working hard if you want to lose the weight fairly quick. So far I've lost 16 pounds. Sadly, I gained a lot of weight with Carter's pregnancy and I still have 20 lbs. to reach my goal weight. But, I think it's going great so far. It's funny how weight loss is such a roller coaster ride. One day your so motivated and doing great. The next, your bored or frustrated and sick of it. Most of the time I think it's actually fun to make goals (what I'm going to eat, what I'll do to exercise on certain days, etc.) and work to reach them. I love reading magazines, books, and articles about eating healthy and exercising. And of course I love when I see results from the hard work.

Smiles

Carter started smiling today and I couldn't resist posting the first photos. They're not the biggest smiles in the world yet, but I was so excited. If you look at the photos up close, you can see Carter's long beautiful eye lashes.... so cute! Evan and I just about injured our faces from trying so hard to make Carter smile. Here's one of Evan's faces while we were making Carter smile:

Big Brother. Evan has been getting a lot of "time outs" lately. He hasn't quite figured out what "soft" means when it comes to playing with Carter. He tries to roll Carter across the floor, throws balls at his face (very soft balls!), pats his back (rather hard), and climbs all over him. I got a few photos of him the other day trying to play with Carter. Notice in the bottom right photo, both of Evan's hands and feet are OFF the ground! Poor Carter... he's very tolerant of his big brother already!

Kiddos

If this picture looks familiar it's because we have about 10 different versions of it... Evan dumping his food out and putting the bowl on his head! (That is why I just can't bring myself to move him to a toddler chair yet, but I really should!) Another new habit he has is during his night time snack. We give him a little bowl of cheerios and milk. Then he picks all the cheerios out, puts them on his tray, drinks the milk out of the bowl, puts the cheerios back in the bowl, and then eats them. Interesting way to eat a bowl of cereal!

Poor little Jordyn has been sick the past few days with a fever. It's so sad when she's sick because she seems to get really sick and for a long time. But strangely, instead of being grumpy she is always really quiet and happy! So, that's nice for us I suppose. I took this picture of her the first day she was sick.... she fell asleep like this! She just wouldn't lay down to sleep!

I couldn't leave Carter out! I think I say every day that Carter is getting cuter and cuter. I think those first few "hard" months are over. He is getting on a schedule and we're figuring out how he likes to fall asleep and what he likes. He's sleeping longer at night too which is great! He's a little angel.