six years in

every year i insist that she wear her tiara.  she wore it on our wedding day.  she was a princess on that day, and she is my princess ever since!

some of the delicious food we tried.

the place was packed- no wonder we had to wait an hour to get a seat!

they cover the table with brown paper as a table cloth, so i took the opportunity to draw a little bit.

we had a great seat up on the balcony.

ledger's birthday in south bend 2

when i asked him what he wanted on his cake he said 'dinos!'.  alright little guy, dinos it is!

blowing out his candles.

chowing down on his birthday cake!

after lunch we built a bonfire in the backyard.  david has a lot of brush at the house and always looks for an opportunity to burn it up.

you can't have a bonfire without s'mores!

ledger's first s'more.

ledger's second s'more...

we even pulled out his motorized little four wheeler so he could rock out in the backyard!

after sarah, vince and the kids all left, we put ledger to bed.  its wasn't too hard, he was absolutely exhausted!  now with him out of the way, the rest of us played a little bit of cards!

ledger's birthday in south bend 1

the weather was nice out, so everyone headed out to the backyard to play on the swing set!

while they played, i got the grill going for lunch.

gather round, its time for lunch!

while we had hot dogs, brats, and burgers, diana made a special plate of ledger's favorite: mac and cheese!

ledger opens some of his gifts while shawn plays with one of the balloons.

sarah, vince, abby and shawn got ledger an easel for his birthday!  it came with magnetic letters so shawn showed us all how to use them!  he's a year older than ledger and he is a wiz with spelling- the perfect teacher for ledge!

liam's birthday 2

liam was pretty thrilled about his cake and dinosaur candles!

and so was ledger!

i had a balloon animal making kit that i pulled out for liam's birthday and the boys just went nuts over it!

ledger became very attached to the balloon doggy.  well, right up until it popped!

ledger wearing a strange balloon mask...

little baby garrett!

to give us a couple moments of peace and quiet, auntie barbara took the two boys to the park!

liam's birthday 1

playing legos with his cousin!

i don't know where ledger went...

the boys got their auntie barbara in on the lego fun!

we tried to get the two boys to sleep in the same bed but that didn't work for too long... they kept taking and playing around when they should have been asleep!  eventually katie gave up and put liam in her king sized bed for the night!

random ledge 45

rockin' out with his lolli.

making a mess with his pretzel at the woodland mall.

he always wants to play with daddy's hat...

silly boy!

his favorite thing to do at his grandmas? make a mess!

a strange place to hide...

having fun out with daddy!

he really likes his new bible- just for him!

he wasn't exactly interested in taking a nap today, so instead he gathered an audience and told them stories...

out playing in the kids area at woodland mall.  the theme for the kids area is 'breakfast'.  kinda strange, if you ask me...

snowmans

enjoying his snowy adventure and playtime in the winter wonderland!

he was so proud of his giant stan (apparently thats what all snowmans are named...).

i showed him how to make a snow angel.

his great attempt at making his own snow angel.  please note the little poof from his hat at the top- i love it!

daddy and son snow angels!

after an exhausting day of playing in the snow, the only thing that brought him back inside was the promise of hot chocolate with marshmallows!

the last time we went out and made a snowman it was really little.  we put it on the deck bench so we could see it from the dining room window.  its been out there for weeks and finally the carrot nose fell off.  this little squirrel seemed to notice and took the opportunity to make a meal out of it!

ledger's excitement aside, i was pretty thrilled with our snowman too- i think he looks pretty great!