Happy 5th Birthday, Joshua!

Wow! Joshua turned 5 years old on Monday! We celebrated his birthday by going to Red Robin for dinner on Saturday. He ordered his usual Mac 'N' Cheese with apple slices. After we ate we had the waitresses and waiters sing to him. Joshua hid his face in Ryan's chest the whole time. Although he was embarrassed with all of the loud attention he was getting, he did have a huge grin plastered on his face through out the song. He was happy to get his ice cream sundae afterwards and refused to share any of it with his brothers.



Earlier in the day before all of our sport games we had gone to Toys R Us. Joshua got to pick out his very own bicycle. A bike is all he wanted for his birthday. Because daddy wouldn't be home on his birthday after Red Robin, Ryan assembled the bike and Joshua got to ride his bike a few days early. It was a beautiful day/night and the boys stayed outside riding their bikes until late in the evening.



Monday morning our birthday boy woke up and he requested green pancakes for his breakfast. After breakfast, he opened his gift from his brothers. He was delighted to discover a Lego Cargo Plane. When Matthew got home from school he helped Joshua build the plane.



Joshua had preschool, so we baked his birthday cupcakes. He was excited to take them to school and share them with his teachers and classmates.



For dinner Joshua requested one of his favorite meals, "Rice with the brown sauce."



This year Joshua requested a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Birthday Cake. I had fun making his cake for him. I was impressed with how it turned out. He absolutely loved his cake.



After dinner we sang and had cake and ice cream. Great way to end his weekend long celebration of his birthday!

Joshua is such a happy go lucky, carefree little boy. He loves to giggle and laugh. It's not unusually to find him smiling and doing a happy jig around the house. He loves to play outside. He can spend hours riding his bike, scooter and playing on our playground. His best friends are Joshua Taylor and Kiley Abbott. He loves his brothers and especially adores his little brother Thomas. He is such a good sport and keeps Christopher entertained by playing football, soccer, baseball and anything else Christopher wants him to play that is sporty. When Joshua grows up he wants to be a train driver. He is very excited to start kindergarten in the fall. He loves to practice writing his letters everyday in preparation for school. His favorite color is blue. He loves to watch "Little Einsteins" and "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse". He loves to sit at the piano and play and sing "Go Tell It On The Mountain." Joshua's height is ___.

Birthday Cakes

Earlier this month we celebrated Matthew's birthday. Matthew requested a Guitar cake for his birthday. This was my first attempt at Fondant frosting. Matthew helped by doing the stars.









After doing Matthew's cake the pressure was on for Joshua's birthday cake. He loves the Disney TV show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. So I decided to make him a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse birthday cake.











Both boys absolutely LOVED their cakes. They were a lot of fun to make!

Coloring Easter Eggs

We enjoyed coloring eyes together as a family for our activity for Family Night the Monday after Easter. All of the boys enjoyed making different designs amongst all of the colors. Thomas was by far the one who got into it the most, though. I boiled 3 dz eggs and once he figured out what we were doing, he wanted every single egg. He ended up taking over most of the eggs. Anytime anybody touched any of his eggs or the tool to lift the eggs out of the dye, he would scream and cry ever so hard. He was especially sad when we told him we were all done.

Happy Easter

Saturday we did our annual Easter Egg Hunt at Potomac Station Park with a few friends. This year we brought fifteen eggs per child, so the boys got to find 15 eggs give or take a few. They always make the older children go to the back of the park to find their eggs. Which leaves the front half of the park for the smaller children. It works out perfectly, so the little children can take their sweet time finding all their eggs.

Afterwards, we went to MOES and enjoyed dinner. We were suppose to do the egg hunt early in the day but due to rain we pushed it back until late afternoon.

This year my boys actually got to do two Easter Egg hunts. I dropped Matthew off at a friends house to play on Friday. On our way home I stopped by Target to pick up the candy I needed for Saturday's egg hunt. I decided to pick up a few more eggs and let the kids have a mini egg hunt. When we got home our neighbor friends were outside playing and we invited them to join us in our egg hunt. After filling the eggs, Kirsten and I hid the eggs all over our two yards. We then sent the children hunting. It was so fun to watch them.

Sunday the boys awoke and began the hunt to find their Easter Baskets. They were delighted to find a few goodies in their baskets.

Shortly, after finding the baskets Matthew discovered he had two ticks burrowed down in him. We spent the remainder of the morning fussing over the ticks. We were able to pull one of the ticks out completely, but the second one broke off, leaving its head in Matthew's skin. (Ticks are all over the place out here. Loudoun County has a high rate of Lyme Disease which is transmitted through the ticks. I usually wouldn't be so concerned, but my neighbors little boy got a tick on him last year and showed the early signs of Lyme Disease. He was on antibiotics for over a month.) So we called the pediatrician, he told us we needed to go to an urgent care and have the tick fully removed. Well, we decided we didn't want to spend Easter in the emergency room, so we boiled a few tools an exato knife and a needle. We then cut out the head of the ticks from Matthew's back. Matthew was very brave. I had to close my eyes several times as I held Matthew down. Dr. Ryan did a fantastic job and so far Matthew shows no signs of Lyme Disease.

After church we went to the Gold's for Easter dinner. It turned out to be a nice relaxing evening.

Easter Grass

Check out the grass! The boys LOVED watching their grass grow and boy did it grow. Every other day they would water their grass. They were constantly checking on the grass to see whose was the tallest, their names were on the bottom. We kept the containers on the Kitchen table. I can't tell you how many times we sat down to eat and felt like we were having a picnic outside on the grass. Several times Ryan commented on needing to get the lawn mover out and mow the grass down. Our table was full of grass, since the boys got two containers one was 8" and the other was 4". We put the containers in our Easter baskets the night before Easter. The Easter Bunny came and filled our baskets with yummy and special surprises.

Matthew with his tall, bushy grass.

Christopher with his funky, wild grass.

Now we are waiting for a sunny day to plant our grass outside in our yard. Ryan planted seed in the yard about the same time to fill in patches here and there. He is very jealous of our grass. He wishes he could get the outside grass to look like this.

Happy 10th Birthday, Matthew!

Matthew celebrated his 10th birthday on Thursday. He woke up at 5 am and came into our bedroom saying he had woken up and couldn't go back to sleep. He asked if he could go downstairs and open up his birthday gifts. We sent him back to bed, telling him no way not until 7 o'clock. He kept coming in our bedroom every 15 - 20 minutes. Finally at 7 we headed downstairs to the family room to open presents. He was absolutely excited and already knew what one of his presents was going to be. You can tell from the grin above opening the present that he in deed got what he wanted. It was Star war Lego attack shuttle.

After opening his presents he was off to his room to start building. For breakfast I made him his favorite which is still Waffles 'N' Strawberries 'N' Whip Cream. After breakfast he was back to his room to keep building the star wars ship.

On a side note, Ryan's good buddy who is a pilot flew into town and spent the morning and early afternoon with us before he had to fly out. We enjoy visiting with him. The boys played the Wii with him and took him outside to show him the woods behind our house.

We decided instead of going out to dinner and being rushed to get home and have a quick cake and ice cream that we would go out for lunch instead. Matthew had a hard time deciding where he wanted to go. In the days leading up to his birthday, he wanted to go to Cici's, Benihana"s and Red Robin. We thought he had finally decided on Red Robin until we pulled in the parking lot and he changed his mind to the Macaroni Grill. He loves there bread. Lunch was good. Matthew enjoyed the bread, he must take after me and my English roots. Matthew filled up on the bread and hardly touched his chicken fingers. He got a kick out of being sung to by the waitresses and waiters.

We came home and played outside until it was dark with the neighbor kids. We then came in and had cake and ice cream. This year Matthew wanted a guitar cake and guitar cake is what he got. I am very proud of myself . I think the cake turned out perfect.




Matthew is such a sweet boy. We had a wonderful day celebrating him and his life. He is such a joy to have in our family.

Some of Matthew's interests are:

Building with Legos

Playing with his Brothers

Having sleepovers with his friend Zachary Gardner

Playing Baseball

Riding his bike

Baking- Loves to bake cookies. He can make them start to finish by himself. He loves to make Rice Roni, Top Ramen.

Playing the piano

Loves Classical Music. He especially likes listening to it at night in his room when he is going to sleep.

Playing in the woods

When he grows up he wants to be an Archaeologist.

His favorite color is Blue.

Loves to watch Dirtiest Jobs on TV. Also don't tell anybody he loves the Hannah Montana show and the Suite Life of Zach and Cody.

His height is 54".

Matthew's feet are pretty much the same size as mine.

Another BOY

Meet Maxwell Marcusen also known as Max or Maxi. Max is a 7 week old Border Collie Puppy. We have been wanting to get our boys a dog for awhile now. However, we were uncertain of the type of breed we should get. Ryan is not a big lap dog kind of guy. We would love to have gotten a lab, but felt this type of dog was a little to big for us.

On March 29th we were at a dinner with some friends when Ryan's cell phone rang. It was my mom calling to tell us they had found the perfect dog for us. And better yet, my mom and step dad were willing to purchase the dog and hang on to it until this summer when we are going to Utah for a visit. She also mention that they would house train him. Well, that kind of deal from my parents is a hard one to pass up. They already have two dogs who are well behaved and trained perfectly. She told us the breed and told us to get on the computer and call her back to let her know. I asked her how long we had before she needed to hear back from us on whether we wanted the dog or not. Actually she said, we are standing on the corner looking at him and he is the last puppy. So we pretty much needed to make our decision within minutes.

I hung up the phone and tried to talk to Ryan about it for a minute. We didn't have access to a computer which made making our decision a little tricky. After talking it over briefly Ryan said, it was my decision and I of course couldn't resist. So it looks like we are the proud new owners of dog. Max will be almost 5 months old when we pick him up this summer.

My kids are so EXCITED to say the least. We have been calling Grammie everyday to get Max updates. We have found numerous websites on Border Collies and the boys have been passing along different tricks they would like Grammie and Grandpa to teach Max.

Cherry Blossoms

Conference weekend we went downtown to see the

Cherry Blossoms on the mall in Washington D.C. They were at their peak. The pink blossoms were absolutely beautiful. Matthew and I went and saw the cherry blossoms shortly after moving here 8 1/2 years ago. As far as the rest of the family this was their first time seeing the blossoms on the mall.

It was a beautiful day and nice one to get outside after being in the house for two days listening to conference. A lot of tourist had the same idea as us and therefore the mall was packed. We turned several heads as they oohed and awed over our four boys.

Tommy's favorite place in the kitchen

Tommy loves to sit on the high counter when I am baking something yummy. Whenever I pull out the Kitchen Aid he quickly runs around the counter and climbs up on the bar stool and pulls himself on to the counter. He sits down and puts his feet on the lower counter. He always waits patiently while I add all of the ingredients into the bowl of the Kitchen Aid. When he begins to see it turning into something and my back is turned, he quickly puts his fingers in and pulls out some dough. When I am completely finished he says, "Taste!" I then give him the beater and he is in his glory. The funniest time to watch him is when I am baking bread or cinnamon rolls, because he keeps snitching little tastes of the dough here and there. What a Silly Boy!!!

Thank You

Thomas came down with the flu about two days ago. We have had two long sleepless nights. He seems to be doing a little bit better today.

As usually Thomas takes a bathe while I get ready. This morning when I turned the blower dryer on Thomas started screaming in the bathtub. I turned my blow dryer off to see what was the manner. I asked him if his uckies were coming, he replied "No." I asked him if he was ready to get out he said, "No." I finally turned the blow dryer back on. Once again Thomas started screaming, so I turned the blow dryer off. As soon as the blow dryer was off Thomas replied, "Thank You." I chuckled and turned the dryer back on. Thomas screamed again and once again I turned the dryer off, to which Thomas replied, "Off, Thank You."

It was pretty cute. I love hearing him talk, especially when he's not prompted. His ears must be sensitive to the noise since he is sick.

Lucky Duck comes for a visit

Joshua is in school at Hope Preschool. It is a Methodist church which also runs a preschool. Joshua's teacher is LDS and is in our stake. She is such an amazing teacher. Christopher attended the same preschool and had the same teacher. At the school each class has a name such as Purple Pandas, Cardinals, Yellow Birds, Rainbows. Joshy's class is named the Lucky Ducks. Mrs. Bower has a duck named Lucky. Lucky goes home every weekend with a different child for a fun adventure. He says, he gets board during the winter months with Mrs. Bower. Lucky brings a journal with him and we have to keep track of the fun adventures we have with Lucky. Well, Joshua came home a couple of weeks ago with Lucky. We had a fun weekend together.



Christopher was so EXCITED to see LUCKY!!!

Easter Grass

A week and half ago for our activity for Family Night, we planted our grass for our Easter Baskets. The boys loved dumping the dirt into their containers, especially Thomas who did it all on his own as if he was one of the big boys. Each boy then took handfuls of seeds and placed them on top of the dirt. Matthew and Christopher chose to cover up their seed while the rest of us didn't. We each watered our own containers and moved them into the kitchen, hopefully to a spot that gets lots of sunlight. Now we wait and cross our fingers to see if it will grow in time for our Easter Egg Hunt.

Joshua's Concoction

Joshua's favorite snack is a piece of bread which he puts applesauce on top of and then tops it off with cheerios. He invented it many months ago while he was eating the three ingredients separately. On several occasions he has tried to get Ryan or myself to try it. So far I have been able to talk my way out of having to eat it. However, Ryan has tried it. In Ryan's words, "It was the BEST Bread, Applesauce & Cheerios sandwich he has ever had and the only one!"
As you can see from his grin below, Joshua LOVES it and is very PROUD of himself.

Chef Matthew

With Matthew getting older, he has been requesting to learn to bake and cook a lot of different foods and goodies. I taught him a while back how to make cookies. For the longest time I would be in the kitchen hovering over him, making sure he got all of the measurements right. Well, the other day the boys and I were outside playing when Matthew asked if he could go in and bake some cookies. He said, he owed his dad 10 cookies for something. I told him that that would be fine. He disappeared in the house and I stayed outside to watch the younger boys. A while later I came in and found him completely done mixing the ingredients, he was scooping the dough on to the cookie sheets. The cookies were delicious. I was so proud of him. I think I like him getting bigger and helping with the cooking. He is a natural, he must take after his father who loves to cook.