Oaks Park!

Warning: lots of pictures.  21 to be exact.

So, I went to upload pictures from our cameras a few days ago since Miriam wanted the ones I took of her & Sidney, and I discovered that I had pictures from Easter still on there.  Yup, hadn't gotten around to uploading pictures for the entire months of April, May, and June.  It's been busy - I got a job!  That's a whole other post.  Anyhow, I'm going to be a good girl and blog about our latest fun adventure, and maybe catch up on some other stuff in my spare time (ha!).

So, Katy turned 5 on Sunday, June 3rd (another post I should do...).  We planned on taking the kids to Oaks Park the day before as her big birthday thing (i.e. instead of doing a party).  That morning she woke up with a fever and owie ear, head, and throat, so I took her to the doctor instead, and we promised we'd take them soon.  In the summer they have b1g1 on Tuesdays, so we knew we'd go on one of those.  When Miriam decided to come visit us before moving to Wyoming (sad!), we decided to go with her and Sidney!

The day was overcast, drizzling a little, with at least 3 or 4 sudden downpours that lasted a few minutes each.  Other than the first time when the boys were stuck on the Spider, we were pretty successful at just going undercover for a bit.  And because of this less than ideal weather, the park was pretty empty!  It was awesome!

Time for the pictures:

 Last summer when we went Nathan was just a teeny guy, so I didn't realize all the great stuff they had for toddlers!  It was so fun to watch him and Sidney ride all by themselves!

 Or together...that was pretty cute, too! :-)

 Katy loves this roller coaster so very much.  We counted that night, and I'm pretty sure she went on it 11 times!  A few times by herself, a few times with me (sometimes with one of the babies), a few times with some girl she made friends with, and twice with a 5 year old boy who told her she was pretty.

 I love how much the big kids love Nathan.

 I guess I lied, we got caught in the rain, too.  Also on the spider.  Dang it!

 I don't know if you can see her face very clearly, but this is one happy little girl!

 While riding the motorcycles Nathan turned around to wave at Sidney. :-)

 Miriam and Sidney about to go up in the "hot air balloon."

 Around 4:30 I think Sidney had finally worn herself out.  Her pregnant mama was pretty tired too, so Dan and Nathan took them home.  The rest of us, we were only halfway done!

 Part 2 of Oaks Park, where I see my other children.  See, when we first got there we all went on the carousel.  Then the boys wanted to do a big kid ride, so Dan stayed with them while Miriam and I took Katy, Sidney, and Nathan on little rides.  After the boys got soaked on the Spider, they ended up going roller skating (it's included in the bracelet price) for over 2 hours!  Nope, I don't have any pictures of that.  And that's why I don't have any pictures of the boys from the first part.

I got Ryan to go on a ride with me (it appears from this post that we spent a lot of time on the Spider.  We did not.  I think it's just that you have so much time while waiting for everyone to get on and off, so I kept snapping pictures!).  It was nice. :-)

 This year the boys wanted "Deluxe" bracelets.  They cost just a few dollars more, and included bumper cars and 3 or 4 of the biggest rides.  Ryan is just barely tall enough to do bumper cars, which he was thrilled about!

 Katy got more and more courageous throughout the day.  I'm pretty sure she went on every ride she could (besides a few of the baby rides).  She started saying she wished she had a deluxe bracelet, but I don't think she's even tall enough to go on any of those rides!

Also, yes, Katy and David are the only people on that ride.  The park got even more empty as the night wore on, and we could often just walk onto a ride.  It was awesome!

 Katy convinced me to go on Rocko, which was like a ferris wheel where you're caged in and can rock your cage upside down.  We did NOT do that!  It was scary enough just riding it!

 Since it was another of those rides where you have to wait while all the people are loaded on, one spot at a time, we had some time to kill.  It's hard to be a crazy face with one hand, I discovered.  I look like I'm just trying to show you my teeth.  Lovely, aren't they?

 I don't have many pictures of David, because I still wasn't with him much.  I let the boys do their own thing, they just had to tell me if they were going to change which ride they were going on (since they would often do the same ride over and over again).  The park is fairly small and the crowds were fairly thin, so I felt pretty comfortable with that.  I can't believe they're getting that big!

 They spent a lot of time on the bumper cars like this (Ryan is in the red car, stuck against the middle, and David is in the blue car, stuck against Ryan's car).  Ryan eventually got the hang of it.  David decided to go on other rides instead.

 Another solo ride.  I wish I'd gotten a picture of the time Ryan rode Looping Thunder, the big roller coaster, all by himself, but Katy and I were on the scrambler and not really in a position to be taking pictures!

 David, Ryan, and a friend they made are on the bottom in this picture.  David had fun hanging out with him, and was disappointed that he lives in Salem so we wouldn't be exchanging contact info.

 Brave, brave Katy, riding rocko again.  Pretty sure this is when I started sitting out because I had finally had enough spinny rides and needed a break!

 My princess and me, riding the ferris wheel.  It was our last ride of the night, at 8:58 or something.  When we got home we tried to remember all the rides Katy went on, and we came out with an even 50!  It was 49, but then Ryan reminded us that they'd gone on tilt-a-whirl together.  We counted up Ryan's too, and it was a bit less because they'd spent so long skating, but still really amazing.  I'm pretty sure we're spoiled by that.  How can we ever go to Disneyland and wait in hour long lines after that?

The view from the top of the ferris wheel.  That's downtown Portland off in the distance.  It was really beautiful.

I don't know that we would have had anywhere near that much fun if we'd gone on June 2nd like originally planned.  It was fun to be there with Aunt Miriam and Sidney!  And awesome to have so few people there!  So Katy, sorry you had an ear infection the day before your birthday, but it turned out great!

Hi!

Nathan started waving and saying "hi!" a whole bunch yesterday. I love it! I'll try to get a better video (maybe one where he isn't playing with my sports bra...), but I wanted to make sure I got one before he stops doing it, like happens so often with cute little things they do!

Watch "Hi!" on YouTube

Nathan's Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party

I loaded these pictures a few days ago, knowing I'd have more time to do the typing during Spring Break. Right now Katy is playing outside, David & Ryan are playing Monopoly, and Nathan is eating a cookie in his high chair. Life at Grandma & Grandpa's house is good!

So, birthday parties are a constant source of disagreement in the Morrill household. Pretty much I always want to have them, Dan always thinks they shouldn't. Sorry, Honey, I'm not ready to back down. Probably as the kids get older, but for now it's so fun!

I had seen some Very Hungry Caterpillar birthday party stuff around Pinterest, and since we love that book I thought it would be fun for Nathan's first birthday party! Since first birthday parties are more for everybody else than the birthday child I decided to invite 3 families that have little ones. It was fun to have the entire families involved! I made invitations using this idea:

I made the leaves a bit bigger and glued the caterpillar on them instead of putting them in jars. They were really cute! I wish I'd taken a picture.

I printed out some VHC coloring pages, and they were a big hit! I thought about doing more involved crafts, but didn't get around to doing the prep work. It was easier without them anyway, and the kids loved just playing.
Here's the guest of honor! Yes, he has a whole apple. He takes them out of the fridge if he can get over there fast enough when someone else has it open. I've been buying baby apples so he doesn't waste so much, but clearly he didn't get one that time.

Who knew a paper plate could be so fun!

Here's our low class VHC cake. If I was a better person I would have displayed it on something prettier than 2 upside down cookie sheets, made the frosting before people got there (thanks for taking over on that Danny love!), split the frosting better so we had enough green, taken more time decorating so the cupcakes looked prettier, and done a better job on the face. Oh well, they sure tasted delicious!
I tried to tell people that Nathan really, really didn't need anything. It didn't work. But they did do a good job of not just adding to the clutter! The Slaters gave him these super cute short overalls. I can't wait for it to be shorts weather so he can wear them!
The Hamsleys gave Nathan this adorable duckling. It quacks and sings the abcs, and is remarkably non-annoying! I love seeing him hug it and carry it around. :-)
After everyone left I finally thought to take pictures of the food. I was really happy with how it turned out! I downloaded some clip art and made these cute signs. On Monday he ate through 1 apple, and so forth. It was nice to not have to think about what to serve, and everyone ate a lot of healthy stuff in addition to the usual cake & candy!
These are not jelly beans, gummy worms, and gummy butterflies, they are eggs, caterpillars, and butterflies. On the far right are some watermelon taffies for the slide of watermelon the VHC ate on Saturday. On the far left of the other picture is some cheese for Saturday, although we did cheddar instead of swiss. We had chocolate cupcakes, so that took care of both chocolate cake and cupcakes, and the kids got lollipops in their goodie bags. That was enough of the Saturday stuff, it did give the caterpillar a stomach ache, after all! Katy insisted on having "nice green leaves," so that's what is in the upper right of the picture. My kids actually like spinach pretty well, but with all the other yummy stuff the leaves didn't get eaten. :-P
Here's my attempt at nice picture of a leftover cupcake. Yum! I got a bigger tip to pipe the frosting on. I'm excited to make cupcakes again sometime without the rush of "all the kids are anxious for cake, hurry, hurry!" so I can make them look prettier.
Remember how I said I should've divided the frosting better? I ran out of green, but we had quite a bit of red left. This is what happens when you add red to the bag that already has green. Pretty cool!
Here's Nathan's other present - some cute Cars jammies! He actually really needed some, so it was a great gift! I tried for a while to get a good picture of him in them. I got lots of blurry ones while he walked around. He finally sat down, but of course wouldn't smile before he was up and about again.
I also got a couple like this. Sigh. Getting a good picture of this 1 year old is hard. He sure is busy!

I was really pleased with how the day turned out. The food was good, the cake was yummy, the kids all had fun, and the husbands even seemed to have a good time! :-) Oh yeah, and I had fun, too! I'd say it was a success.

Going down!

Nathan learned a new skill yesterday, and since I happened to have the camera in hand today (working with Ryan on a school project to photograph a stuffed monkey in "interesting, unusual, or humorous poses"...perhaps worth a post?), I got it on camera today! Prior to this he was very good at going up, but would only go down if he had climbed up a couple and changed his mind. Now he knows how to get started!
Getting ready to kneel down...
Ready to turn around...
Fully in position (love the feet!)...
And GO!

I love how his pants are hiked up to his knees by a few steps down. :-)

Nathan is one!

Well, one of the most happy-sad things that ever happens to a woman has happened to me. My baby (as in last child, not just current youngest child) has turned one! He is no longer a baby, he is a toddler who toddles all over and makes many messes. He is super cute and sweet and really fun to have around. But gosh darn it, what happened to this guy?I need to start making friends with all the pregnant ladies at church so I can get my baby fix.

So, for the first time ever, I was quite successful at keeping the birthday experience from getting out of control. We did have a small party (which I will hopefully blog about soon), but I did a very good job of not overindulging the birthday child! He got some sand toys from us (more because we needed sand toys than anything), a present from each sibling, and a baby swing from Grandma & Grandpa Smith. It was nice!

Katy got Nathan some board books and a bouncy ball at the dollar store. He likes the books (he likes to look at those little board books that are just the right size for his little hands), but he LOVES the ball! He had tested it out before his birthday, so as soon as he got it in his hands he knew what it was!

This was the first time he really unwrapped presents (Christmas was 3 months ago, he couldn't really unwrap then and probably doesn't remember it anyway), so we had to teach him. He started off just taking tiny bits...
Then he got the hang of it a bit better.

There it is! I want that!

And he immediately tried to walk away to play with it! It took some convincing to get him to open any other presents!
David gave him a pretty neat ball that opens and has some different things inside. Okay, that's a horrible explanation. Just trust me, it's a fun toy!

Next it was cupcake time! Since I knew we were doing a party on Saturday, I didn't do anything all that special. Just vanilla cupcakes with blue buttercream frosting. Mmmm!

Now, Nathan has certainly had more sweets than many babies have by their first birthday. But he was still a little uncertain.

Testing the frosting...

Hey, this is pretty good!

Yum!

It wasn't all that much frosting so he didn't get good and messy like a baby is supposed to for their first birthday. Oh well, he didn't seem to mind!

Nathan is such a wonderful, sweet dispositioned little guy. He loves his brothers & sister so much, and is such a joy to have around! Happy Birthday, Nathan! We're glad you're in our family!