back in the blogging world

Wow I can't believe it's been two weeks.  I've neglected my poor blog for two whole weeks.  It doesn't seem that long since we've been pretty busy around here in the past two weeks - thus the blog absence.  Lets see what have we been up to?  Well we had Easter.  It was a blessed day all around.  Aside from the fact that KOJ couldn't get training wheels onto Squirrel's new Easter bike and the tires on Howler's new bike wouldn't hold air.  Oops.  The kids were good natured and rolled with it and for that I was very thankful.

Also my youngest niece turned one and we had her party last weekend.  And this week on Wed Howler turned 4!  I can't believe it.  We celebrated here at home.  KOJ took the day off work to spend with us.  It was a fun and laid back time - very much like the child.

  I made him his desired airplane cake.

The cake is homemade chocolate cake and the icing in the middle is some of the homemade buttercream icing that I took pureed strawberries (fresh of course) and added them to.  He wanted a chocolate and strawberry cake and this is how I did that.  Then I spread the remaining strawberry frosting on top and then I iced over it with a bag of green icing and a decorator tip.

It was a super yummy cake.  And he was very pleased to get his airplane cake a mere two days after finally telling me what shape he wanted his cake in.

He also seemed to be pleased with his gifts (as were his brothers).

We also had the year end picnic for Awana.  Awana is the fantastic children's program put on by our church on Wed nights throughout the school year.  Each year we have a picnic which includes a hayride at the start of the year and again at the end of the year.  A good time is generally had by all.

The older two on the hayride.

The princess was pretty cynical that this would in fact be a fun experience.

Spider and KOJ snuggled up for the ride.

And just a couple of bonus pics of my niece and the princess at my niece's birthday party.

They are so cute together and actually get alone with one another really well.  So glad that since Princess doesn't have a sister she at least got a girly cousin buddy.