Shane and Leah

This is our fifth year going to the tulip festival.  We started this family tradition before Oliver was even born on Marie’s first birthday.  We ended up going later in the month than normal and we had a beautiful sunny day to enjoy the scenery.  The garden we go to was out in full splendor and Shane wanted to get some good shots this year with our newer camera.  The kids were less interested in the flowers and more interested in the mud and dirt, so after smelling as many tulips as they could stand we headed off to the fields.  It would seem that we prepared for this event.  Boots were on the kids feet and the boys had on rain gear of sorts. The puddles were in abundance and every child ended up falling in.  Peter fell in face first and had to be retrieved and wiped down with tons of wet wipes.  Marie splashed mud up to her knees and then fell on her butt.  Oliver was the cleanest of the bunch and only got a boot full of water, which unfortunately disgruntled him since I didn’t have extra socks in my purse.  Mothers are supposed to be prepared for everything right?  After everyone had fallen in Shane and I held their hands through all of the puddles while they slipped and slopped to their delight.  We garnered quite a few laughs about the state of the children, but I think it was really just jealousy that they were too old to do that anymore.  When we got back to the car we pulled out the 72 hour kit to redress the kids in dry clothes (Mothers really are prepared for everything) and then ate a fun lunch out.  Click here to see our pictures.

Marie’s much anticipated birthday came this week.  We have been hearing about it for months.  At last the big day came.  I spent the morning finishing off icing Marie’s white bunny with sprinkles in the cake as she requested, and fending Peter’s fingers from swiping icing.  My sister Mimi had sent me Wilbur chocolate buds (a much better version of Hershey kisses) and I used one to make the nose.  The name of the chocolate factory is printed on the bottom and once the nose was in the cake was dubbed “Wilbur”.  The kids were fascinated and thought the cake looked enough like a real bunny to fool Daddy.  When Shane got home early from work they called him to the fridge to show him the “real” bunny inside.  He appropriately yelled in surprise and sent them all into squeals of laughter.

After a yummy dinner we opened presents.  Unfortunately I made the mistake of allowing Oliver to watch me wrap the presents earlier in the week.  He was dropping very unsubtle hints all day to Marie about what she was getting.  She also has the Muldowney blood in her and felt all of the presents to confirm what was inside.  After presents we got out Wilbur, sang to Marie and then gave out his head and ears to eat.   Marie named her new fluffy bunny “Winky” and her new doll “Lucy” and then ran off to marry them.  To top off the day Oliver decided he needed to have pretty things like lip gloss for his birthday.  The girly influence will be felt in this house no matter how many more boys we have!

As a last note Marie used some of her birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa to buy her brother’s presents, “because I love them”.  What a fun girl to have in our family. Click here for more pictures.

For those who may not have heard we are expecting a baby in late August.  The kids have all been very excited about a new baby and for a while the debate was rather emotional between the kids as to whether or not the baby was a boy or a girl.  I explained that Heavenly Father chooses who he sends to our family and that person is a boy or girl before they ever come to earth.  Marie accepted this idea whole heartedly and declared decidedly whenever anyone asked what she wanted that, “We don’t get to choose Heavenly Father gets to choose.”

Yesterday Shane and I went in for the ultrasound and it was quite obvious that we have a healthy baby boy on the way!  I will not deny that the girls are feeling a bit out numbered.  I talked to Marie about how we have such nice boys in our family and she agreed so now we just have a name to pick.  Oliver suggested “Hot sauce”, Marie suggested “stinky diaper” (when she was against a boy) as well as Russell and Mr. Frederickson from the movie Up.  Shane’s catch all is “Scooter” whenever he doesn’t want to think about it.  We have a poll up on klingonsmith.com just hit refresh until the boys name poll comes up.  Be warned it’s only one chance to vote per IP address.

We have a lot of birthdays in a row at our house.  The season starts off with Peter’s right at the beginning of spring.  Recently he has been into “Lightning McQueen”,  “Thomas the Train” and Elmo.  I bought his presents a few weeks ago, but he spied them in the car twice before they got put in the trunk. His squeal confirmed my choices.  Luckily he is young and forgot.  Marie and Oliver were excited because they made Peter presents too.  Marie painted a Lightning McQueen car and Oliver painted a cow truck with googly eyes.  They did all the painting themselves and it turned out very cute.

Each of the kids has already picked what kind of cake they want.  Peter wanted a chocolate choo choo train cake.  He drooled and ate left overs the entire day before his birthday while I baked, shaped and frosted the cake.  I had to put the cake on top of the refrigerator to keep him out of it while it cooled.  When he saw it almost completed that night he cried that he had to go to bed because he wanted his cake.

We had a quiet birthday party at home the next evening.  It was torture for the kids to wait that LONG to eat cake and open presents.  Thankfully Peter was unaware and tanked up on his favorite  hot dogs.  He was a very happy boy when he got to blow out his candles and play with (or at least hoard) all his favorite things in the whole world.  We all said things we liked about Peter.  Oliver liked Peter playing with him, so did Marie.  Daddy likes Peter’s obedient character and I love snuggle time with him.  Happy Birthday Peter boy! Click Here for more pictures.

Thankfully this past month has not been filled with clouds and rain entirely and we have been able to get out for sunshine and exercise when there hasn’t been a sick child in the house (which was rare).

One day I noticed the wind was picking up so we headed outside to try out our new kite.  Last year I bought an expensive cool looking kite that

wouldn’t fly unless you were in a hurricane so we got a simple more kid friendly one for this year.  It was still gusty but Marie managed to figure out how to keep the kite up in the air pretty well.  It was enough work that she actually got tired of running and pulling the string taut, which I as her kite helper thought would not happen.  We all enjoyed the experience and hopefully we will have many more times to fly our new kite.

On another note a kind co-worker gave Shane her old  school desk.  We moved it into the kitchen to see if it would fit.  The children LOVED it.  In fact Oliver wouldn’t get off the seat for quite a while.  However since there were three children and only one desk space we added a spare end table in front of the bench that had no desk.  Marie claimed this space as hers since Oliver wouldn’t move.  A day later I moved the other end table so Peter would have his own space and not bother the other kids.  They have had so much fun drawing for hours on their own space and playing under it as a boat and a train.

I have loved it because now their crayons and papers don’t have to be cleaned up before I make lunch or dinner…that and the fact they will draw and squeal at each others drawings and silliness for hours on end at times.

For all those Mothers slogging through the difficult times with lots of little ones at home, it gets better, your children will sleep through the night and eventually play with each other with out fighting…most of the time.