Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Evie's First Communion + Birthdays

Evie made her first holy communion on April 30 at Guardian Angels Church!  God bless our little one.  She had special cross earrings from Grandma, and beautiful bracelet from Grammer and an engraved necklace from Mom and Dad to complete the look.  We have such a big family, and it meant a lot to have so many people there for Evie's special day.

Loving the poofiness

Proud mom and dad

One of her best buddies from GA

Dishing with her cousins beforehand

Aww cousin Brooklyn

Singing their song as a class

We love Fr. Tony!

Grandma and Grandpa always supporting

With her proud Grammer and Pops

Perhaps one of the few genuine smiles... this
girl hates photographs!

Our three musketeers   

Another great family photo for the records... sigh...

Special day with her goddfather

Uncle Justin!

Family photo (Rex and I are crying in the background, lol)

We celebrated her birthday at the same time, so
her cake said "God Bless our 8-year old, Evie!"

Those kids are ready to pounce on the cake

We also celebrated Evie and Jamie's birthdays in April!  We hosted a fun sleepover for Evie's birthday party, and it was pretty epic!  We did glitter tattoos, charades, a scavenger hunt, ice cream outing, t-shirt decorating and a movie!  I eventually had to sit downstairs until 2am so they would actually go to sleep!

Let's get the party started!

One of their scavenger items was to find some books outside
Gotta love those little libraries!

Dairy-O opened for the season that day, woo hoo!

Magic hour

Designing some fun t-shirts

Sooo focused

Opening gifts!

Breakfast after a few hours of sleep - they loved their sleep masks!

Jamie made everyone a pancake with 
their first letter (and a dino for Ben)

Jamie's finest pancake creation to date-
Giant Bluey!

My favorite photo of Evie - after everyone left
The girl insists she wasn't sleeping, as she snored for 2 hours in
this position!

Evie's birthday was in the middle of the week and as requested, she got pancakes and strawberries in bed for breakfast.  Hilariously, her favorite gift the heating pad we got for her mattress (she's obsessed with ours).

Eight is great!

Mini-squishies for the win!

Jamie is still stuck teaching a fashion class at work, and he's getting pretty good at it!  He taught his students to sew and stuff little dinosaurs, and made a special one for Evie's birthday.  He inserted a sound chip that plays her current favorite song (Bad Romance by Gaga).  He's the best dad.

You and me could write a bad romance

Jamie took her rollerskating after school
on her birthday

Cake time!

Kitty headphones from Grandma!

Jamie's birthday is two days after Evie, and we had fun celebrating him.  I caved and got him a Lego set and a ridiculous Lego hoodie (actually it's not quite as ugly as I first thought).  He has an awful seat at school, so I also surprised him with a new office chair.  He was thrilled!  This is 39.

Happy birthday, love!

Dinner and drinks with friends after work

Evie had her first school dance, so thankfully
a friend was able to take her that night!

Celebrating with his twin the next day!

Ben started playing soccer this spring, just a little 6-week introductory thing on Saturdays.  He is soooo excited to be playing like his sisters, and looks forward to it every week.  He makes me proud because he's a really good listener and is able to make it though the whole practice (lots of kids cry or get too bored).  His team name is the "Turtles," so Jamie made sure he had all his Ninja Turtles gear ready to wear.

First day of soccer (after the massive sleepover)


He's a pretty cautious player

Playing Chicken and the Fox with Maggie

Go Ben!

Bobby and Allison had an extra ticket to see Annie at the Fisher Theater.  They invited Evie for a sleepover and to go see the show - so nice!!  She had an amazing time with her cousins!

It's a hard knock life

Cousin chats

Feel the love!

We had "Take your kid to work" day a couple weeks ago, and the girls both wanted to join!  They got to hang at City Hall, visit the Police Department, play at the Fire Station, have lunch with the coolest lady around and do crafts at the Library!

Checking out the police tech

Mayor Evie

Bang that gavel!

Lunch with my girls

Some others:

Being big sister is the best

Saying goodbye to Ms. Kahn - Evie loves her
(her teacher just got back from maternity leave)

Representing on May 4

We worked really hard on yard clean up this
past weekend - lots of mulching, pulling weeds
 and cutting the grass.  The kids helped - for 15 minutes.

Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Happy Easter!

It's Maggie's favorite holiday - Happy Easter!  We had a lovely Easter with these cute kids.  They loved searching for eggs and their basket, and were very good at church!

Happy Easter from the Donoghues!

He is Risen!

We dyed Easter eggs the day beforehand.  Evie was psyched to try her "volcano" egg dye.  Basically baking soda and vinegar plus dye - it was pretty fun and we got some cool colors!  Ben required a lot of supervision, but seemed to enjoy it!

Group effort

Really does not like anyone helping him - I was a helicopter

Our patient artist

Getting ready for the volcano



The kids were ready to hunt at 6am, but us mean parents made them wait until 7:30am.

Ben has taken ownership of my childhood basket

Checking out the goods

Give me those peeps!

Tried so hard to get a cute photo of my kids...

We had a delicious Easter dinner at the Donoghues!  I think my kids ate half a ham.

Give them chocolate

Hugs with Grandma

April also means Opening Day for the Tigers!  While the game itself was pretty depressing, Jamie and I had a total blast in Detroit... partied a little too hard!

Go Tigers!

Breakfast

This guy...

Found our neighbors!

Miggy's throne

A bunch of other randoms:

Frolick at the zoo

Cute spiders

Maggie got to represent Michelle Obama for her school's
celebration of Women's History Month

Ben built a car wash - his favorite type of building

Bob Ross for spirit week


My April Fool's attempt at making grilled cheese with
pound cake and frosting... they were not fooled

Rob visited and brought this Omnibus tee for Jamie

Making friends at the zoo

This kid is obsessed with suckers at the moment...


...and doesn't want them taken away


Building more Lego

Our Easter Legos!

Went to see Super Mario Bros!  Ben loved
the movie (but loved his slushy the most!)