Happy 5th Birthday to Jacob

Jacob's 1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

4th Birthday (with the cake that he decorated all by himself)

5th Birthday On March 30th Jacob turned 5 years old. We had a really fun Pirate party for him with some of his friends. He's getting so big and so grown up.

It was really funny when I was decorating his pirate ship cake he wanted it to look like another one that I had made. I made this same cake for Rachael's son when he turned 3 years old. The problem when I made the other one is it became so heavy that it broke right in half. I ended up putting it in a large clear bowl and we just decided that it was "ship-wrecked." When I showed pictures of it to Jacob to see if he liked it for his party, he liked that it got bombed and was ship-wrecked. (he added in the bombed part) So, when I was decorating his cake I was trying to do it a little bit different so that it wouldn't fall apart. Finally the back side of the ship just fell off the rest of the cake and he got so excited. I was completely frustrated! He was so excited that his ship was also bombed. To him it was complete! I guess that's what matters, that he is happy with it.

A pirate adventure is never complete without a treasure hunt! It was a really good pinata, all of the kids got a turn at it, some of them got some really good hits in as well. Finally I decided that I was going to finish it off. Sara got a really good start at opening it up before me. If you ever need to get frustrations out or just need to get a good whack at something, get a pinata. That felt so good!

When the kids were gathering up the candy we looked over and David had found a stick and was hitting what was left of the pinata.

Our Honeymoon...12 years later

Manny and I finally got our Honeymoon. This August we will be celebrating our 12 year Anniversary! We have got away a little bit together, but I have either been pregnant or we have had a nursing baby with us. This is our first time away together with only us! We went on a cruise to Cozumel, Mexico out of Mobile, AL.

We thought this lighthouse was pretty cool out in the middle of nowhere.

Cozumel, Mexico was a lot of fun. We really wish that we had more time there. That's our little ship in the background. We were on the smallest Carnival cruise ship.

Our new summer home!

We were able to go see some ancient Mayan ruins. We really wanted to go see Tulum which is a bigger settlement of Mayan ruins, but we didn't have enough time.

We also got to go snorkeling. This was the first time for both of us. The water was crystal clear and you could see all the way to the bottom. This was our favorite part of our time in Mexico. We got to go to 3 different coral reefs. One was only about 12 feet deep and the deepest one was 75 feet deep. It was amazing how you could see all the way to the bottom at the deepest one with no problems. We got to see lots of different types of fish and all of them were so beautiful. Some of the fish that we got to see are a baracuda, a seahorse, a bullfish, an eel, and lots of gruper. Manny dove down and found a couple of conch shells, but they wouldn't let us keep them.

We really enjoyed our time together. It was very refreshing to escape reality a little bit and celebrate 12 wonderful years together. Thank you to our awesome friends who helped with the other kids while we were gone!!!

Because he's so cute!

Here are some random pictures of our little David. The girls love fixing his hair.

He found the joy of rain. We were on the porch watching the rain and he figured out the raindrops coming off of the roof. He screemed when I finally took him inside soaking wet. He wanted to stay and play in the rain.

This is how he folds his arms.

David was very sick here in these last two pictures. He loved to snuggle with Sara.

Easter

I haven't posted in quite some time because we have been very busy. So, I have a lot to catch up on. Here is a little bit of our Easter. I try to take a picture every Easter Sunday, it's a lot of fun to go back and look at pictures from the past years and see how much the kids have changed. When we first moved out here the first Sunday we were here was Easter and it was Emily and Erica's 3rd Birthday. We have now lived out here for 6 years.

David had been playing in this little car before we started to take pictures. So, he wasn't very happy when we tried to take him out of it to make him sit still for a picture. He doesn't like to sit still anyway. That's how the car became a part of our Easter pictures. You pick your battles, right? The other kids thought it would be fun to pose on the car. They had to do a nice picture and a fun picture.

The goofy pictures were so cute I had to include them.

I just chased David around the yard until he finally just sat down and I got this picture of him. Then he was off and running again.

This is the first year that David got to dye Easter eggs. These pictures are not in any order. He thought that was the coolest thing ever. He soon learned that he could take the shell off and then stick his fingers through the egg. Then he started to put little bits and pieces of the egg into the water. (We finally gave him a cup of water to play in instead of the dye) He had lots of fun!

Sara with her egg collection.

Erica and her eggs. It was her idea to line them all up for their photo shoot. The other kids followed her lead.

Emily with her eggs and a beautiful (paper towel) flower back drop. I thought it was such a cute idea. They take this very seriously and almost as much time is spent setting up for the picture of their eggs and they take to dye them.

Jacob wasn't going to have a special picture taken with his eggs. Then he decided that he wanted to do a "Class Picture" with his eggs.