My Shining STAR!

In Evie's TaeQwonDo class, they get colored clips on their belt when they exhibit exceptional behavior, whether it's answering up properly, being a good leader, or showing that they know their moves perfectly.
When you get 5 clips, you trade them in for an embroidered blue star that goes on the patch on your uniform. (When you get so many stars, I think you get red ones?)

Evie got her first star tonight!!
And she still has one clip on her orange belt to keep going for more stars!
(usually the clips are on the back of the belt but I moved it to the front so that I could take a picture)




YOU ROCK, EVIE!

Bonding!

Evie and Evan have been playing very nicely together. Evie has been a great big sister! Here she is teaching him how to play video games.. he's actually paying close attention to what she is saying.. although he has no idea what she is talking about! LOL




And here they are watching tv together..



What a cute pair!

My Little swimmer boy

Just a fun morning at the pool with Joe and the kids. Evan is such a water baby! Here is a video of him "swimming" at the pool today.. he crawls quickly to the deeper end until he is floating usually and he kicks his feet and still tries to crawl along. He knows no fear!

Pool Party!

For Evan's birthday, we had a baby pool party!

Evan's guests were Sebastien, Olivia, and Aaron.. as well as Grandma and Grandpa Hoctor. Evie's guests, (because you KNOW she still had to party!), were Alex, Anna, John Michael, Alex H. and Anthony.
The babies played in the jungle pool while the bigger kids played on Evie's "Splash Bomb".

We also had the ice cream truck come to our house special for the party.

What fun!
We finished it off with beachy shark cupcakes made by my friend, Mandi. They were so cute!!

A quick video of the birthday song and cupcake eating!


Evie's friends gathered around the table
Evan feeding Mama his cake

Evie eating the icing off of the #1


The birthday boy eating his cake





And one last picture that I thought was adorable.. the babies playing together!
(check out Evan's top tooth)

Birthday is over, Baby Bubba! Hope it was a great ONE for ya!
I Love you to pieces!

HiiiYAAAA!!!! My Girl is an Orange Belt!

Congratulations Evie!

My 5 year old girl is now an ORANGE BELT!

Her graduation ceremony went wonderfully! She showed her skills and discipline today while Mommy, Daddy, Grandparents and friends watched. Oh! And about 200 other people in the audience! The place was jammed full of people and lots of TaeQwonDo students and instructors. My friends Hope, (with John Michael), Alyssa (with Sebastien and Alex), Jen, (with Anna and Olivia), and Dee, (with Brynn, Aidan and Sadie) were there to cheer her on. And I was so proud to see Daddy tie her new belt on her in front of everyone.

Here's a video of them starting the ceremony.. Evie is the one with pigtails in her brown hair and she is wearing her brown eyeglasses. (She is a white belt during the ceremony if that helps you locate her) Oh! And at the beginning, she is the one spinning around with her arms outstretched and bows the wrong direction... LOL Silly girl!


And this one is of Evie receiving her orange belt from Miss Melanie Newberry.















We love you, Evie! Keep striving to reach that black belt! YOU CAN DO IT!

Happy Birthday, Evan!

We had an awesome day yesterday for Evan's birthday! Joe and I took the kids to the Children's Museum in Bloomington. We spent about 3 hours there and they both had a great time.. Evan was a sweetheart and explored everything! Evie showed Daddy that she knew how to be a dentist, a good grocery shopper, a waitress, an artist/painter, a dancer and a straight-forward chess player.

Evan tried his luck at grocery shopping as well!



Later we went to O'Charley's for his birthday dinner with Uncle Stephen, Aunt Catherine and Brianne. Evan didn't dig into his cake the way I had expected but he enjoyed it nonetheless.







One more birthday blog coming soon! Evan has a baby party at the house on Sunday.. stay tuned!

Now that's a BIG GULP!

What do you think of my big boy now? Quite the drinker, huh? LOL
This 64 ounce MegaChill was a delight to Evan.. and it was hilarious to see him drinking from it! LOL