UPDATE!
Happy 4th Birthday Joseph! On March 23 Joseph turned 4, I still can not believe my youngest (trying very hard not to call him "my baby") is 4 years old and going to go to school everyday next year!
For breakfast Joseph wanted pancakes and a smoothie.

Isn't a balloon the universal sign for a party? This year Joseph's favorite color is green.

The birthday boy eating his breakfast.

Bryan and I took Joseph to Family Fun Land for the day, he played, ate some pizza, drank some lemonade, played some more and then came home for nap time. After dinner Joseph was allowed to open his gifts, once again we got him WAY too much!
Joseph showing off part of his new Brewers uniform.

Time for cake! The kid loves carrot cake and I love picking up a little cake for their birthday since we don't need a ton of it sitting around since we have to have a big one for the family party in a few days anyway.

The theme for Joseph's party this year was football.

Joseph practicing his Heisman pose.

The cake, Joseph wanted a banana cake so I made banana cake and put a layer of chocolate cheese cake in the middle and covered it in cream cheese frosting; I thought it was pretty good.

Some people have come to expect my chocolate cake with chocolate frosting so I had to make the cup cakes as well.

Opening his many gifts, everyone was so generous! Note the shirts the girls are wearing.

Joseph got his "big boy bike" from Nana and Papa, in this picture he is trying to watch the lights on the spokes.

Getting ready to blow out the candles!

It was another great Birthday, thank you everyone for coming it really means a lot to have so many people around showing their love on his special day.

Lots of End of the School Year Fun!
As the end of the school year approaches the classes have their final performances for the parents, both girls had theirs this past week.
Last Tuesday night Olivia and her Kindergarten class put on a Spring Concert for the parents. Olivia didn't stop smiling the entire time she was on stage and was so excited about it when she was done. One of the songs was about a "Gray Squirrel" and she was adorable "swishing her bushy tail"-Bryan and I could not stop laughing.
Waiting for the rest of her class to join her on stage, note she is not in the first row (this is a big deal for us short people).

One of the songs with hand movements.

Exiting the stage.

Eileen's class performed "The Great Kapok Tree" on Friday afternoon, Eileen was one of the narrators (introduction).

Eileen was very serious about the whole thing.

Getting her mic ready,

she recited her lines perfectly, no mistakes and she enunciated very well.

On Saturday Bryan ran his first "solo" 5k since high school. Eileen sat this one out so Bryan could see where he really is as far as running goes. The kids all loved seeing him run and were the best cheering squad of the entire race!

The race was at Brown Deer Park which had some nice paths and a lot of small ponds that the kids (mostly Joseph) loved throwing stuff into.

Waiting for the start,

Here comes Daddy! Bryan did a great job and we can't believe he missed a metal by 15 seconds-next time!

UPDATE!
I am going to fill in the missing pieces (okay the past 7 months), I am going to work my way backwards and try to remain current at the same time so I will use the UPDATE to mark old events.

Happy Mother's Day!
This year for Mother's Day weekend we went into Madison to visit. It was wonderful that this weekend also happened to be the weekend Uncle Bob and Aunt Carolyn were taking Papa back up to the Twin Cities so we were able to have a nice visit with all of them. That weekend Jonathan officially became Dr. Pauli so on Saturday night we had a little celebration in his honor.

Jonathan listening to people say nice things about him

Here is the cowboy cake Sigan made for Jonathan. (Not sure how the picture ended up like this when I go back into the file it's the right way...?)

Amelia loved the cake her mommy made

And all the cards her Daddy got!

Olivia, Joseph and Eileen with their Great-Papa

The next morning we had a little mother's day celebration. Papa and Olivia made breakfast for everyone, we opened some gifts and went for a hike in Owen's Woods.
Olivia and Papa making the pancake batter

The night before Amelia was in no mood to have her picture taken, it went a little better the next morning.

Sigan and Amelia on Mother's Day 2010

The kids and I on Mother's day 2010

The mother's (that were there)

As always it was so great to see everyone and it is always so special to see Papa, I can't believe he is going to be 95 in August!

Another fun weekend!
Eileen had her last Brownie meeting of the year this past week. The troop leaders use some of the money raised from cookie sales to host a party for the girls every year, this year it was at Flabbergast. I was able to bring Olivia and Joseph as well (though they were not part of the "official" pizza party). The kids had so much fun! This is the only picture I have of any of my children over the 2+ hours we were there since they didn't come near me out of fear that I might say it was time to go home.


Gone Fishing!
On Saturday we participate in the annual Menomonee Falls Kids Fishing Derby. The event was very well run, the kids had to attend mini-clinics on different areas of fishing; bait, types of fish, knot tying, and casting. Once they had attended each station (they had to get their card signed by each instructor) they turned in their card for a t-shirt and were able to participate in the derby!
Walking to Mill Pond

Learning about fish and bait, Joseph even held a leach (and I didn't freak out-at least not that he knew!).

The gentleman could not believe the dexterity of Olivia's fingers, apparently she has a calling for knot tying!

Eileen taking her turn

Joseph was pretty good at the twisting part.

Olivia getting some pointers on casting

Eileen was able to use the big pole and really impressed the gentleman helping her with her mad casting skills

Joseph really liked winding the line back in

Time for the real deal!

Olivia waiting for a bite on the end of her line.

Eileen trying to catch something!

Joseph loved casting and pulling it in, casting and pulling it in, casting and pulling it in...

It is near impossible to catch a fish (we didn't catch ANY!) if you don't leave your line in the water for more than 10 seconds, but apparently you can catch a snail-check out the end of Joseph's line.

I went to the other side to get some lunch, Bryan is standing in the gray and the kids are sitting together in their green shirts in the middle of the picture.

At the end of the derby the kids all turned in their cards, where you marked down all the fish you caught and how big they were-ours was blank, and they gave you a raffle ticket. Every ticket was pulled and each kid was able to choose a prize from the goodie table, we came home with a bubble wand, hula hoop, and sidewalk crayons (WAY different than the thousands of pieces of sidewalk chalk we already have). The kids had a great time and this is an event that we would definitely do again.

Run Eileen, Run!
On Sunday Eileen and Bryan ran in a 5K at the zoo in support of research for melanoma, this was a huge race with almost 1,000 people! This event was a lot of fun to attend for all of us and I think we will try to keep this one in mind if Eileen is still running next year.

Olivia, Joseph and I were trying to find Eileen and Bryan before the race, in a crowd this size we never did!

Waiting for the runners to come in to the finish shoot.

Eileen and Bryan trying to finish strong.

Eileen took first place in her age group (girls 9 and under) she ran a time of 25:40

She was (and still is) so proud of her first place finish!

Part of the event included a free ride on the train, Bryan and Olivia sat on one side

Joseph, Eileen and I on the other.

We are all still exhausted from our fun filled weekend but I do hope to fill in some of the missing pieces of the blog this week. I took about an hour today and uploaded all of the pictures off my camera and put them in files on the computer so it should make it a bit easier...in theory at least!