Wow, amazing how quickly the weeks can fly by. I will try to sum up the last few weeks as best I can.

Let's see, we had Nicholas's birthday on April 20. He is now 5 years old!! I still think of him as a 3 year old, and on most days he acts so much like Layla, it's not too far fetched!! We had his party the day before his birthday, on Saturday, April 19. It was a nice time and the kids had a great time playing together:







On Nicholas's birthday, we had a leisurely morning and then Matt took the kid's fishing over at his dad's house. I picked up a Pepperidge Farm frozen cake at the store and we had that after dinner. Then he opened his gifts from us.








I made some zoo themed cupcakes for Nicholas's birthday at preschool. The letter for that week was "Z" and we were going to the Detroit Zoo the following day, so I found it fitting. Here is a picture of them:



We went to the zoo on April 22 and had a GORGEOUS day. Perfect weather. My mom and mother-in-law went with us and it was a ton of fun. All of the animals were out and about. Here are a few pictures from that day:




Nicholas with his preschool friend Kameron:


Nicholas just loves to draw and color and I LOVE this picture of him:



The rest of April was pretty much a blur. We had some very nice weather and we all got a very nasty cold. Here are two of my sickies:



On May 1, Nicholas had yet another field trip, to the farm this time. We were lucky enough to have Grandma Joanne, Aunt Denise, Aunt Darlene and Uncle Andy go with us!! There were lambs there that had just been born that morning! You could still see the umbilical cord dried up on their bellies. It was a great day and we had SO much fun together:

From left to right we have Denise and Layla, Darlene and Nicholas, Andy and Joanne:



That night we had a barbecue at Joanne's house and it was so nice. We discovered Nicholas's love for barbecued chicken skin. Yuck, yuck, yuck. And Nicholas got a spruce sapling for Arbor Day and we planted it by the garage. I took a picture on May 2, and will do so every year so that we can see how Nicholas, and his tree, are growing. So, here is year one:



My daughter, the thug:



And we've had a ton of exciting things happen over the past week!! Firstly, Kenny lost his 2nd tooth!! So, the tooth fairy paid another visit to our house. Then, Olivia got her first two teeth! She has her bottom two teeth now. Then, Nicholas graduated from preschool. It was the cutest little ceremony. He was a bit shy, and faced the side of the stage the entire time. A flashback of Kenny's graduation. Kenny stood in the exact same spot and did the exact same thing at his two years ago. Silly boys.

My graduate with his cap and diploma:



And lastly, Kenny and Nicholas have learned to ride bikes without their training wheels!! Matt and I thought that this would take forever to do, but it was a matter of minutes for Kenny and hours for Nicholas. Now it's all that they want to do. We are so very proud of all of our kids and their accomplishments.

Layla's vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds. Her newest words are "You're welcome", "Hello, nice to meet you", "Hello! Please come in!", "Leave me alone", "Bless you", etc. She is really into Olivia now because Olivia is becoming more interesting. She hasn't figured out the whole "gentle" thing yet, so we are having to watch them very closely when they're together.

Olivia still cannot crawl forwards, but has backwards down pat. She is also sitting up very well, and starting to croutch on her knees. Very cute. Now, if she could just sleep longer than 2-3 hour increments at night. I thought that once her teeth broke through, she would do better at night, but no such luck. Oh well, she is still a cutie pie. And her newest thing is her tongue. It hangs out of her mouth most of the day. Layla did the same thing, but at a younger age. It's pretty funny, and you can see it in the following picture. And Nicholas is taking more of an interest in her now. He didn't want much to do with her before, but now he is wanting to hold her and talk to her. He even let me take some pictures of him holding her. The first since she was born:



I had a wonderful Mother's Day and am still in shock that I have four children to call me mom. They are so very different and I love getting to know each of their personalities. Amazing where life takes you, even when you are fighting to go in the other direction. I've long since given up fighting it and have decided that I'll be better off sitting back and enjoying the ride. I've always been a fan of the really crazy, twisty, up and down rollercoasters, and I'm finding myself on the most exhilarating, scary, exciting and sometimes nauseating, ride of my life. Cedar Point, eat your heart out: