Getting ready for spring, and 5th birthdays

Change is in the air for us this week.  Literally, in the sense that the weather has been positively May-like.  Or even June-like, really.  Several days this week have seen highs in the high 70s.  We've been sleeping with the windows open.  And the kids have been living it up in the backyard and playground.

But a few other, less meteorological changes have been happening too.  Tuesday, Eliza, Noah and I ventured over to the school district headquarters to register her for kindergarten for next year!  Wednesday, I baked (and froze) 30 cupcakes and a small cake with this recipe, in anticipation of Eliza's upcoming fifth birthday.  Thursday, I dropped Noah off at preschool, and for the first time there were  absolutely no tears or protestations (this is his second week of staying at preschool without me).  And today, we celebrated Eliza's birthday in school.  Tomorrow is her actual birthday and the day of her birthday party.

The weather certainly helped with the cupcakes.  The kids played outside for nearly 2 hours while I baked, Wednesday morning:
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This was the smile I got when I asked for a "nice almost-5 picture":


Yup, that's a lot of cakes!








It would appear that Noah is wearing two very muddy shoes:


When in reality, he's wearing one muddy shoe and one muddy sock!




But at least it's fun!

Ready for preschool!

The Minty Van!

We got a new car!  It's a 2009 Toyota Sienna and it's a lovely shade of silverish green.  Aunt Rachel dubbed it the Minty Van on her visit here last weekend.  We all love it, and Dan is thrilled to finally have his own car (he's been riding the bus or biking to work for the past several years, and though he enjoys biking in the warmer months, waiting for a bus in the Chicago winters leaves something to be desired).   Here's another picture, which shows the color a little better:




In other big news, we consolidated the kids rooms this morning!  We have 3 bedrooms upstairs.  Until now, Noah has slept in the smallest one.  Today, we moved his bed and belongings into Eliza's much larger room.  So far the kids love it and have been reading stories together and "taking naps" for the past few hours.



We're lucky that Eliza's room is big enough to fit 2 kids really comfortably. Though we did end up moving their dresser into the closet to free up some space:



Here are a couple more pics:




(New animal bedding for Noah helped sweeten the deal)



We hope it works.  Also, maybe sleeping in the same room as big sis Eliza will help prevent Noah's random sleep mishaps such as this recent one:

Yup, that's Noah sleeping on the floor of his (old) bedroom, under both his blankey and his pillow.  Eliza placed the teddy bear atop the pillow for artistic purposes but the pillow and blanket was Noah's own doing.  This is a kid who can fall asleep anytime, anywhere, including but not limited to while sitting at the dinner table, chewing food.

Anyway, now we're ready for our next big project: turning Noah's old bedroom into a nursery for the baby girls!  I'm leaning toward painting the walls a light shade of aqua.

When I uploaded pictures today I found a whole series of shots taken by Eliza, unbeknownst to me.  She has her own camera but I suppose mine was closer!  Here is a particularly great self-portrait:


Want to see more pictures of the kids?  Just click on any of these and page through our photostream at Flickr. There are a LOT more pictures up there and the ones from the last several months are public (so no login needed).