birthdays, piggyback and ring around the rosie

So I had a birthday, and here are the pictures. It is so fun to have family close by to come up for the festivities (and so I'm not left eating a very yummy cake all by myself)! John was a dear and made the fettucine alfredo (the ingredients all just happened to be in the fridge; hmm, imagine that :). And he made my favorite ding-dong cake with the girls, who firmly believe that cool whip always tastes much better when it is purple. Here is a picture of blowing out the candles: my first birthday (well, maybe since I was one or two and couldn't do it myself) when I didn't get to blow them out. Calvin came sneaking up during the song and before I knew what was happening he had the candles blown out before the last notes of the song had ended! I was so surprised that he knew exactly what to do and had the lung capacity to do it (only two tries!). It was hilarious, and I didn't mind too much.


Here's the crew partaking of the goodies. Matt was here too, but he was in the other room on the phone when I decided to get out the camera. Sorry Matt! And all bets are off at the dinner table (well, ours, anyway): you leave ice cream unattended long enough and it will disappear one way or the other! Thanks guys for coming up, it was really fun.

Kimmie and Calvin both thought the cake was pretty darn good. Funny how not hungry they are during dinner. Then you pull out the cake and all of the sudden those kids are starved!

I had to make cookies for the stake pioneer day activity (which got rained out, lovely), and Calvin has recently discovered the perks of "helping." Said perks ended up all over his face (it was yummy dough) and we had to get a picture. He would only pose with me in it too, so forgive the saturday non-grooming and just look at the kid.

And here's a series of photo of piggybacks. I came in the room and Calvin was giving Kimmie a piggyback around the room, trying his hardest to actually move with her on top of him (which is actually not as hard as it seems since he weighs nearly the same as she does, notwithstanding the six inches she has on him!). So I pulled out the camera and they all showed their amazing piggybacking skills.

Last but not least, here's Calvin's latest and greatest. He has been singing Ring around the Rosie and Twinkle Little Star all the time the past few days. This is the best I could get on video. The kid refuses to perform on demand. Still, I think it's cute.

In other news, the girls started swim lessons today and were very excited. And of course I forgot the camera. Emily was so excited she could hardly stay still in the water, it was so funny to watch. Kimmie was not at all sure of things and had to be convinced to do everything, though she did it eventually. She can be such a daredevil if she's sure of herself, but if not, it's really hard to get her to try. She zips around better than Em on a bike, but in the swimming pool she's pretty timid. Calvin was dying to get in the water with them but sadly, not allowed. I'm going to have to find someone to watch him during their lessons or find something really creative to do or he's going to go crazy by the end of the week. I'll take him to the open swim session on Friday though, and hopefully that will make it up to him. Anyway, I'll remember the camera tomorrow!