Seeing the Sights

Our first stop was the Empire State Building. Liam decided he wanted to see this because Ace went to the St. Louis Arch and he wanted to try and get higher than him. Brothers and their competitiveness!

Pretty amazing view but a little costly.

After church on Sunday, we headed out to the USS Intrepid. It’s an aircraft carrier turned museum. It also housed the Enterprise shuttle that was used for test flights. We only had a short time here and Liam told me later he wished we had a longer time, but we all still enjoyed it.

All of us were quite impressed with the to scale lego model of the Intrepid. The ice on the river was quite impressive too! No. Us Southerners have never seen that before.

Up next, the Statue of Liberty and our visit to the 9/11 Memorial.

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New York, New York

Liam turned 13 in December last year and ya’ll know what that means in our family…time for a 13th birthday trip. Liam chose New York to begin with then flipped to San Francisco when we thought Mark had a work trip out there but when that was canceled he swapped back to New York. I was excited to get to go with him since I had to miss out on Ace’s trip (we had two swimmers that had district competition that planned weekend). So, ya’ll get ready for a few posts about this special trip with Liam.

Getting ready for the first plane ride!
Riding the air train to the subway.

First stop was Lombardi’s. We didn’t go to the very first Lombardi’s restaurant but it was a chain of it. Obviously it was yummy and didn’t disappoint. However, later, we tried out the cheap pizza ($2 for two slices and a soda) and it was just as good.

While we’re talking about food, these onion rings were almost as big as my head! Juniors Cheesecake was so yummy. Let me give ya’ll some advice though, order an entree to share with one or two other people so you have plenty of room for cheesecake!

So, I have zero guilt that we totally devoured these milkshake creations. That day we had eaten light and climbed the stairs of the Statue of Liberty from the base to the crown. TO THE CROWN. 708 steep small stairs total! We walked everywhere too. There was not a day we were there that we didn’t walk over 12, 000 steps. So, these Black Tap milkshakes were our big reward. If you go to New York, Black Tap is a MUST!

Time Square!

We passed Radio City Music Hall.

Rockefeller Center. We watched the ice skaters and stopped in at the Lego Store and Nintendo Stores.

We had our first Uber ride!

This reminds me, please make sure that when you Uber or Lyft that you verify your driver…especially after the tragedy in South Carolina recently.

Mark, of course, can’t go anywhere without doing a Geek Tour (for instance, we had to go by where the first HP was built when we were at Stanford…and the Android statues). Our New York stop included a walk by the B & H store which is consisted of a full block in New York City!

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Happy Birthday Silas, 2019!

Silas started out our birthday year turning 12! He enjoyed all of his building gifts and totally loved his ice cream cake. We also got to venture out to see Into the Spider-verse thanks to the discount Tuesday nights!

This was our third birthday with Silas! Each year we are all growing and learning and hopefully, showing Christ to one another. I can’t wait to see how much he grows this next year. By the way, he is already plotting his 13th birthday trip next year!

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Happy Birthday, Liam! 2018

We officially gained a third teenager in December! Liam is currently looking hard at joining the Air Force and requested a fighter jet for his birthday cake. He has way too much confidence in me.

However, with my trusty 2-liter of caffeine and a lot of prayers, I think I did a pretty decent job.

It was at the point of this drawing that I realized the cake was going to need to be larger and then things just escalated.

To this!

And this. Five boxes of cake later. Mark did the piping details. Ya’ll. I breathed a sigh of relief when this was done.

Now to birthday gifts:

Liam has requested role-playing games. This kid loves games. We found a Christian RPG game and Papa and Grandmere ordered it for him. They have already enjoyed the quests in it! From there, we found out that one of the guys over this game is an author also AND is a former fighter pilot. Absolutely crazy coincidences!

Thirteenth birthdays are a big deal in our family. Starting with Zoe, we developed the tradition that 13th birthday gifts would be a trip. The birthday kid gets to choose somewhere to go. Zoe got Ukraine because we were going there and she had learned the language. Subsequent trips, unless they choose a mission trip, will be in the lower 48. Ace chose St. Louis for the arch and general architecture. Liam was a little iffy. Mark was supposed to go to training in San Francisco and after much discussion had chosen there. Then the trip got cancelled and he went back to his number one choice…we’ll share about that in a few weeks.

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Happy Birthday Tobin!

Our Wild Thing turned one in October!  Tobin is every bit the rambunctious, fun and happy wild thing that he was when he was born.  He brings us so much joy and, at times, scares us with his bravery to try anything.

Our friend Mr. J  helped us celebrate at our church care group by bringing a cookie cake!  And a sweet teddy bear!

Tobin’s Wild Thing cake.  It suited him well.  

He seemed to enjoy the cake!

I even found a Wild Thing shirt with matching pants and hat.  Yes.  He was adorable!

Doughnuts for a birthday breakfast?  Of course!

Tobin enjoyed opening presents and the paper proved more fun than the actual gifts!

This boy is definitely going to keep us on our toes.  We love his adventurous spirit.  Mark and I both say that Tobin is our comic relief when bear things a little too heavily.  We are going to love watching him grow this next year.

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Happy Birthday, Ace!

Ace is 14 years old now!  Two teenagers for two full years and Mark and I are still kicking.  He’s growing into such a fun and godly young man.  This next year means high school and lots of growing up!

His cake choice was an ultimate chocolate chip cookie cake with chocolate icing. I, however, completely forgot about the chocolate icing part and just made buttercream.  Because he is such an amazing kid, he forgave me and enjoyed it like it was made.

Ace’s gifts this year included:

Want:  City scavenger hunt and Avalon

Need: Bike (a real MAN’S bike)

Do: Nerf gun

Read: Hammer of the Huguenots by Douglas Bond

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Happy Birthday, Josiah 2018

Josiah turned 11 this June!  I can’t believe how much he has grown.  He picked out his cake by looking at my pinned recipes on Pinterest.  Banana Split Layer Cake won out!  It was absolutely delicious and so much fun to make.  It turned out way prettier than I thought it would!

And the requested breakfast was Sour Cream Doughnuts because…yummy!  Honestly, I have become a sour cream doughnut snob.  I really don’t like them from other doughnut shops now.  They have too much salt.  This recipe is just right. He was super excited for present time.
His want.  The kids have figured out my “do” gift scheme.  Nerf guns…Can anyone say Nerf Wars at the end of the year?! Emmie nicknamed Josiah “Bubble” when he decided he wanted her to call her “Bubba.”  She kept calling him Bubble…and it stuck.  He loves being “Bubble” but has insisted only Emmie will call him that.   I believe he’ll change his mind when Tobin starts talking.  Anyway, what an appropriate gift bag, huh?! This kid loves the Lego Architecture series. A cake as big as his head. Layered with strawberry and chocolate icing…it was seriously amazing and super rich.

Josiah’s Want:  Lego Architecture-London

Need:  watch (it’s a fun fitness watch…he loves trying to get in 10,000 plus steps a day)

Do:  Nerf Gun

Read:  Douglas Bond bookFacebooktwittermail

Happy Birthday Super Ems!

Emmie turned 4 in May!  Ya’ll, can you even believe it?!  Four years ago, I could have never imagined the journey we would have with this girl.  I’m going to post an MRI update soon but May and most days, we get to celebrate our amazing super hero. These are the warrior beads we started with Emmie.  They’re in order, left to right, and each one represents a year of her life.  Yes…that second year was a rather active one.  It’s been great to see the beads stay a little smaller since then! Partying first with Ge & Granddaddy.  She was so excited with each gift she opened.

We squeezed in gift opening between a Lady’s brunch at church and swimming and concert.
She was so excited with each gift.  Her highlight were Ladybug Girl books.  When Emmie had her first surgery, my mom and I were walking in the lobby and happened upon a book giveaway.  The volunteer told us to grab a book for our girl.  I found Ladybug Girl Goes to the Beach and thought it was cute.  We sometimes call Emmie’s cafe au lait spots ladybug spots…perfect.  Little did we know how she would fall in love with that book.  Over the past few years, she has made every single person in our family read the book to her and some of us have to read it over and over.  Of course, the girl’s name is now Emmie (originally Lulu) and the dog (who is Bruno originally) is now Tot Tot.  She asked for a ladybug cake and ladybug wings.  Of course, I can’t stop there…she had to have an outfit just like Ladybug Girl.My first attempt at using rice crispy treats to sculpt did not go well. I pulled it off though.

Our beautiful Ladybug Girl!

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Happy Birthday, Ceili Rain!

Ceili Rain celebrated #9 with a cookie cake and our normal busy-ness.  We are so blessed that God gave us CeiRai for our family.  We also celebrated a week before by going to see The Greatest Showman at the theater.

On a sick day, we watched a baking competition that featured cookie cakes.  So, we decided that would be a fun challenge for me.  It turned out great.

Ceili Rain’s Gift List:

Want:  Skeleton lab kit

Need:  Outfit

Do:  Nerf Gun

Read:  A Wrinkle in Time QuintetFacebooktwittermail