meet pesto

pesto is our new kitty friend. she fits in quite well around here, driving me a bit crazy on occasion but that's not really anything out of the ordinary :) she likes to sleep in my plants and she loves the kids... especially the little one, which i find surprising since eislee loves to pull poor pesto's tail. her name came from matt who said "we should name her pesto because she's kind of a pest." i thought that was pretty funny but wasn't planning on using it as a name until everyone started calling her pesto and... well... that's that. she has caused some problems of course, jumping up on the table and getting into food, knocking over a special hand painted glass of mine made by a close friend (i was tempted to find her a new home after that one), and of course eislee found the cat litter box and thought that it was her own personal sand box (cringe)... but... things are beginning to work... kitty is learning to stay off the table... and she is also adapting quite well to "potty shifts" the guest bathroom has the litter box and i keep that door shut now, pesto gets a 10 minute potty visit every couple hours and she's doing great with that! luckily.

group painting

maiko's birthday

he decided he wanted chocolate cake with chocolate filling and chocolate frosting... then of course he wanted to decorate it himself with gummy worms and chocolate balls (whoppers)... six candles... sigh... that was six years too fast.

maiko has wanted his own guitar for a long time now and we were so happy to give it to him (thanks dad for finding us such a great deal!) he loves that it's blue... so fitting for him.

this little girl is very into music herself... all of my kids are... but i see a connection in her earlier than any of the others. it's been really good for me too because with the new strings maiko has me tuning it for him all the time... now we just have to start practicing chords and strumming... hopefully he will be the motivation i've been needing.

official first birthday photos (have i kept you waiting long enough?)

well, we all thoroughly enjoyed watching this big "little girl" eat cake and play with wrapping paper. i cannot believe she is already one. i think this was the fastest year of my life. sigh. i'm feeling a need to slow things down a bit. it kinda feels like life is just passing me by. i'm hoping that this feeling has to do with first trimester pregnancy and now that i'm officially four months along that i will suddenly find it easy to keep up... it's possible right? we have another birthday right around the corner and i'm very very excited about this one, there is a certain musical instrument that my boy has wanted for a long time and i can't wait to see the look on his face when he finally gets it! hope you all have a wonderful weekend... i know i will... this will be our first weekend at home in quite some time.