could I love him any more?

Nope. My heart is overflowing for this kid. This is his smile when we ask him to say, "cheese!"

Bapa!

On Sunday Shepherd of the Valley had the annual petting zoo raising money for Heifer International. During the service my dad was leading the liturgy in the sanctuary that seats 900. We were in the third to last row and every single time my dad stood up to speak, Ivar would swivel his neck, get to standing position on my lap, point excitedly and yell at the top of his lungs, "Bapa! Bapa!"  It was hysterical. And loud. And it meant we had to keep leaving the service. But Ivar was thrilled to see his Bapa and wanted to make certain that none of us missed the fact that it was his Bapa up in front.

summer is on its way

I don't know what it was about Monday morning, but the sky seemed more blue, the sun seemed brighter and even though it was still sweatshirt weather, I felt my first taste of summer bliss. We took a family walk to Lake Harriet and it dawned on me that if we are going to go anywhere this summer, we had better squeeze in our trips before the doctors say I can't go anywhere before delivering baby #2.

So I've been in summer road trip planning mode this week. They have to be short trips, they have to be fairly close to the cities and they have to be relatively inexpensive. Any suggestions? Favorite small towns? Favorite state parks? Favorite one or two night destinations?

ladybug cupcakes

On Friday, Annika and I got together to frost Mara's cupcakes. Mara had found a picture in a kids cookbook of ladybugs. Aren't they cute?!!

I helped lead the games at each girls birthday party, and tapped into my inner camp counselor...big time. It was super fun, super comical and super exhausting. This first game was like a cake walk, except the numbers were scattered. When the music stopped everyone stepped on a number, we pulled a number from a hat, and the person on that number got a starburst. That's a winner of a game. Easy and active.

And what is a birthday party without the fishing game?!! The fishing poles were loaded on the otherside of the sheet with a gummy worm and sent back over. Yum and Fun.

Each party was a little different, as Mara's party had eleven kids around age 7 and Sonna's party had ten kids around age 5. Very different attention spans! :) But between the two, we also played Birthday Blanket Name Drop, Birthday Tag, Sonna Says, Duck Duck Grey Duck, Pin the Cloud on the Rainbow, Balance Beam (with a book and an umbrella), Birthday Tag, Stone Stone and at both parties a spontaneous dance party was held shortly after the cupcakes had been consumed, thanks to the sugar high.

rainbow cupcakes

Well, I think we can all agree it was just a matter of time. I finally made the rainbow cupcakes. This weekend was filled with birthday celebrations and cupcakes as Mara had her party on Saturday and Sonna had her party on Sunday.  So I gave the rainbow cupcakes a go, with a sweet request from Sonna to make them like the rainbow cake, but just with tiny cupcakes. They turned out splendidly.

This blog post was sponsored in part by Red Dye #40: Nothing Natural About It.