Birthday Boy

You should all know by now that one celebration for any birthday or holiday is never sufficient for this family! Nathan had a joint birthday party a couple weeks ago with our families in MA, a party on his birthday with the Wise/Marshall family and ANOTHER party the day after his birthday at our house!!! That's what happens when you have lots of family spread out over the East Coast and when weekday schedules are chaotic (such as coordinating the work schedules of 4 parents and throwing in Abby's soccer schedule to make things even more interesting)...you end up with several parties. I don't think Nathan is complaining though!

Emma and Abby decorated Nathan's birthday cake for him all on their own! Isn't it great?! All I did was bake the cake...they did the rest by themselves, unsupervised. They worked together and didn't even argue! And the best part was the kitchen was clean when I returned!

His sisters sure do love him!!!
Dig in!

He's the BEST!

A bow & arrow just like he asked for...

...and there is another present too..but I'll save that for later ;)

Happy Birthday Nate....again!

Someone's Six Today...

Happy Birthday Nathan Alexander!!!!!!

We love you soooooo much Nate! We know this is going to be a GREAT year for you! You are growing up to be such a wonderful young man (and handsome too, of course!). We hope you have a spectacular day and enjoy being 6!!!!!!

Love you, buddy!

Ready for the big K!

All this week we have been working on preparing for going back to school. One day Emma made "homework" for Abby & Nate. Nate's assignment was to write the Alphabet and his numbers. As he was working on it he says (with totally amazement),

"Wow! It's actually fun to do homework!!"

Monday night while I when I was tucking Nate into bed:

Nate: "Nik, how many more sleeps until we go back to Mom's house?"

Me: "Four sleeps including tonight. Why do you ask?"

Nate: "Oh, I just really can't wait to go to school!"

For those of you who know the journey we have been on to encourage Nathan and get him excited about going to school & learning, I am sure you are rejoicing with us! For those of you who don't know, trust me when I say it's been a long road! So far things are looking up as we begin to enter the school year and I think we are all breathing a big sigh of relief!

Grammie Linda Came to Town!

Last weekend my mom drove down to PA to visit. This was her first time meeting Charlotte!

Emma, Abby & Nate were happy to see Grammie too! It didn't take long for the kids to have Grammie sitting in the playroom doing crafts with them :)
Smiles :)

Speaking of smiles...Grammie got the first real smile from Charlotte! It was super cute but I was too slow with my camera an missed it!

We had a fun weekend with Grammie! It was nice having her here with us. She got to spend lots of on-on-one time with Charlotte and we are looking forward to her visiting again...hopefully soon! :)

Making the most of our days

It's been a pretty quiet summer here at the Marshall houshold. With all the big changes that have taken place this summer (moving, having a baby...) we haven't done too much other than hanging out and adjusting to our new life. We haven't taken any family vacations or made it to the beach together once (so sad!). But, we have tried to make the most of our days together at home.

We have continued to have Family Movie Night every Saturday night and Family Game Night every Sunday night. The kids really look forward to these weekly events and enjoy picking out movies and games for us.

We all love having backyard picnic lunches...
Little Miss Sunshine even enjoys them too :)

Emma, Abby & Nate all love to "play" with Charlotte. They all do such a good job at entertaining her and loving on her. It's fun to watch them all get to know each other.

And Charlotte is not the only one who gets entertainment. Abby found a creative way to help her big sister pass the time while Emma was doing the dishes. Abby danced and sang songs from the sun porch window while Emma tried to guess what song she was singing. Too cute! Although this made the process of getting the dishes done much longer than it needed to be...it's all good...the girls had fun and I didn't have to wash the dishes!!

We even manged to have plenty of fun on a rainy day! These two had a blast splashing in the puddles and running through the rain drops! They were a muddy mess when it was over but it was totally worth it :)

Morning storytimes with Charlotte are so sweet :)

The biggest adventure we have had so far is going to a local park that has a great track that is perfect for the kiddos to roller blade. They LOVE going there and could stay all day racing each other around and around the track! Nathan has really improved his skills and is quite impressive. He certainly holds his own trying to keep up with his sisters.

Abby and Emma are constantly competeting for who has completed the most laps around the track and who has the fastest time. Abby sure does bring out the competitive side of Emma :)

So, that's been our quiet summer. As much as I have missed spending our summer going here, there & everywhere (especially the beach...have I mentioned that yet??) like in years past, it has been nice to spend simple, quiet days at home with my family. I have enjoyed our lazy summer mornings, our backyard fun, and not having strict bedtimes. It's hard to believe that this coming week is our last week of summer vacation with the kids!! Before we know it they will be going back to school!