Penny's Cake & A New Car

I think Penny might be in denial that she is now two, growing up is hard:

On Sunday Tyler made Penny an amazing, pink, high heel shoe cake. Penny loves putting on shoes, especially dress up high heel shoes, so we thought this would be the perfect cake for her. For her first birthday she had a pants cake, this year shoes and maybe next year a shirt cake?

We invited our neighbors over that night to help us sing to Penny and help us eat the cake. Though we loved having friends over, Penny found it overwhelming and burst into tears as soon as we all started to sing. You can tell from the pictures below that she didn't appreciate Tyler putting fire right next to her face either. But you can also tell that she absolutely no qualms with eating the cake.

Our sweet neighbors got Penny a baby doll (one of her favorite things) and a super fun board book called Little Pea (that Lucy loves and has confiscated).

We love our Penny! She is a challenging, spirited, emotional little thing who keeps me on my toes. But she also gives the best snuggles when she wakes up, has the sweetest little puppy dog eyes when she wants something, is such a sweet mommy to all her baby dolls and has the cutest little crooked smile. She is really good at adding in the "cha cha chas" for a birthday song (as long as the song is not being sung to her), she loves putting on her own shoes, she loves stealing drinks from everyone's water bottles and pretty much any toy can become a phone in her eyes.

On Tuesday we went and saw Disney's remake of "Pete's Dragon" as a family. It was cute movie and the kids did good during it but on the drive home our van decided to start making some crazy thumping noises and then it just died on us. Penny was not happy about being stranded as you can see in the pictures, it was bedtime after all. 

We were hopeful that maybe the fuel gauge was just off and that we really had just run out of gas so we called a friend in the ward and asked him if he could bring us gas. After filling the tank and attempting to start the van, it became very clear the gas was not the problem. Tyler waited for a tow truck and our friend loaded us up and took us home. It was a definite bummer that this happened but at least the weather was cool and perfect and at least we had great friends who came to our aide:

The next day we found out from the auto shop that our van's motor was dead. It would be $3000 to fix it. Considering it still had the problem of occasionally not starting when it is hot outside, spending $3000 on it just didn't seem worth it at this point. So we decided it was officially time to say goodbye to our van. This was a tough, emotional decision because it meant that instead of using our savings for a house, we were going to now have to use it for a new car. In the long run though, I think it's for the best. Right now we have a pretty high student loan we need to pay off so we are now going to shift our focus from saving for a house to paying off debts so that we are in a better position to buy a house.

After talking things over, it was decided that we were going to search for a Chevey Traverse with AWD. Something that could help me conquer those rough snowy winters and something that Tyler would know well and have plenty of people to consult with about if something went wrong. After hunting online, I found two cars that fitted our criteria and luckily they were both located at the same place. The one we were leaning towards had 25,000 miles and it was a 2013. But we ended up getting the 2012 with 40,000 miles because it had captain seats (so the kids wouldn't be climbing over a seat to get in the back and it was a LT which meant it had some good extra features like heated seats and a remote starter. 

The kids were actually super behaved and the whole experience went really smoothly and we are now the proud owners of a Chevy Traverse. It is definitely not as spacious as my mini van but it certainly is a lot more pretty:

Looking Cool & Birthday Fun

Benny got to a go to a super fun birthday party last week at a place called Airtime. He loved "flipping" into the foam blocks (more like crashing head first into them). He got some pretty awesome sunglasses as party favors there and Penny decided that they looked pretty good on her too. I loved seeing her strut around in them, so much sass: 

Over a week ago I ordered the kids new tennis shoes. They were all in dire need of new ones and with school around the corner I figured it was the perfect time to get some. Lucy picked out a rainbow pair and was constantly wanting to know when they would arrive. They finally came a couple days ago and she was ecstatic! She loves her new rainbow, lite up shoes:

On another note, I am almost positive that my kids have meetings where they determine who is going to be a stinker on a given day because it never fails that at least one of them causes me problem each day. It was really a rough week in the Hatch home. 

On Friday I guess it was determined that Penny would be the trouble maker. We had a swim play date and all was going well (minus the bees who wanted Lucy's PB&J sandwich) until about a half an hour in Penny slipped and fell, scrapping her knee. She was not happy about the scrape and was crying on and off until I got tired of her fussing and put her down, then she escalated to her full out scream cry. She was a definite party pooper. We had to leave and it was super depressing because pretty much all my other kids' buddies were there. Steven even wrote in his journal about how swimming was fun...until Penny started crying. 

Of course after screaming all the way home, she passed out on the couch:

Friday night, I had a little belated birthday get together at the Dairy Twist with my church friends: Laci, Bethany, Sarah, Virginia, Ashley, Ranell and Heather. I ate me some delicious Superman ice cream while we chatted about motherhood, and all the fun things that come with it.

I took some selfies with Miss Lucy before heading out to my party:

 Today is Miss Penny's birthday and since we have been to like 4 birthday parties in the last month, I decided against adding another one for friends to go to. Plus Penny isn't super social so it really wouldn't be something she loved. Instead of a party, I took Penny and Lucy to the mall play area (while the boys cleaned the church, poor guys). Penny had such a good time and was on the move so much that these were the best pictures I could snap:

When we got home from the mall I baked her birthday cake (we're going to have the neighbors come help us eat it tomorrow). Penny loved licking the beaters:

Then when the boys got home from cleaning, we let her open her presents. All her siblings were desperate to try and help her open them but she really didn't need help after the first present. She loved ripping off the paper and seemed to love all her gifts. She got a small Dollhouse from my parents, cute little buckets for water play from Tyler's parents and from us: a pretend cleaning supply bucket, a book and a Crayola Mess Free Touch Lights:

Tonight Tyler and I have a date night (we haven't had one of those in ages) and we are going to go see "Jason Bourne" (we haven't been to grown up movie in ages either!) I'm pretty excited! And tomorrow will finish up Penny's birthday celebrations with cake and ice cream with the neighbors. We really are blessed, even if our kids are a little cRaZy!

Bubbles, Turning 31 & Milford Memories

The weather has been pretty hot and humid here. I think the last few summers we had here were pretty mild so this once has been a rough adjustment for us. Since we don't have a pool of our own, we must make do with what we have. The girls have been requesting lots of bubble baths, they seem to make Penny extra happy when she is fussy. I honestly don't think the hot weather agrees with her. But bubbles certainly do! (And Lucy is extra creepy in her bubble mask)

On Monday I turned the big, fat 31. Now I feel like I am officially in my 30's and I don't much care for that. I was kind of feeling depressed about the whole day, especially with Tyler having to go to Missouri for work but it ended up being a pretty good day. Tyler took us all out to breakfast (which was only a slight disaster with Lucy spilling ice water all over herself and me). Then he watched the kids while I went grocery shopping which honestly was the nicest thing ever. And then he had to start his drive to Missouri. To celebrate my oldness, I spent the rest of the morning cleaning the house while the kids rotted their brains watching a movie. 

For dinner my amazing friend Laci had me and the kids over. She fed us pizza and even made me a cake (from scratch). I had candles to blow out and got sung to and everything. It was so entirely thoughtful of her and made my evening a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

That night after I got the kids to bed, I turned on my sob fest "Miracles from Heaven." Steven ended up sneaking out of bed and watching it with me. Now he's extra worried about cancer and other fun things. But anyways, it really was a good day, even if it's not a great age...

Tuesday we had some friends over, Wednesday we made a trip to Target to get some things (and Penny spent a majority of the time screaming because she wanted to eat the fruit pouches I was buying for her, she makes for some excellent birth control), Thursday we actually had an uneventful trip to Krogers and so we celebrated with some cookies at the bakery:

Friday began Milford Memories, our towns arts and crafts festival. That morning we invited some friends to go with us to the kid's tent they have. The kids had fun doing all the free crafts and playing some games for free prizes. As stated before though, the weather was muggy hot so when they finished with the kid's tent they were all ready to go home so home we went.

But that night while Tyler was away at a birthday party with Benny, I took the other 3 back to Milford Memories for some treats. We got snow cones and cotton candy and enjoyed our deliciousness. Thankfully the kids voted to just go home after we ate our treats because when we were a few minutes away from home, the rain poured down. We didn't get too wet which made me happy but the kids decided they wanted to get more wet and that made them happy. We haven't got much rain this summer so I guess they really had to enjoy it:

Newspaper Article, Bike Ride& Marblehead, Ohio

Benny, Lucy and Steven were featured on the front page of the Milford Times newspaper a week or 2 ago, and a friend of mine was nice enough to share the picture with me! This is the second time my kids were featured in this newspaper, aren't we so popular? And this time Benny was actually in the picture and he was in the forefront! Yay for him overcoming his middle child status!

A road near our house has been under construction for awhile and recently they finished it. To celebrate they closed it to cars and let people ride their bikes down it. The kids thought this was the coolest thing ever! Benny and Steven rode down the whole stretch and back with Tyler. I am so proud of Benny for FINALLY figuring out how to peddle and getting excited to ride his bike. Penny and I followed Lucy on her bike but Lucy's bike has gotten way too small for her and it was a struggle for her to ride it so she didn't make it very far. This whole ordeal inspired us to buy Lucy a bigger bike this past week. It was well worth it because she is riding much better now!

The rest of this week was busy- a play date at the park, a doctor's appt for Penny, a beach play date and on Friday we had to take Tyler to the hospital for a scheduled endoscopy (he's been having a hard time swallowing). He needed a ride since they would be putting him under but he didn't realize we would have to wait there with him. I was under prepared for entertaining 4 kids in a hospital waiting room but somehow we survived. He survived too but turns out he has an allergy causing him to struggle with swallowing. It also turns out he has some benign ulcers in his intestines. Awesome. No more soda (and other things) and some medicine will hopefully help this.

Since Tyler has to drive to Missouri for work on my birthday, we decided to celebrate it Saturday with a little daycation. We made the 2 hour drive to Marblehead, Ohio to see a lighthouse because I have a thing for lighthouses. This one did not disappoint. It was beautiful and located on the shore of a gorgeous, rocky beach. The kids loved standing on the rocks and trying to stay clear of the waves. I was sure one of them was going to slip and fall in but somehow my clumsy babies stayed safe. 

We didn't end up going inside this lighthouse because the tour guide was a mean lady and made me angry. I came to ask for tickets to go inside and she told me they didn't open for another 5 minutes. So I gathered the kids and came back (in less than 5 minutes) and was informed the tour for 11am was sold out. Frustrated I told her that she told me they weren't open for 5 more minutes and now they are sold out. Her response (in a cranky voice) "Please don't argue with me." This made me want to actually argue with her. Anyways, after a really stupid "conversation" with her I went to buy tickets for the 9:20 tour but then Ben started to cry that he didn't want to go and I was so upset at that point that I decided I really didn't want to go on a tour with the mean lady (and a scared Ben) so we didn't go. But we did have some more fun playing on the pretty beach:

By that time we were hungry so we stopped by Netty's Chili Dogs on our way to a sandy beach. The hot dogs looked questionable but were actually pretty good. After the kids finished their food we told them they could ice cream cones, the only catch was they had to go up and order themselves. My kids who are usually way to shy about doing this, did it happily for chocolate ice cream. It was fun to watch them order and pay all by their lonesomes, however Lucy had a hard time departing with her money and needed a little help.

Penny didn't get her own ice cream but Benny was nice and shared with her:

After our kids were all properly covered with chocolate ice cream, we headed to East Harbor State Park where there was a beach on Lake Erie. This beach was so perfectly awesome for our kids. They could go far out and it was still super shallow, like waist high. Plus the wind was giving them really good waves. They had so much boogie boarding on the waves and Penny was actually all about being in the water for once. Despite us fair skinned ones (Benny, Lucy and me) getting a little burnt, we all had a good time. 

After the beach we stopped by a Chick-Fil-A in Toledo for dinner because we must enjoy it anytime we have the opportunity. The kids spent a good amount of time eating and playing and then it was off to our next stop, Cabela's. My parents had given me a gift card there for Christmas and I was finally made it there to use it! I was going to get a life vest but the options were few and expensive so I got a swimsuit and swim cover instead.

So summary- lighthouse, rocky beach, hot dogs, ice cream, sandy beach, chick-fil-a deliciousness and a shopping trip! Was a pretty perfect birthday day if I do say so myself!