Birthday Celebrations

April is a month of lots of birthdays in our family. So, at the beginning of the month we held a combined party to celebrate them all. However, we especially focused on my mom's birthday, and I decorated our house specifically for her.

After a nice ham dinner and cake, we exchanged some gifts.

Austin was delighted with the gifts he got from grandparents, aunts, and uncles, including a Duplo Block set he plays with almost daily now, a new monster truck toy, and a toy wooden fruit set with a toy knife. He also got a very large present that turned out to be a new wagon.

I was particularly surprised when I got a very special gift from my maternal grandma. She is a musician who for years had many piano students. While she no longer teaches, she still has had a couple pianos that she doesn't use often. I know that those pianos still have held a great deal of sentimental value to her, but she gave one to us for my birthday.

In addition to doing a large combined party, we held individual parties for Austin and me with just our family later in the month. Nate made a delicious salmon dinner for my birthday along with a s'mores cake.

I originally found the s'mores cake recipe on Pinterest. I love s'mores, and it looked delicious, so I requested that cake for my birthday. It really did taste good, but for some reason the marshmallow fluff "frosting" didn't turn out anything like the picture.

Austin gave me a delicious raspberry flavored Utah Truffle for my birthday. I love his toothy grin in this picture!

Austin's requested his favorite for his birthday: macaroni and cheese. For dessert we had homemade chocolate dipped waffle bowls and ice cream instead of cake.

He then opened some gifts from us, most of which were clothes. But we also made him a new toy: a magnetic marble run.

Along with a whiteboard to use the pieces on.

Austin has had fun playing with it, though we still need to tweak a couple things to work better.

 We also found that we could make faces using the shapes too.

Sometimes it is hard to believe that Austin is already five. The time has gone by so fast. I am so grateful that Austin is part of our family! He is such a smart boy and learns things quickly when he wants to. He has become better and better at helping with things as he has grown, and he is always doing fun things that bring smiles to our faces, like impromptu dances to me singing "I am a Child of God" as I fix dinner...