Masons' Birthday Party

Better late than never right? For Mason's 5th birthday he wanted a Transformer theme. So along with this theme we also had a "balloon transformer" come and make really cool balloon creations. He was AMAZING!! check him out here: http://www.creationswithatwist.com/



Here are pics of all the fun we had!

The whole group

Palm Tree

Alligator

Horse

Fish in water

Goofy

Princess

Monkey

Space Alien

A car

Mason's special balloon was Optimus Prime (a Transformer)

and the picture doesn't do it justice.

The many faces of Easton

I just downloaded pictures from the last month to post Mason's birthday pics, and there are sooo many to dig through, but I did find some funny one's that Jake took of Easton. I enjoyed a post like this on Amber's blog so thought I would copy and post one too because it made me laugh when I saw all these...

p.s. I will get Mason's birthday post on here soon!

Happy Birthday to my BIGGEST boy!

Five years ago today I was in labor... and at 1:11pm on February 18, 2004- Mason Lee Tanaka Koller made his grand entrance into the world. It was a joyful day...but I will never forget the 18.5 hour labor, and 3.5 hours it took to push him out. He was a chunker, weighing in at 8lbs 8oz. But it was all worth it as he has taught both Jake and I love like we never knew before. There is something special about each child, and experiencing so many firsts with Mason is what has made him so special. Here is a photo tribute to his life thus far!

Happy Birthday Digs!!! We love you.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Oink Oink

Last night as we were putting the kids into bed and Jake says to me, "aren't you gonna make something for Mason to take to Kinderfarm for to celebrate his birthday?" Mason goes to 2 different preschools. One on Tuesday and Thursday called Kinderfarm which is on an actual real farm where they help to take care of the animals. He LOVES it! He then goes to another preschool on Mon., Wed. and Fri. So being that his birthday is tomorrow on WEDNESDAY I figured I would get something for that preschool. Jake thought he should take treats both places, (easy for him to say he was heading to bed which meant the person in charge of this stunt would be ME!) Jake then asked Mason, "Do you want to take treats to Kinderfarm for your birthday tomorrow?" Of course Mason said, "YES."

Now we have a whole freezer full of cookie dough that Mason sold earlier this year, so Jake says just make cookies. Well you know how preschoolers are and a chocolate chip cookie for a birthday celebration just doesn't cut it. Cupcakes are the treats you are SUPPOSED to bring. So at 10pm last night I decide to just make cookies, it's late and I don't want to go to the store. As I am baking the first batch I do an internet search just for fun to see what kind of cute cupcakes I could have actually made. BIG MISTAKE. I find the cutest pig cupcakes. And with it being Kinderfarm how could I NOT make them. You see where this is going right? Yep me at HyVee at 10pm and home again to make treats.

The problem was I already had a dozen cookies made, and he does have a morning class and afternoon class. But how could I send plain cookies to one and then the BEST cupcakes ever to the other class? So I improvised and made the cookies into pigs too. In the end it actually was quite easy and fun and they turned out soooo cute. Jake loved them and laughed because I am relatively certain that as soon as I showed him the link on the internet last night he knew there was no stopping me.

PIc above of the cupcake and then one of the cookies!!! Now I need to go start his timeline slideshow to post tomorrow. Hard to believe it's been 5 years today since I went into labor!

My first baby is turning 5!!!

Where does the time go? In just 10 days Mason will turn 5 years old. It's hard to believe. I do remember this time 5 years ago and I can remember I was MISERABLE and HUGE. Of course all of that was worth it in the end. We are having a party of course. With a few of his friends and our family. Probably the last one with our family because I imagine next year it will be a bunch of kindergartners running wild. He is all of a sudden getting into Transformers so that will be his theme. And thanks to Julie Glasgow we will have the coolest guy here that takes balloons and makes them into some of the most amazing things. Check him out here: http://www.creationswithatwist.com/

Here is Mason's birthday invitation I made, look for his timeline to come on his birthday Feb. 18th.

Boys are wild

When I tell people I have 3 boys under 5 years old, I often get the following responses:

• "Wow, I bet you never sit down." (NOPE)
• "I bet it's loud at your house" (YES!)
• "You poor thing" (Well I wished for 3 boys, so have no sympathy for me!)
• "I bet you are tired." (ABSOLUTELY)
• "Are you going to try for a girl?" (NOT A CHANCE!)

Well believe it or not having 3 boys is GREAT fun most of the time. So here's a glimpse into what you can find 3 little boys doing on a daily basis:

Wrestling:

Jumping off of things

Cleaning up after getting dirty!

And occasionally all sitting still for a movie (well at least for 5 minutes)

Christmas in February!

Yah, slacker is back at it again. I never did a Xmas blog and now that I have uploaded the pictures I am going to do it, better late than never. I am mostly doing this because I intend to turn this blog into a book at some point (I hear some of you laughing knowing this will NEVER happen.) ha ha.

We had a very funfilled and busy Xmas as usual. Since we have so many stops to make we often start Xmas the weekend before so we can spend more time at each location. The boys were spoiled as usual, and came home with some pretty cool stuff. We got 3 of many things which makes life so much easier, no more fighting over who gets to play with what.

There were a few days in the month leading up to Xmas that Jake and I wondered how we were going to explain to the boys that they would be getting no presents because they were acting so out of control. I am completely jealous of all the people who tell me that they love December because their kids behave so well with the threat of Santa. For some reason our kids could care less about Santa. We tried nearly every trick in the book including the elf on the shelf. He's a little guy that comes with a letter from Santa and he watches over you to see how you are behaving and goes to the North Pole and reports back to Santa each night. Well it got so bad that at one point Ernie (our elf) actually disappeared for nearly a week. I told the boys that they had been so bad that Santa must have called him back to the North Pole so he could go to someone else's house. Santa didn't need him at our house because their behavior had been so bad Santa wouldn't be coming on Xmas Eve. As Jake would say... it still didn't work. Ernie did show back up with a note from Santa and the behavior got a little better, but not much. In the end they of course got presents, but honestly if Santa were making a list and checking it twice I am relatively certain our tree would have been bare on Christmas morning.

Here are a few pics from the different Xmas celebrations.

Christmas at Grandma Karen's

Christmas at Grandma Lana and Papa John's

Christmas presents from Kathy (Easton and Sutton's Preschool)

Xmas with Grandpa Bob and Grandma Patty

All the Koller boys together

Christmas Morning at home (matching jammies is our tradition, and it was completely coincidental that the jammies and the wrapping paper matched.)Christmas with Grandma Rene and Grandpa Dean and extended family
My side of the family



And the Koller Crew 2008