Drew Turns 2!

Drew woke up to a special police parade on his birthday! The Tippecanoe County sheriff's department came with their sirens and wished Drew a happy birthday. The sheriff even came and gave him some special badge stickers!

The Motts came by and recorded the whole thing! I tried to post it, but I was unable to get it to upload, so I'll show you a few shots of the police cars and you can see the Motts too!

We also had 2 of our "big friends" stop by to watch it - Kaity and Jess! It was so nice to see some of our friends in person!

Standing next to Kaity & Jess in their car

Drew was a happy boy!

I made a giant chocolate chip cookie cake frosted with ganache. Anna and Kate helped me decorate it!

Drew reacted with astonishment!

Even though his friend birthday party was canceled, I think he had a pretty good birthday!

Curtis's Birthday

On April 18, Curtis turned 36! The kids helped me decorate his cake. Kate specified that it needed to say "Handsome" to refer to him! We made his favorite cake - I literally make it for him every year. It's a chocolate stout cake!

 The girls helped him blow out his candles.

We took a selfie to document before we consumed the cake!

Oh, and I pulled off a complete surprise for Curtis later in the evening! I genuinely believe that God placed the idea on my heart and He providentially made everyone that I asked available for a surprise zoom call! It included all 3 of his college roommates and 2 of his good friends from college. He rarely gets to see or even talk on the phone to these guys so it was a real treat. I even had our RUF campus minister hop on the call and "zoom bomb"! It was nice to see most of their wives and children for portions of the call too.

The best part for me was seeing how happy he was! His college friends bring out a part of Curtis that I love and I don't get to see very often.

I don't think birthdays at this time in the world can be celebrated the way we'd like them to be, but this was a pretty special way to spend it!

Celebrating Easter

Easter looked a little different this year, but we are thankful that COVID-19 can't cancel it! 

We dyed eggs...

...and made Easter story cookies! We got this idea from one of our students' traditions. It tells the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as you make them. Then, the cookies stay in the oven overnight and when you eat them on Easter morning, you find that they are empty, just like the tomb where Jesus was! Jesus is risen indeed!

 We had our annual Easter egg hunt. It was Drew's first time to actively participate.

The girls have this down though!

They were very excited to find money in their eggs (as requested).

 We still dressed up and took a family picture. I didn't smile in my family pictures similarly to Kate in this one.

We did get her to stick out her tongue though!

Drew thoroughly enjoyed playing with his new eggs!

We also listened to 3 church services, FaceTimed with our families, and had a nice Easter meal too. Though we missed our friends and church family, we still had fun celebrating Easter in quarantine!

Kate Turns 5!

Our sweet Kate turned 5 on March 18! It went much different than we had originally anticipated, but she had a good attitude about it all! We opened her gifts and immediately put them to use.

All of us enjoyed playing her new game, Hungry Hungry Hippo!

She was gifted some new smelly markers. We went on YouTube and learned how to draw a shark (it was her request). She was so excited!

She had very specific instructions for how I was to make the huge chocolate chip cookie - a blue border with chocolate chips, flowers, balloons, etc.

She loved it!

She finished off the day on the birthday pillowcase (made by her late Grammy) and another one of her special gifts - Elsa! It's hard to believe she's already 5. What a gift she has been to us!

Anna & Kate's Joint Birthday Party

Right before everything started getting canceled for COVID-19, we were able to celebrate Anna and Kate's birthdays with a small joint party! We had a Frozen 2 theme where they decorated Olaf's frozen hut:

Then, they watched the movie too!

They finished it off with Frozen 2 cupcakes!

Sadly, that was the last time they were able to see their friends. We're even more grateful for that time now as we realize it may be a while before we can be this close to friends again!