Babysitting, birthday party, and WE SURVIVED TAX SEASON 2012!!!

This post is going to be a little long, but I can get all of these pictures up more quickly if I don't break it up...and I have a dinosaur cake I need to work on!

We got to have Jacob, Grace, Elisabeth, Silas, Hannah, and Seth come over one Saturday...it was a fun day!  I got out some costumes (I thought) just for Seth, but it turns out nearly everyone wanted to play with them!

Cutest little puppy ever.

Nora's wearing her pink princess skirt that her Aunt Heather got for her birthday last year...then we have Elisabeth the bumblebee, Hannah the puppy, and Silas the fireman.

There was much switching of costumes!

I love Max and Seth's faces in this picture...they are ROARING like dinosaurs!

It was the last Saturday before the end of tax season, and Greg only had to work until noon!  Everyone was excited to see him come home!  I'm not sure how it came up in conversation, but he and the older kids were talking about deviled eggs when Grace said, "Oh, yuck!  Those are gross!"  When Greg got her to admit she hadn't tried one, he asked me to get some eggs boiling...he was going to make deviled eggs!  It was pretty funny to hear the kids' reactions and opinions as they watched him make the eggs. :)

I love this picture...Elisabeth is looking at it so suspiciously and Jacob and Hannah are just watching her.  I don't have good pictures, but I'm pretty sure that ALL of the older ones tried the eggs...and Grace might have had two. :)

We had Tirzah's first birthday party on her birthday, Sunday the 15th.  Thankfully she took a great nap after church, and we ate supper at the cabin with Nate, Steph, girls, and Sheila before we had the party.

Nora and Tirzah had matching outfits...this was the cutest picture out of our mini photo shoot...I'm determined to get a good one this summer, though!  (Love Tirzy's little feet!)

Tirzah was so funny while we sang Happy Birthday to her...she had this little smirk on her face the whole time.

She was pretty slow to start on the cake!  I don't think she liked the feel of the frosting, but once Greg and I each put some cake/frosting in her mouth, she figured that the taste was worth having frosting on her fingers!

Oh, what a mess!

She ate the cake, but she was going pretty slow and I wanted to get her done before everyone else got food, so we actually just took the cake away..she probably would have eaten more. :)  As it was, though, she got plenty of sugar!  She went to bed fine that night, but she was up for an hour or so in the early morning.  Not crying, but just awake!  I sat with her on the rocking chair for quite a while, just rocking her.  I blame the cake.

Messy but happy!

I don't have pictures of her opening her presents, but she LOVED her birthday cards.  She played with them, opening them and closing them and hiding behind them.

For everyone else's dessert, I made a ladybug cake and flower cupcakes.  The ladybug is covered with fondant, which I made and used for the second time.  I found myself being glad that I'd had the little princess  cake as practice.

I was mostly happy with how it turned out, minus the antennae...it was SO humid and pretty warm that weekend, and they just never dried out enough to stand up!

In other Tirzah news, she is really walking now!  It's so much fun to see her stand up in the middle of the room and walk, giggling at herself. :D

In other Beutel family news, TAX SEASON IS OVER!!!  This is the week of much rejoicing at our house!  This season seemed more stressful for Greg at work, and I know it was more stressful for me with three kids at home instead of two...but we made it and we are all ready to adjust back to the new 'normal.'  The office was closed on Wednesday, so Mom Beutel came with us and we took the kids to the Children's Museum for a morning of fun.

Max made a lovely pizza for his grandma.

Max was being the dentist and Greg was his patient!

Nora discovered the nursery and fed all of the babies.

Tirzah liked the pin art wall, as well as

the track for the balls.

Nora was pretty excited to play with the 'waterfall' as she called it.

Cheese!

Greg made this long pipe to try and get the water to those red waterwheels...after some trial and error, here he is surveying his work. :)

While he worked on that, this is what I accomplished...one little pipe to turn the waterwheel. :)

I think Tirzah loved the big chess pieces because they were the same size as her!

Nora loved the cows, so much so that

she tried to give them a drink!

At the theater, Max dressed up as...I'm not sure what.

Nora, of course, was a princess.

Here is her favorite part of the museum:  painting on on the windows!

Tirzah thought it was hilarious when Greg would 'paint' her or squirt water at her from the other side of the window.

I think this was my favorite part to see:  Somehow when you moved in this room, a heat map of your body's motions were projected on this big screen.  Nora's pigtails were just too cute on it!

Greg showed Nora how to be a butterfly, (the screen is split into four different ones)

so she had to try it out!

If you look on the bottom right corner of the screen, you can see that Max had to join her.

Me and Tirzah

I wish we had a better picture of Tirzah...she crawled across the room and her little profile scooting across the screen was adorable!  I suppose I could be a little biased, but I loved it!

Before we left, the kids wanted one more chance at the theater.  Here is Max the knight as well as 

princess Nora, who finally got up the courage to stand on the stage and very softly, very sweetly sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to me sitting in the 'audience.'  She even made a bow!

We ate lunch at D.P. Dough's and got some DELICIOUS calzones, and by that time Tirzah was way past nap time, so we headed for home.  It was so fun getting to do something as a family!  (And thanks for coming along, Mom B.!)  Looking forward to our post tax season getaway next week to Lake Geneva as a family, too!