a little pre-birthday dinner conversation between cohen and chancellor:


"so cohen, how old are you going to be tomorrow?"


"i'm gonna be 4!"


"i thought you were going to be 5."


"noo, i'm going to be 4 silly."


"oh, you aren't going to be 15?"


"nooo chancellor! i'm going to be 4!"


"oh, you're not turning 25 and moving out and getting married?"

(remember, i told you this is his new phrase. he says it in all seriousness and he looks at you like "you're such an idiot." he's a smart ass. i love him.)

we rented a neighborhood pool for cohen's birthday celebration. it was nice to have the whole place to ourselves for an entire hour without 30 other random kids and their random parents and their parents' friends, along with their aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, grandparents, etc. public pools can be quite the hot spot when its 108 degrees outside during the hottest hours of the day. on a weekend. also, the 5 life guards on duty dedicated to watching the kids (along with the 12 adults already supervising them) made me feel safe, to say the least.


we had lots o' fun in the water and both of my kiddos did SO well swimming! cohen spent most of his time in the water practicing his underwater swimming. he'd hold his breath while he swam between my mom and i. he even got good at coming up for air and going back under to swim longer distances. i'm so proud of him! unfortunately, the underwater camera was dead (damn!) so i missed all of those awesome shots. oh well.

the bean had a fabulous time too. by the time we left she was wider than she was tall due to all the water she had in her belly. she discovered jumping into the water. splashing is a must, so any way that we can get water out of it's original container and onto everything and everyone surrounding it, is best! everyone has to be drenched in order for her to really enjoy herself. this includes nona's party attire. . .


papa paul came prepared, however, to get wet and hung out with the kiddos in the kiddy pool for a bit.

 check out cohen's face as he enjoys the recycled, chlorinated pee water =) we like the pee water in this family, apparently.



jadon is exactly 6 weeks older than cohen. their mother (riley and jadon are siblings) and i work together, and as soon as she came back from maternity leave, i went into labor =) they get along so very well, i love to see them together.



so, after my daughter had her fill on pool water, we moved on to the pizza. irie was the only one who eats pizza in a fabulously interesting way (as in, i found pizza sauce in her ear), so i only have this picture to prove little caeser's still has it goin' on, especially at $5 for a large...  times 10.




the patient iriebean quietly stood on the sidelines and didn't even worry about where her presents were. i had a concern, for about 2 seconds, that we might have had a baby meltdown, but we were fine.


and on to the cupcakes! who doesn't love cupcakes? especially when each one is made of chocolate, has cream cheese frosting and has a spiderman lodged on top waiting to web the back of your throat. stssss stssss (that's the sound cohen makes when he "webs" you.)


 i love my kids. both of these shots have been cropped from a much larger picture of everyone and lots of goings-on because check out these faces. cohen is planning the next cupcake before he's even taken his second bite, and irie is on the verge of her sugar high. and what a high it was, let me tell you. no. let's not relive that.