6 is sweet :)!!

these are pics of selah at
age one,






two,












three,












four,











and five.

























Amazing but true...our sweet selah is now 6! where in the world has the time gone!?(such a mom thing to say!) we celebrated her all weekend long, starting with our family tradition of Birthday Dinner. The special bday person gets to pick the meal, the dessert, and one friend to celebrate with. This year selah picked a friend from school and her family to join us for the dinner. She wanted spagetti, garlic bread, salad and lemon cake with homemade frosting(she decorated it herself!)...the exact same dinner as last year! :) It was a great time, and selah loved her present..."The Littlest Pet Shop". A hilarious pet shop filled with fun little bobble head animals. The next day she got to open more presents from her Gram, Papa and Anissa and Chris. She loved all of it!!! Then, the next day she did our other fun family tradition of picking one parent and going out for a meal. She picked me, and the meal...dessert! We also went shoe shopping to spend some of her birthday money from her Nana and Tio Conrad...she picked out the shinniest red shoes ever! Lastly, she went shopping with her daddy to spend the rest of the birthday money from her Gramps and Granny Fran...this time she picked out fun finger nail polishes, lipsticks and other girly make-up stuff. It was a terrific-ly fun birthday, and she happily reminds me that she felt very celebrated!

ABC's

school started this week...in fine cortez style!

selah started 1st grade and samuel is so excited to be able to attend a fun little preschool attached to selah's school. On the second morning, i was so excited to be down to just two kids, i decided to go running. By the end of that day i was completely exhausted! turns out walking back and forth from our neighborhood school THREE times each day translates into three miles of walking! phew!

ej wanted so badly to be doing what everyone else was, so he wore his own backpack the WHOLE day! He also insisted on dressing exactly like his big brother.

as you may see from the pic, samuel fell at his first day of school and scrubbed up his cheek when he fell through the doorway and smacked his face on a box of blocks! on selah's second day of school, she fell from a pretty high play structure and split her lip open...so much blood they had to change her clothes! that's what we do best in this family...fall and bleed from the mouth!!