Vacation Day 1 - Stop in Texas (July 2nd 2011)

The very first stop on our vacation was at the Dr. Pepper Museum in Waco Texas. Very AWESOME time was had by all. So worth every penny. The only thing that could have made it better would have been Dr. Pepper samples at the end! :)

--Cutout Pictures/Race Car Drivers!--

I think Aydan was afraid of falling so he held on tight!

Ryan was a bit quick on his standing so we almost missed a shot of him behind the cutout!

Dylan was laughing so hard he even had me laughing... :P

We loved the cutout for pictures! I think these are the boys favorite pictures from all the things we did that day.

This is one of my fav's - I just wish Aydan had been looking at the camera!!

They had a really awesome room dedicated to kids and toys. This room made me feel a bit old though because it was basically a "toy museum" and had things like Furby, the original Gameboy and a view finder as well as MANY other toys I grew up with!
Dylan right away found the Lego's & Lincoln Logs while Ryan & Andrew walked on to play with toy cars.

All of the boys (even Aydan) made some really fun paper cones to play with inside the "wind tunnel".

This was the "wind tunnel" it was just a handmade toy that had a small fan under a bucket, but kept all 4 boys busy for a long time! I took many pictures so maybe someday I can make one for daycare!

Aydan was VERY impressed with the slinky! I know exactly what he's getting for his birthday! He worked for the longest time trying to make it "slinky" down the stairs. He was trying to use the plastic one though which didn't work too well. Once he mastered it though he was so proud of himself and I was proud of him for not giving up!

Mikayla was all about the crayons! She had a very hard time choosing just 1 though! :P

It was so nice to be able to have this fun time with family. My brother, his wife & their kids met us in Waco as well as my parents so that we could all celebrate my Mom's birthday. Sadly I somehow managed to not get a single picture of the birthday girl!

This is the closest thing we've had to a family picture in over a year. The wind & sun weren't too helpful, but I'm still happy to have this picture! J.D. & I are always the ones behind the camera and to have a picture with both of us in it is CRAZY!!!

My kids were VERY worn out on our way to my brothers house from all of our fun in Waco. They had all fallen asleep within about 5 minutes of getting into the car.

Aydan actually fell asleep in the middle of trying to get a drink of his water...

Vacation Day 1 - Getting ready to leave! (July 2nd 2011)

Planned to leave at 6, but that diddn't happen, we were a bit late...

Yukon all packed and ready to roll!

(Notice the dirty, but still perfect bumper this is important for later.)

Kids waiting patiently to leave!

On the road!

Sunglasses and all. Ready for 9 hours of sitting! (or as ready as possible!)

Our Baby Birds

A few weeks ago we found a couple of birds building a small next in our hanging plant on our porch. About a week after they built it the Mommy started laying eggs. She laid 1 egg a day for 4 days! I forgot to get pictures of the eggs, but the babies hatched 2 days before we left for vacation so I snapped one of them!

Only 3 of the 4 eggs hatched. But those 3 were very healthy well fed babies!

By the time we returned home from vacation this is what we found. Fully feathered babies moving about the planter well!

2 days after us returning home we got to one by one watch all three babies fledge the nest! All three took very good first flights and we were sad to see them leave! Hoping a family returns next year!

Last Day Of School

Ryan trying very hard to be silly, but still not laugh because he "wanted it to be summer already!"

On Our way to school! So ready for Summer Break!!

Ryan being un-happy on his last day of school. He did not want to go into his classroom for some odd reason. Actually from what I understand this was kinda his mood every morning for about the last two weeks. Though he ended up having a very wonderful last day! :)

Dylan getting ready to go into class. He was so excited that it was almost summer break!!

This was something I found in his classroom on the last day of school...I guess someone had already touched it & broke it, but I still thought it was cool!

This was a quilt the class made for Mrs. Confer since she was retiring. (Dylan's is the last one on the right in the second row. A rocket of course!) They threw her a surprise retirement party too, it was so fun! She just needs to come back to teach 1st grade next year then again 3 years after that! ;)

Dylan & Mrs. Confer. We loved her so much! She challenged Dylan so much this year to be his best and work hard. I've been so worried Dylan is going to get bored with school because it somewhat comes easy for him, but she did not give him a chance to get bored!

Ryan's class play & singing!

Shortly before school was out Ryan's class put on a special presentation for the parents. They had little groups & did a couple of plays then together sang a few songs. It was absolutely cute! We got a bit of video too!



Ryan & his whole Pre-K class!


Ryan with his WONDERFUL teachers!


Be sure to pause the playlist at the left before watching the video!


"Going On A Bear Hunt!" - Just a small clip of the song. Too large to put the whole thing up!

Now un-pause the music on the left because it's great music! :)

Ryan's Birthday - 5!!!

Ryan was one lucky ducky this year because he scored himself 2 birthday parties! He ended up pretty sick on his birthday so his original party had to be re-planned. We ended up just doing a family party for the first one at the beginning of may (2 weeks after his birthday), then did the second party inviting all of his school friend and family friends was at the beginning of June. I only have pictures of the first one right now. I think the ones from the second party are on our phone so I'll upload those later...

Ryan & his GI-JOE cake.

Ryan with Nana! And his chocolate cake face...

Ryan & cousin Andrew! (W/ Grannie in the background!)

Ryan w/ Gamma & Grampa.

Ryan just loves having so many people around. He's very much a people person! He talked about his parties non-stop for weeks!

Dylan's 1st Grade Zoo Field Trip!

Dylan got to take 2 class field trips this year. The first was to the Pumpkin Patch/Corn Maze back in the fall. That trip had such short notice I did not get to attend. So I was sure to know a long time in advance for the Zoo so I could join him!
We also took Ryan out of school for the day since there was no way we could be back in time to pick him up at release time.

This year we met up again with some good friend we met last year when their son Garrett was in the same Kindergarten class as Dylan. This year their daughter & Ryan were in the same Pre-K class too! (Ryan was so happy, but that's another post entirely!)
I was so glad I had packed their coats just in case because it was SO windy & cold that day! Though it did start warming up a little after lunch.

Ryan & Emalee being Orangutans!

All 5 kiddo's on the Spider Monkey ropes!

At the end of the day the kids can either ride back to school on the bus or ride home with their parents. We chose to keep Dylan with us for a little extra zoo time.
After we were done we went to the movies to see Rio! It was such a cute movie and we had so much fun!

Working on the playhouse!

Dylan wanted to start working on painting and re-decorating the playhouse so we bought paint. Dylan & Daddy went to work painting while Mommy, Aydan & Ryan cleaned out the inside and vacuumed sand out of the carpet.

Dylan & Daddy hard at work!

They also got all of the trim painted , but I must have forgotten to take a picture!

We are planning to paint the inside with chalkboard paint so the are able to draw & do art in there. I also bought small curtain rods & have some old TMNT sheets to sew curtains out of for them.

We still aren't done because he heat has made it practically impossible to work long, but hopefully we'll get it 100% finished this fall!

Dylan's Birthday - 7!!

Dylan wanted to do an "Insect" theme for his birthday. We hired an Entomology student from OSU to come do a presentation for the kids. She brought a BUNCH of her insects and taught the kids all about them and the took the kids on a bug hunt! It was sooo much fun!

Dylan's cakes a white bug cake & a chocolate worm dirt cake!

Dylan with his Nana. Of course she got him Lego's! His favorite!

Dylan with Gamma and Grampa. (And more Lego's which they wrapped like 7 different times, took him 10 minutes just to get all the paper off!)

The "Bug Lady" teaching them all about insects & answering their questions!

Going on a bug hunt!
(We only allowed the older kids to go since there was a creek & I didn't want any 911 calls to have to be made...)

Dylan w/ Aunt Jamie. She got him a fishing pole for his birthday & he loves it! We haven't gotten to actually take it fishing yet because the pong behind our house got a bit snake-ish this year, but we have practiced a bunch & are hoping to go soon! (After Mom & Dad buy their fishing license that is required for the lake.)

He had a wonderful time with so many friends & family there.

Wow, long time no blog!

Feb. 15th was the last time I blogged! Gee Whiz! We've had two birthday's since then, kids got out of school for summer, got 3 new pet turtles, 1 new pet fish & took a summer vacation!

This weekend I plan on trying to catch up on the 2 birthdays at least - hopefully more!

99 more to go!

Happy Birthday Grannie!

This past Sunday my Grannie turned 81 years old! There were many times over the last year that I wondered if she would make it to her next birthday. She overcame so many things this last year! Almost a pound of fluid removed from around her heart, surgery to remove tumors from both of her kidney's, and a few small skin cancers removed from her face. She's such a strong lady though so it doesn't surprise me at all that she's still here!

On her birthday we took her to her favorite food place ever! Whataburger! I remember the very first time we took her there a little over a year ago, she just couldn't stop talking about it! I think we've probably eaten there over 30 times in the last year because she loves it so much. It became the go-to place after each one of her appointments here in town. So of course when we asked her where she wanted to go for her birthday it was her first choice!

The boys had a blast with her too! She has them so spoiled to cookies. Every time we see her she gives them each a vinilla - creme filled cookie. Cookie was actually Aydan's first word, and he learned it from her....I was really hoping I'd get one of them to say Momma first, but no - two "dadda"s and a "cookie". That's okay though makes great memories!

She's going to live to be 180 though so 99 more to go! :) I wonder if Whataburger will stick around that long?

Fun with my "sick" kid!

Well yesterday Ryan stayed home from school because during the night before he woke up crying and screaming that his throat was hurting. By morning he appeared fine, but just to be on the safe side we kept him home, but away from the daycare kiddo's.



We had a lot of fun! We made a volcano with baking soda & vinegar, learned how mixing the primary colors gets you the secondary colors using food color & water, & putty with cornstarch & water. Later we added food coloring to make the putty green and played in it even more - he even remembered what colors to mix to make green! Needless to say Ryan went to school today with green arms because he decided to paint himself!



When we were all done he learned what color you get when you mix them all together! "Yucky green brownish black!"

He ended up being perfectly fine. I enjoyed spending some special time with him though!

Ryan has been doing really good on his growing the past few months. He's grown almost 2 inches since last June! Of course I never really notice how tiny he still is until we are near other kids his age and he's about a head smaller than most of them, but that's okay! Makes him easier to snuggle! :)

Snowman Soup! Yum!

These boy LOVE Snowman Soup! I love the smiles that come from making it!
(Do not serve after 4pm though! LOL you maybe up all night!)
They had it around 9:30 in the morning and were still very wired by evening!

Directions:
*1 pack of Hot Chocolate made according to directions on package
*1 Candy Cane for stirring
*1-3 Chocolate Kisses(or flavored kisses)
*5-10 Marshmallows of choice (we used gingerbread flavored & chocolate covered mini's)

Mix together and enjoy!

New Years & New Puppy!

Aydan doing a puzzle with Nana at our New Years Party!

Grown up's playing Uno while the youngsters watched Ponyo in the playroom. It was fun teaching Grannie to play Uno. Our first few hands we showed our cards so she could see how you choose what cards to play. She got pretty good at it. Still learning to have fun even at 80! :)
Nana & Cheryl had fun too!
Symon & our new puppy Dyson. We got him from a shelter in OKC on Dec. 3rd. He came home with kennel cough & quickly shared it with Symon so our $50 (adoption fee) puppy quickly became a $200 puppy! But I guess he's worth it! ;) Symon very much loves his new friend!

Chilling out on the couch during party time.

More Christmas!

Cookies for Santa - Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning - We lock them out of the living room for Safety! :)

Aydan & his ball Aunt Jamie got him. He loves this thing!

Harmonica's from Aunt Jamie. I now have very musical children! :)

Okay time for some updating! :)

Where to begin....hmmmm - Christmas!
We are just beginning to get back into routine after Christmas & New years. Christmas was so busy with family, fun and lots of exciting goodies!
This year of course we made our annual trip to Quail Springs to get pictures with Santa.
Dylan asked Santa for Lego's and to Nutcracker. (The decoration kind) - Not sure why he really wanted one, but he did! He loves the things - I think it's because he see's JD somewhat collecting them. Although it's not really so much that JD collects them it's just that I keep buying them for him... :) Well, Santa came through on the Lego's but had a hard time and was unable to locate ANY Nutcrackers this year. But Dylan being the happy everything goes kind of kid really didn't mind - he absolutely loved the Lego's though! His second favorite gift was his clothes I know hard to believe a 6 year old would care much about that but he did. We got him a couple pairs of pj's, Gamma & Grandpa got him some Jeans & a couple of shirts which he very much loves!

Ryan asked Santa for a Build-a-bear gift card. Really he wanted to be able to pick out clothes for his bear Champ, but we told him that Santa couldn't deliver the store to our house for him to shop on Christmas so maybe a giftcard would be best - of course then we had to explain what a giftcard was. Santa came through with flying colors getting him a giftcard PLUS some shoes, clothes and a coat for Champ! Ryan was so excited! He very much loves Champ and has been asking to get Champ a coat for a LONG time - he was so happy Champ would no longer get cold! :)

Aydan didn't really understand who Santa was and really wasn't sure he liked the guy! He spent the entire time just trying to figure out what was going on. Though as soon as we left he started asking to "go back see Santa?" and every time he sees the picture hanging on the fridge he asks again! Aydan is really into Elmo this year so of course he got everything imaginable with Elmo on it - socks, slippers, Pj's, a backpack, books, pop up tent, coloring/sticker books, and an Elmo Dr. kit! And probably his favorite gift of all - a ball from Aunt Jamie!

We had a great time getting to spend time with Nana, Grannie, Cousin Cheryl, Uncle Ralph, Jamie, Dale, Alli, Derek, Gamma & Grandpa, even David & Mila via Skpe!

Christmas is my favorite time of year so I'm sad to see it go, but only 11 1/2 more months & we get to celebrate all over again!