Lake Trail

 About a month ago, John and Krystin went to Mexico for the 10th Wedding Anniversary! We were able to watch their 2 boys, Isaac and Cole for a couple of days while they were on their trip. William has been begging to go hiking this year and so around his birthday and while we had the boys, we decided to take a small hike at Radnor Lake. We hiked the Lake Trail which was an easy trail and only a little under a mile and a half. The kids did amazing and it sure wore all of them out.

We were able to see some animals. In the picture above, a man told us there was an owl in a tree and sure enough, it was there! Just a little too high for me to get a picture of him though. We saw lots of turtles and ducks. We saw a deer and a stork.. of all things. It was fun to get them out in nature to see these things.

They really were amazing at walking the trail - only minimal complaining about being tired. We're excited to do this more this summer and fall.



Easter/Temple Pictures

 This year, I took the kids to the Nashville Tennessee Temple to take their Easter pictures. I was SUPER excited to be going to a new temple this year. And a little disapointed that the water fountain had been taken out. I had some good ideas for it. But, we made do. A couple had just been married and came out of the temple when we arrived, so I tried to move around them. I am pleased with the results of the pictures.

Here are some of my faves:

Have I talked about how much I love my new camera?? Because it's pretty much one of the coolest things I have. 

Easter

I absolutely love Easter. I also absolutely love that Easter was the slam dunk finish to our great Spring Break that we had. We had so much fun being together to color Easter eggs.

 My masterpiece.

The grand kids got together to have an Easter egg hunt. Everyone got a big/bonus egg with some money in it, but Isaac found the Jackpot egg.

 I have memories of getting a new Easter dress and always going to Grandmama's home for Easter dinner. Looking over pictures, there are some where we took Easter pictures at her house too. There were a few trademark pieces that belonged in Grandmama's yard. One being the white bench some of us sat on in the Easter picture, and another being the big bell. I don't know what happened to the white bench, but I'm so glad that my mom inherited that bell. Now my kids will be able to have the same memory of that bell being at Grandma's.

 Easter was a lot of fun. The Easter Bunny did visit the kids, although I didn't get to take a picture before everything was taken out of the baskets and either eaten or played with.

Annual Easter Temple Pictures to come!

Momma Mia!

William's Mario Birthday Party was the day before his actual Birthday! He was so excited to have people over to celebrate with him. And he was super excited to have presents and mustaches. Mostly presents, I think.

 We played a few games, like throw the fire ball at Bowser, which William showed off his awesome coloring skills. There was a Yoshi egg race. And also a Find the Star Power game.

 The favors included a mustache, Mario fruit Snacks, and Gold Coins.

 After searching EVERYWHERE for a Mario cake, we finally saw one that William picked out at Homestyle Bakery. It was chocolate of course!

 And of course, the 'staches...

I didn't post any present opening pictures because #1 there were too many and #2 a lot of them were blurry with William's excited movement taking over the shot. However, William got the Thomas Pirate ship he's been wanting and a Thomas Pillow Pet. Yes, he is no longer "the only person EVER to not have one." That's a title he gave himself. He got awesome little guns that smoke when they're shot. He also got Legos (his new found love). He got Star Wars Legos, Dino Legos, MarioKart Legos, a big Lego box... William loves them all. We've even put his wooden trains into a box in the closet to make room for his legos... big step people, big step.

Although William was a little sad that Matthew was out of town, I think that the love of family made up for a lot of that. William had a great party and a great Birthday!

Six!

Today William is turning six!! We did most of his birthday festivities yesterday.

 He had a Mario party- hence the mustache.

 William chose to have eggs, biscuits, and sausage links for his birthday dinner. And for breakfast, he requested Cookies and Cream Pop Tarts.

William will also be partying at his school tomorrow. He gets to wear a birthday sticker and bring snacks for everyone. The school requests to spend the money you would normally spend on cupcakes on a book instead to donate to the classroom. William picked out The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and is excited to have his birthday extended for another day.

Happy Birthday to my awesome boy! We love William more than words can say.



Spring Break, WOOHOO!

The week before Easter, William had Spring Break! And break it down we did.

There is nothing like having your little ones in school to make you realize how much fun you have when they are home. I was a little worried that they would only fight the entire week, but it turned out better than I expected. So, we made some plans and did almost all of them.

We made our gingerbread train! We have had the stuff since Christmas and Finally got it finished. William was excited to have it done and him and Lily had a lot of fun with the decorations (and eating some too).

We also painted a birdhouse that my dad had. We were supposed to do it last summer, but that too was pushed to Spring Break. Lily painted the roof and William got the sides. They picked whatever color they wanted. I painted the trim.

 Once it was dry, Grandpa hung it on the tree in our backyard.

We also went to the zoo with some cousins. (Thank you Keaven for the picture I took off of Facebook!)We went to the farm part and we learned about some of the animals there. I didn't know that a mule is a mix of a horse and a donkey. There was also a goat there that had one full horn and a horn that was growing back because she lost it while headbutting another goat. William and Lily loved hearing these stories and were talking about these animals by name (Hank and Brownie) for the rest of the day and still bring them up.

 The kiddies were sad because on Friday night, Matthew had a Young Men's camp out. So, we decided to have a camp out of our own. We...and by "we" I mean "I"... made this little tent. William and Lily watched a movie and had some popcorn in their tent, but still wanted to sleep in their beds. I hung the blanket from the top bunk and both of these little ones slept on the bottom bunk in their make-shift tent.

And last minute, we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese one day. William and Lily are still afraid of Chuck, but they love playing the games and winning tickets. They actually got like 220 tickets this time. It was a fun trip and they picked some goodies and had cotton candy to top it off.

We were also able to go to the park and go see Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked at the $2 theater. AND we had Easter over their Spring Break. I took them to the temple to take Annual Easter Pictures. I'll have those pictures up soon!

We had such a fun week. I'm sad that it had to come to an end, but I am SO excited to have both of my babies home for the summer. 

The Party

Lily's 5th Birthday Party was horse-themed.

I, of course, was more than willing to do this. It is way better than her original "I want a Sonic the Hedgehog Birthday" to which I lied, "Yeah, I can't find any Sonic party stuff... What else you got?"

I was excited even that she wanted a horse party because I know she loves horses more than Sonic AND what little girl didn't dream of one day owning a horse. It would live in the stables you imagined and you would feed it and brush it's hair and come up with some clever name like, "Dolly" for her. See? I thought about it too.

We had Lily's party on her actually birthday and invited family and only a couple of friends to join us.

We had games like:

 Along with a bean bag toss, horse shoes, and hot potato.

And then she got:

 GALORE! These are only a few, but she loved them and cherishes them all!

To top it off, we had some delicious Publix cake. She chose vanilla cake with Raspberry filling and man was it great! To go along with her horse theme, Lily picked out this horse cake and begged the whole day to play with the horses that go on it.

Lily had a great 5th Birthday Party. She loved having her family celebrate with her and missed the ones that weren't able to be here.

I can't believe that I have two 5 year olds!!