Easter 2012

Our Easter celebration was wonderful as always - remembering the supreme sacrifice of our Lord and Savior!!  The thought of it all still rocks my world every year!  We did some camping locally for the days leading up to Easter just to be sure our camper was ready for the season.  We also had the usual egg hunts and acquistion of way too much candy!  The boys really didn't care about the new clothes they got this year, but were super excited about 2 new Skylander Adventure Packs.  Does anyone feel my pain here!!??  Even my husband is hooked on this game!

Guess who wouldn't cooperate for pictures - that's right - the same two boys that didn't cooperate last year!  I told them when they're 40 they'll regret it ; )

Risky Business

While mom's away - the boys do play!  Thankfully, dad was there to supervise!

2012 at Disney

Our first trip to Disney was a good trip, but not one that we are anxious to take again anytime soon!  This was the first time we had taken an entire week vacation since 2004, so it was a great reminder of how good it feels to truly get away.



Ready for a day in Magic Kingdom




Joshua took this shot in Frontier Land

The reason for the trip - but we decided to make a vacation out of it!  Bill left on Sunday after the race and the boys and I stayed on through Wednesday to visit Magic Kingdom again and then Animal Kingdom.

The boys do not like characters, at all, but I finally convinced JT that he would be ok with Buzz. It did save us quite a bit of time not having to search out and wait for these type photo ops!

What a tiring day!  Park open til park closing.... Next time, we're going to the beach!



Lost Tooth

JT has finally lost his first tooth!  We were in Florida the first week of January and it was very loose.  We just knew he would get it out that week, but after MANY weeks of watching him play with it, he finally lost it Sunday evening while eating popcorn!  Maybe the next one will not be as much work!

Santa does not visit our house for Christmas, but we have said that the tooth fairy could visit, so I made him a Carolina Panthers "tooth pillow" with a Panther head pocket.  First tooth = $1, papa fairy won this one, but momma fairy thinks the others should not bring in as much cash!  We'll see....

Scenes from our Christmas celebration

Our family had a great Christmas celebration for 2011!  We were busy as are most families, but looking back, we got in everything we wanted!  We decided to do a real tree for the first time as the "boy" tree - and it will forever be remembered as the year the tree fell.  Reading the posts on Facebook, it seemed to be a common problem this year!  Below is a pic after I got the thing propped back up.  Did I mention we were hosting a Christmas party that evening??

JT was able to participate in the children's choir for the first time this year and was given a speaking part and a small duet. He did a super job - we just wished we could have lowered that mike a little!

 Andrew's class was to dress in costumes of children around the world.  I found this fabric and knew immediately it would be a perfet Chinese costume for him that would "transform" into pjs after the performance.  The hat was just a piece of posterboard and yellow duct tape.

I spent  A LOT of time in the kitchen this year!  Here was one of my favorite projects.  I stole the missing part idea from an old college friend who is really a cookie diva!

Christmas morning and they were so excited they could hardly contain themselves!  Christmas falling on a Sunday found us rushing a bit so it was great that Andrew's teacher had said the kids could wear pjs to church!  JT got to choose his outfit, too, by the way!

Best Wishes to you all for a great 2012!

Halloween Costumes

It may be easy to tell that JT is a Power Ranger, but Andrew's costume would have been a mystery to me a year ago.  He has introduced us to the world of Pokemon and this year wanted to be Pikachu.  The boys once again scored big at the church Trunk or Treat and then several of our neighbors had special treats for them!

2011 Birthday Season

Between September 19 and October 16 we celebrate 3 birthdays.  First, Andrew turned 4.  This year he wanted a blue monster cake and we had his party at the pumpkin farm.  It was a very chilly day for the middle of September, but the kids, and Andrew had a blast!

I am so thankful to the Internet and all the other blogging moms when I start looking for ideas for cakes!

And this is why I spend so much time on these - he just looked at the cake for the longest time!  His only critique, it didn't have any hands. I made hands!

Everything was about Pokemon this year.  We don't even let him watch the cartoon!

Next, Bill turned 39.  He had been wanting a caramel cake, so he did not get his tradtional cake with super sweet icing. 

Last, we celebrated Joshua's 6th.  He got hooked on the show Wipeout this summer and so he wanted a Wipeout party.  We did the best we could with backyard obstacles.  All the boys really seemed to enjoy it.  Joshua's #1 wish this year was for a goldfish.  I thought I was getting off easy because they're only 38 cent each.  I bought 2 and both were dead in a week!  He now has a blue Beta named "Cut-tail".  All things Addidas and sporty were also cherished items.

The course started with a zipline out of the treehouse.  The most popular event!

The Stump Jump

Our attempt to simulate the "BIG RED BALLS" - hay bales and the sprinkler.

Happy Birthday to all my boys!!