Daddy daughter

Chad and Court went to the church dad daughter activity in April. It was Square themed event. They did square dancing, tic tac toe and other square activities. Good daddy for getting pictures when they got home...i was asleep :)
Court loved it, she loves any one on one time.

sugar crash?

I didn't get these shots so I think Chad must have.
That stick is lolly pop stick from a giant sucker, it was at least as a big a CD, maybe bigger.

An actor

This year Casey decided to try out for the school play. He got two parts. The play was "Beauty is a Beast" In it the princess is a spoiled brat. Her fair godmother had blessed her with great beauty at birth and she grew up to be obnoxious and rude to everyone around her so her fairy godmother changes her ugly. She meets the villagers who teach her that there is more to life than being beautiful and she changes her ways and becomes kind. Casey was the village boy Peter and he was also the castle guard.

He liked that he got to push the princess away and refuse her entrance to the castle when she tried to convince him she is princess Beauty.

He did a great job, we were very proud of him.

Zoo

A friend of mine runs a preschool out of her house and when it was time for their field trip to the zoo she was short on the required amount of kids to get the school discount so she asked if we were interested in going. Well, discount tickets to the so very expensive zoo?? absolutely!! Aiden and Brody set off for the zoo, Aiden was so excited!!

This zoo recent (in the past 2 years or so) opened their new aquarium and it is pretty great for what a little town zoo it is.

Aiden was so excited to see the sharks! we came across a diver cleaning a tank and the kids loved it. they watched him more than some of the fish.

I can't remember what he is being scared of, i think it was the petting area where you can pet horseshoe crabs and starfish, he wanted no part of that.

He wanted to feed the giraffes until he had the food in his hand then he refused and dropped the pellets to the ground. I got a great shot of his friend tho.

One great thing about this zoo is that the animals are so close!!

Brody had a great time chilling in hi stroller

Thank Mrs Candice for the invite and chance to go. Aiden keeps asking to go back.

Comunity Pride day

Every year our city has Community pride day where each of the communities can submit homes that have been abandoned and need cleaning up. We have gone every year with the exception of last year due to the fact the Brody was due any day and it was Tyler's baptism day. I have gone by myself or with the kids in years past, but his year it fell in Tyler's birthday and the whole family went. As an HOA board member I was one of the group leaders within our community. Our community of Sierra Montana had over 100 volunteers and we split into 3 teams.
Our team consisted of my family and the Builders club from our school. The builders club is focused on building the community and the school, so when they asked about being able to clean some yards in the neighbor hood it was perfect timing to participate in this city event.

Our vice principal, about 3 teachers and their student club members and families joined us and we cleaned about 8 houses in our section and then went to another section to do one of larger lots. It was huge and was end to end weeds!! We worked for about 4 hours total.

I ran from house to house checking out the next home on the list making sure it was not occupied and that it was OK for clean up, directed the team on where to go ( we split into two groups within our group) and the landscapers who were following in our tracks picking up the debris and doing the heavier work like trimming the trees and such.

It was a very rewarding morning and I was so proud of my kids and their excitement in helping out and doing service.

Happy 9th

Since the kids had a big party last year and I really like having one on one time with them the year before that...we decided to take them on a date for their birthday this year. They get to choose where we go for dinner and we will consider any other ideas they have for the evening.

April 4th was Tyler's birthday and he turned 9 this year. I was all ready to get Tyler the Lego's he wanted for his birthday. Then Chad came up with the idea that he might like a new upgraded controller for his RC car. After presenting him with that choice...yup, that was what he wanted. We told him it was on back order and would be here around Courtney's birthday. So he was excited to open it on the morning of his birthday.

Since we had something going on the evening of the 4th we took him out the night before. Tyler first wanted to go to "Country Buffet" because he liked how you could keep going back for more food and you don't even have to finish it if you don't like it. I got to talking to him about how he could choose any place and he could think of anything else, so I said what kind of food do you want and I can suggest some place. He remembered the ribs Chad always bring home as leftovers when we go to Texas Road House and said that was what he wanted.

I forgot my camera so we got a terrible shot on the cell phone, but a great one of the leftovers.

After dinner we went to the mall to look around so he could spend his birthday money from grandmas and grandpas. the vans he bought in Jan were falling apart so we went to look at the vans store and find out if they had sturdier shoes. I told him I was not going to halves on another pair of shoes that was going to fall apart in 2 months. The sales lady assured us that they had some shoes that were designed to stand up to skateboarding and were much durable so so we went halves again on his second pair of vans in 4 months.

after the mall we went for ice cream at 31 flavors and got big waffle cones of chocolate and peanut butter. He decided he didn't like the big chunks of peanut butter. That's the best Part!! Whatever. We haded home, it was lots if fun and we had a great time spending time with our birthday boy. The next night he picked out drum sticks for his birthday "cake" and we got a Red Box movie :The Sorcerers Apprentice" and celebrated as a family.

he's a climber

One day I was in the family room and I heard some banging around in the kitchen so I went to see what was going on......
Older siblings + baby learning to climb = danger for baby!

Luckily everything was turned off and it had been long enough that everything on the stove was cooled off. Yikes Brody. I didn't even know he could climb onto the stool!

Lego Hotel

As their "prize" for winning the Olympics, but not getting to be named winners I told the boys we would buy them the windows they wanted for the hotel they were building out of Legos. The need 48 windows, so we went on Lego web sight and ordered them.
Brody looks like baby Godzilla next to the Hotel.

Mother Son Olympics

Our PTO event for March was the Mother Son Olympics. We decided to have an Olympics rather than a dance in hopes that the boys would be more interested in it. We did a Minute to Win it type Olympics. Every even was timed to be achieved in a minute. The times were added up at the end. The boys and I Had the best time over all, but since I was one of the ladies in charge of the event I told the boys we could not win, but I would make it up to them later. They were fine with this except when Casey tried to tell some kids in class that he won and then they wouldn't believe him when someone else was named the gold metal winner. Sorry Casey :( The boys were excited because we planned it so that us PTO moms who had boys would still be able to participate with our boys. I was still running around a lot, but I did stop long enough to play the games. I promised the boys that next year I would do nothing but attend with them.

Art

One more art showing for Tyler. His Art teacher chose this piece he did in class. I can't remember who it is he was doing, but I know she was very proud of him. This is at the district art show.
Tyler and Mrs. Dubrin

Rain

One of the last rains of the year. Aiden got his shoes and jacket on and went out and played in the mud a bit.

redesighn

Chad and the kids recently redesigned the track in the back yard. It tool a couple of days. They built a 2 level raised structure in the corner and some double doubles, a few moguls and are quite proud of the new challenges they face. They has so much fun with it once it was all done! so much fun in fact that Chad ran his car longer than he should have and burnt out the engine. Well that $100 fix is going to have to wait, so now we look at it proudly and dream of driving again :)

Chad won!!

I have this tradition that I don't cut the kids hair till they are 1. Chad hates this tradition. Well with my other kids they had curls and I didn't want to cut off the curls! Or on my girl well, why cut it she was a girl. This time while we were sitting around one day Chad said "please, can't i just win one, he doesn't even have curls" it doesn't help that that very evening as we were feasting on 39 cent tacos at Del Taco (gotta love that deal) the guy at the next table told Brody " eat your food so you can grow up to be a big girl". Well I thought it through and decide to give him this one. A whole month early!

Brody and I headed to Kool Cuts for Kids, where I have gotten all except one of the other kids first hair cuts. We tried a different place with Aiden...it didn't work out so back to our original plan.

He was fine.....

till she actually went after him with the cutters.

She and he both endured and he ended up with his first hair cut. At first she was going easy since I guess some moms don't like to go to short on the first cut, but I figure if I'm paying for hair cut (i cut the other boys hair) then it better look like a cut, not a trim, and it better last a while so she went shorter.

She put some gel in and spiked the front too :) now he is all grown up and he is not even one yet!

The kids loved it and so do mom and dad :). Yes the boys also need cuts...I took care of that a few days later.