Thirty-Six.

Well, finally, Matt is the same age as me again. He does like to point out whenever I get carded, that I am older than him. But now he caught up with me and has to wait 6 more months to point that out again. :)
We went to Benihana for his birthday, as it is one of our and the kids favorite places to eat. Benihana tip: If you sign up for the Chefs Table (free) you get a $30.00 gift card to use the month of your birthday. And kids 12 and under who sign up, get a really cool Benihana mug on their birthday. and they are all different designs and the kids love them. Adam has a plan to collect all of them.

And then there is the cake. Ohhhhh the cake. My parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and our friends came over Saturday night for dinner for Matty's birthday, so I ordered a cake. Not just any cake. a BATMAN cake. Why Batman? Because they were out of golf. So, logically, Batman is the next choice. And it was a cool cake. So I order the cake and agree to come pick it up Saturday morning. Saturday morning arrives and I go to pick up the cake. I walk into the grocery store and I notice that there is plastic covering everything. I walked back to the bakery and told them my name, and they said... "oh... well, our power was out yesterday and just literally came back on today, and we were unable to make your cake you ordered". When I asked why they didn't call, they said "well, our power was out". That must mean all cell phones would not work in stores with no power, obviously. So they give me a replacement cake. That was yellow, purple and had "Happy Birthday Matt" written in every different color frosting, inlcuding pink, and it was totally a girl cake. They tried to soften the deal by telling me they were going to give me $10.00 off. I was annoyed, but there are more things in life to worry about then a cake, so I took the girl cake home.

And it sat on the counter, where none of us remembered it was there until the next day, where we took it to bowling to share with everyone there. So I am sad Matty did not get a cake, however, he did get Creme Brulee when his parents took us out for dinner, so that made up for it. :)

Happy Birthday to the love of my life! ♥♥♥

Sping is Here!

Adam wasn't quite ready last year for the training wheels to come off, but this year, he wanted to try again. Matt took them off and spent an afternoon teaching Adam how to balance, start and stop and after a few trials up and down the driveway with Grandpa and Dad, he is now riding up and down the sidewalk, turning, and stopping like a pro!
Hallie has also figured out how to ride her big girl bike, and is doing pretty good. She stops suddenly for no reason and it takes her a bit of time to get going again, so we are working on that.
But it is so nice to see them out having fun and riding bikes. It also reminds us how fast they are growing up!

From Bike Videos

From Bike Videos

We also took advantage of the recent warm weather and went to the park. It's a nice big new one, and had playground equipment that has been updated since we were kids. Gone are the days of the steel teeter-totter where you could jump off and about break the jaw or tail bone of the person on the other side. And Merry-Go-Rounds? Not the old kind where you can literally fall off if you aren't holding on. These are all plastic, safe, and made to ensure children's safety. While I am glad the kids are safe, it makes me a little nostalgic for our old park days. We all turned out ok. And you haven't experienced a slide until you go down a steel one on a hot summer day. ;)

Easter Crafts

We had a fun family night doing Easter crafts and making chicks and eggs :) We used our hands as templates for the "wings" of the chicks and then added our own fun to each of them. Hallie is getting the hang of using kid scissors, so she had a lot of practice cutting things out for all of us.

Here are the finished products: My chick has a bow, and hair, because she is cute like that. Hallie added a cross for Jesus on her chick. Matt and Adam added feathers. Adam's chick also has a baby duck that is what the "dace" spells. He's getting there :)

Easter Egg Time!

I think that the dye that we use to have when we were kids was SO much better than the lame dye that is sold today. I bought a ton of different packages last year on clearance for $.25 each, so we had a lot of fun decorations to use on our eggs. We had roller pain, glitter, tye-dye, stickers, and embellishments for our eggs. I put 6 colors with vinegar, and 6 colors with lemo juice to try to brighten up the colors. I find just using water the colors don't turn well and the tablets never fully dissolve. The vinegar seems the best, but I still miss those Easter Bunny dye kits we had in the 80's. I searched the internet high and low, and could not find them.


Regardless, we had a blast with all of our different things to use, and Adam loved the roller brush. Hallie tried it and promptly dropped the roller brush on the floor, instead of on the newspaper covered table, so we had her switch to a different station, which did not go over well. She is in the phase where whatever Adam does, she wants to do. So we had Adam do a egg with the tye dye and sure enough Hallie switched to that, and all was well in egg dying land once more :) Matt made me a very special egg, he spent a lot of time making it perfect, and in my opinion, it's the best egg ever made.

Glow in the Dark Putt Putt

I took Adam and one of his buddies to play putt putt one afternoon, and we had a blast. The entire place is glow in the dark, and the boys had a blast showing each other their teeth, their socks, and anything else that they could find to glow. The holes are all pretty fun and set up well to capture the attention of kids. It takes about an hour to get through, which is the perfect amount of time to keep their attention span.


After our adventure in putt putt, we went to lunch where they boys decided they wanted to go to Mexican, and when we got there, both boys promptly ordered hamburgers and french fries.....I asked them why they wanted Mexican, if they were eating burgers and fries, and they said "for the chips and salsa"! Well then, there you go. To finish off our adventure, we went to the park for a long time, and finished off with ice cream cones. It was a fun day, and the boys had a blast.

Adam Turns 6

I can't beleive that Adam is 6. I swear we were just celebrating his 4th birthday. It's surreal that he is suddenly 6 years old, losing teeth, learning to read and spell, and growing into such an amazing boy. We couldn't be more proud of what a great kid he his. He is such a loving, sweet, smart and genuine kid.
Sadly, he is outgrowing his love for anything Thomas the Train related, though he did tell us to "keep them just in case". He was asking for anything related to turtles, lizards, nerf guns, movies, lego's, or anything with a remote. He got his wish! His friends were very generous in the gift giving department and he was amazed at all his fun new toys. We made sure to sit down right away and do thank you cards, and Adam did a great job. He is just learning to write, so he was able to write "Thank you, Adam" and draw everyone a nice picture.
We planned a very fun birthday party for him at the jumping place, and invited all his friends. It was so much fun! All of Matt's college buddies and their families were there, and I think the grown men had more fun than the kids. I do remember one of them declaring "this is the best birthday party EVER"! LOL It was so much fun watching them all have so much fun. I was busy trying to take as many pictures as I could, and used up two memory cards! I think I need to relax on the picture front a little bit LOL. We have a great group of friends, and are so lucky to have had them celebrate such a fun event with us. Our friend Heather made Adam turtle cupcakes, which everyone declared the best cupcakes they have ever eaten, so they were a big hit.
Sadly, little Hallie was so sick, so she couldn't come. She had been battling a cold for over a week, and woke up with a fever, and was run down. We brought her so we could get a picture of her and the kids and Dad's, but she had to leave with Grammy and Grandpa. Poor girl got sick later that night and was sick allll night long. We are bummed she missed out, but promised to take her there another time to make up for it.

Later that night we had our families over, and Adam got to have another celebration, complete with a bug cake, and a few more presents. Happy Birthday to our big boy 6 year old, we love you so very, very much!!

Don't Forget to Brush!

Just some funny pictures I was taking with my new Nikon Camera (thanks Jarrad). Happend to catch the kids getting ready for bed. Hallie no longer eats the toothpaste, so we are doing good with brushing, and she only needs a little help from Daddy now. :)