Happy Birthday TJ

TJ might just be one of the sweetest little boys ever!! And he will be five tomorrow - so in his honor we went to the movies and PPP the other night. I love that these boys have such a great time with each other. They have built-in buddies with their cousins and that is a precious gift! TJ is definitely the heart of this crew. He is kind and tenderhearted and has the best imagination. I love that he is so even keel and considerate to others. He brings a "calm" to any situation. Happy Birthday - WE LOVE YOU, Teej!!!

Buddies at the movie together

The sweetest of friends - Logey and Parker

Future buddies :) eating their cupcakes - Hubey was all about the "please" for chocolate frosting - seriously though - when Aunt Lissa bakes . . . delish!

Watching TJ blow out candles and open gifts - sorry Uncle Marky - the phone camera cut your head off - operator error

And Pregnant Batman made an appearance at the party - AWESOME - leave a comment if you want me to message you the info to have this awesome character make an appearance at your next event :)

My sweet "Momma's" boys

We saw Toy Story 3 last night. They were both excited to see the movie but Parker was excited on a huge level. He wanted to wear his Toy Story 3 shirt (from Grammie) and bring his Buzz and Woody to the theater - so cute! He propped Woody up next to him in the theater chair so he could "see" too! Parker thought it was super fun which is evidenced by the fact that he needed no candy to sit through the two hour film - perfectly content to sit and watch when it is his favorite characters.

When the movie was over, I looked down next to me and asked the boys how they liked it. (Davis was sitting next to Eli). Davis just looks really concerned and says, "ummmmm . . . so . . . when Andy is going to college does that mean he leaves his house during the day and then he doesn't ever come home at night?? Is he leaving his mom and never coming home????" (as if I wasn't having a hard enough time containing the lump in my throat while watching the end of the movie!) Then Eli adds, in an equally concerned tone, "Yeah AND my mom said everyone HAS to go to college and if you don't go to college then you go to jail . . it is the LAW". And now I'm just cracking up :) Such sweet boys - love their mommas - which is a-okay with me!! In the car, all the way to PPP, we talked about how he didn't have to go to college for "4,267 days" and he was "going to college where you still sleep in the same house as your mom and dad". Fine with me buddy!

Later that night Mark asked both the boys what they thought of the movie:

Parker: It was super AWESOME!!

Davis: It was kind of sad, Dad. But also good.

That about sums it up for them :)

All of this on the tail of the fact that I got Davis' meet the teacher papers and school calendar in the mail a couple of days ago. Meet the teach is August 5th and school starts on the 10th!!! Where did the last 5 1/2 years go?!?!? Gulp!! I hope I'm ready to look like a strong, happy, confident mommy in just a month - start praying for me now. At least I know that Davis isn't looking to jump ship anytime soon - whew :)

Happy Birthday to Mark (a month ago:)

Here's the deal - Mark loves celebrating his birthday and it is important to him = NO Pressure (yeah right!). I am always worried that he won't feel celebrated enough and try to plan something fun. It is our tradition to have the kids spend the night with my mom and then to do something just the two of us. It is one of the only nights/year that we do something like this and it is ends up being a gift for both of us!! This year I found a new hotel outside of Tucson that had summer specials - booked it - but then they called to confirm the reservation when I wasn't home and Mark said "too much money" - he didn't need a fancy hotel to have a nice, quiet time together. I found another, even better, summer deal in town and we had a great time. It is so nice to know that you have almost 24 hours to only think about each other and not worry about what the kids need or what time you need to be back to pick them up. Don't get me wrong - I love my kids and I am always excited to see them when we pick them up - but it is so nice to just be a "couple" for a few hours.

We ate dinner - slowly - we have to remember that we don't have to inhale our food :), then walked around as long as we felt like it and then rented a movie in our room because it didn't matter if we stayed up late because we could wake up whenever we felt like it. We are early risers so we were still up pretty early - but that meant we could hang out on our little porch and relax before getting bfast at the hotel. Ahhhhhhhhh

Eating breakfast together

Reading outside on the porch in the morning - after getting up whenever we felt like it!! This is also the look of "why are you taking my picture" . . so I can blog about this, Silly :)

The look of relaxation :)

The pretty view right outside of our porch - Davis asked me to take pictures so he could see what the hotel looked like :)

Father's Day

The boys were excited to give Daddy their presents - two new D-backs shirts and tickets to go to a b ball game in San Diego.

Grayson is more interested in his "Happy Father's Day Bosa donut" than taking a picture with Dad!

Father's Day was pretty simple around here because we had just gotten home from vacation the night before. Both of the big boys knew it was Father's Day and were excited. Parker wanted to know when it was time "for the party". He is always ready for a good time. The boys all love their Daddy very much. I made something for Mark's office and each of the boys was telling me things about Daddy. Parker said that Daddy's very favorite thing to do is "to love me". I'm so glad that my sweet boys have a Daddy who loves them very much.

Recent Happenings . . .

I've been terrible about blogging the day-to-day lately - which is sad because those are always my favorite posts when I read back - here are some random musings . . .

- It is most common for me to go in to get Grayson out of his bed and find him disheveled. No pants and an arm through the head hole is a good day. Some days he is so twisted up in his shirt I can't see his face or he has managed to also take off his diaper . . NOT good! Cracks me up with the strip down.

- Grayson knows a ton of animal sounds and surprises me with how many random animals he can identify, but the sheep sound is his favorite and if he is not feeling it - every animal you ask him says "Baaa".

- Parker plays lots of different imaginary games. Right now he names lots of different characters based on Super Mario Brothers names. A knight with a green shirt will always be "Luigi" or a super hero bad guy with a red cape will be "Mario". He will also randomly decide that we all have SMB names. He did this one day with the girls down on the beach in Atlantis. I think Elisabeth was Luigi, Kendra was Mario and he was Peach. He would call them by that name and insist that they called him "peach". Funny boy.

- We were walking into Chick-fil-a the other day and Davis yells, "Oh wow, look at that, the cow is wearing a fire hat, usually he is just standing there with a chicken sign". That, my friends, is how you know that you go to CFA too often - when your child notices changes in the decor. The people at the counter thought it was hilarious.

- Grayson doesn't have tons of words that anyone other than me can understand - but sometimes he will drop something new like he has always said (probably been saying it in his head for a long time:) On the beach I said, time to get out of the water and he yells with a huge smile "Nooo Waaay". And then I crack up. This is the tragedy of parenting as right now this is hilarious to me and soon I will remember that him replying "no way" is unacceptable :) As for now - still funny when he drops that one.

- My kids had a yucky cold in Atlantis (cold in the summer??) Anyway, one morning Parker's nose was going crazy and he told me, "I have SO MANY bless you's in here that won't come out of my nose!!" (sneezes - so cute)

Atlantis Family Trip 2010

In the ocean together on the Catamaran day

walking to the pool

Playing in the pool

on the boat

Best buddies and I love watching them play together - they could disappear together on the beach and be happy as clams!

Parker LOVES himself some Elisabeth

Attempt at a family picture

Mark and I on family "fun" day - right after Melissa and I crushed in the water bikes

the amazing aquariums

Parker and Mark after swimming with dolphins

Some highlights from our trip to Atlantis this year. We had even more fun this year than last. I think the biggest difference was the boys were a year older making everything easier - airplane travel, sleeping arrangements, ect. They were also able to enjoy so many more things and look forward to the things that they remembered from last year.

The beach is always the highlight for me. I LOVE the catamaran day. It is my absolute favorite and it was made even better this year because of this amazing, private beach where they docked. All three boys love the ocean and have become great swimmers so it is so much fun for me to be in the ocean with them. Clear, beautiful water, soft sand, no crowds, riding out on a sail boat, cool fish and coral, boys enjoying God's creation and their cousins = it does not get any better to me!! Matt and I swam down the beach and raced back on the sand . . . I lost . . badly :( I also loved that we could throw on suits and go down to the pools whenever we had a block of time.

Parker said his favorite thing about the trip were the dolphins and sea lions "giving them kisses and hugs and fishies" (kind of surprised) he didn't seem that into when we were out there. He also said his favorite was playing with Logan and sleeping (?? again). I will inject that he really loved Elisabeth and Kendra and still talks about them everyday. He also loved the kids pool and swimming anywhere I would take him - including the ocean - head down swimming - he loves it!

Davis said his favorite was swimming in the pools, getting to go on the big water slide (one of the guys let him go down one time even though he didn't meet the height requirement - yikes - but excited for him), being on the boat (catamaran), the beach and playing with his cousins. I think that about covers the whole trip!

Grayson also had a great time. He didn't love the sand (guess the progress from last summer wore off in the winter - have to work on that) but he LOVES the water - pool or ocean. He is becoming quite the little fish. He also was sick on and off on this trip - but trooped along everywhere and still slept great at night - Hooray! He was pretty smitten with Miss Kendra also :)

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess what my husband liked . . . he loves himself a good meal at a restaurant and that gets even better for him if we can go out and enjoy that without the chaos of eating with the boys. We ate some great meals this week, and thanks to Kendra, Elisabeth and Miranda, we were able to spend several nights "on a date". Sadly, he doesn't love the beach. The Caribbean ocean is completely lost on him - SO SAD! But he does like the water slides. They have some pretty fun slides at this resort. I think he also likes the lazy river. It is a super fun thing to do with the boys.

This trip is such a blessing. Beside getting to enjoy some of God's most amazing creation (nothing like doing your Bible study starring at the ocean), I get to watch my family build great relationships with each other and this is priceless to me. Nicci was able to come with us this year and it wouldn't have been the same without her. Our family is a precious gift of God to me and being somewhere where we can enjoy so many things together is amazing. I laughed with my siblings and cousins harder on this trip than I can remember in a long time! Good, good times.