"Celebration of the Mama's and the Papa's!"

Last week at Ryan's preschool they had the "Celebration of the Mama's and the Papa's!" It was a chance for the parents to come and visit with the kids and their teachers, enjoy some entertainment and participate in some as well, and see what they children were taught about Easter. It was a lot of fun!

Ryan was so excited to show us all of the rainforest decorations they had used, and they were amazing!!!

Ryan and Daddy!
Ryan and Mommy! One of the things we got to do was dance to a song that followed a book about animals in the rainforest! Ryan definitely got his Daddy's rhythm, NONE!!! Haha!

The children all did a Butterfly Dane which was fun to watch and taught us about the Life Cycle of a Butterfly!Before our snack, they taught us the lesson that the kids had learned about Easter. Since this is a Christian school, it was based upon the meaning of Easter, the Resurrection of our Savior! On each table was a GIANT egg hidden which contained an object that related to the Easter story. Ryan found the one at our table and took it up to the teachers. It had in it a white cloth, like the one that covered Jesus when he was buried in the tomb! He was very excited!

After our snack, we headed outside for the kids to find some smaller Easter eggs! Ryan had a great time hunting...

and an even better time finding out what was inside!He and his buddies had to compare of course!

We had a great time with him at school celebrating Easter and families!!!

FHE!!!

We try our hardest to reserve Monday night for Family Home Evening in our household. However, it is difficult to get the boys to sit for longer than 5 minutes for a lesson and activities, so we often do our quick lesson and look elsewhere for an activity we can do together. We have been loving this warm, spring weather and decided to go for a bike ride this week for FHE! The boys LOVED it!

After our bike ride, we ate dinner at a little taco stand in town right by where we got on and off the trail through town. It was an interesting experience, and different than most Mexican food I've tasted before. I was told though that it's more authentic, so I probably wouldn't fare well in Mexico! I love my little family and all of the time we get to share together!!!

Cabin with the Callaway Crew!!!

This past weekend the boys and I headed up to the mountains for some fun at the cabin with the Callaway crew! Unfortunately, Justin had already agreed to do a fundraiser with his boy scouts, so he was unable to come and we really missed him!

Just to give you an idea of how much snow is still there!

Completely above the cars and burying the first story of the cabin!
The first day there, Ryan was relentless in asking to play in the snow. Without Justin there, I had to follow Ryan while carrying Austin with an already sore back while I fell knee deep in the snow with every step I took. It was exhausting, but a lot of fun! Here we are on a snowbank on top of the river behind the cabin. Not very safe, so we quickly got off and back onto safer ground!

On Friday night Trevor worked hard digging this tunnel through the snow. And good thing, the kids had a BLAST sliding down and climbing through it for the next two days! Ryan loved it!

Ryan and Addie! Ryan and Sydney with the snowball making machine!

The first day Austin wasn't too sure about the snow and felt uneasy, thus making me carry him as I mentioned earlier!

After a little more practice, he became more comfortable and was walking himself around in the snow by day two! Thank goodness! My back couldn't take much more!

My two little snow angels!!!

Making snowballs!

On day two we headed over to the big snow hill with everyone! The boys were so excited to go sledding, but had to figure out how to make it up the hill and were looking for the easiest ways possible!

Ryan started pulling Austin, but quickly gave up! Soon after this, he had his older cousins pulling him up the hill! They LOVED sledding together and would giggle the whole way down!!!

Ashley decided to join in the fun and rode down with the boys! It was really funny!

Austin started getting cold and wet, so I walked him back to hang out with Papa and Nana while Ryan stayed out at the sledding hill. He found some new sledding partners and had a lot more fun!

Ryan and Addie with a big push from AJ!!! We had such a great time out in the snow throughout the weekend and enjoyed ourselves inside as well warming up after the outside fun! We ate a TON of food, visited, and played games!

We had such a great time and want to thank all of those who made it possible for us to go to the cabin! I explained to Ryan and Austin how lucky we are to be able to do these kinds of things and go these fun places! We truly are, and I hope that they learn to appreciate it as much as I do!

Silly Saturday!

This weekend we spent a lot of time outside in the beautiful, sunny weather. Well, most of our time was spent organizing the garage, but the boys had fun playing outside, making friends, and being silly! Ryan convinced Justin to tie the wagon to his bike so he could pull Austin around. Since his bike nearly fell over once Austin was in the wagon, we switched to the tricycle. They had a great time driving around the neighborhood!

As dinner was ready, they rode home and Austin decided to jump out while the wagon was moving and run through the neighbor's sprinklers. They ended up soaked, cranky, and tired, but had a fun day!!!

Austin's 2...

and we can't believe it! He's getting so big and can tell us what he wants, and even better, what to do! He's learning how to do new things and new words everyday! We had such a fun day celebrating with him!

The Birthday Boy all ready to party!

Ryan and Austin sporting the Thomas the Tank Engine party hats!

Those in attendance! Yes, this is 6 boys ages 2 to 4! Lots of loud fun as you can imagine! I counted, and had everyone been able to come that we invited, we would have had 11 boys, 2 girls, and one infant! That's a lot of boys!
We started off the fun with a BBQ and some outdoor fun in the mud!

Austin LOVED the strawberries to say the least! We later headed inside for presents! It started pretty calm with everyone watching...

...but soon turned into this! Everyone wanted all of the toys opened right then! It was chaotic, but definitely fun!

After a Birthday song...

...we enjoyed our cupcakes!!!

And last but certainly not least... THE PINATA!!! We laid out all of the rules and everyone followed pretty well and waited patiently for their turn!

Birthday Boy first! Payton Brody Oliver Ryan Elliott Each child got two turns, but no broken pinata! It took a Mommy to get it open so they could get the candy!

After the Birthday guests left, we got to hang out more with our family who traveled to celebrate with us!

Great Grandpa and Great Grandma Callaway with the boys!

Auntie Aubrey with the Birthday Boy!Nana and Papa with the boys, and their new trains!They loved spending the rest of the evening playing with all of Austin's new toys, and played really well together! Thank you to all who came, called, or sent notes to Austin to make his day a special one! We love you all, and especially love our Birthday Boy!