Visit with Samuel

A couple weeks ago the boys and I were able to make an overnight trip to Virginia to visit some of our first Maryland friends who just moved. Samuel and Ezra played soccer together and hit it off right away. We had such a wonderful time visiting and it was hard to leave. 

The boys were so wild together. It was fun and crazy. Samuel is such a sweet boy. He has a new little brother named Elijah who I was happy to hold and snuggle when he would let me :)

They were so wiped the next afternoon that it didn't take long for them to zonk out:

As an early birthday present we finally turned Makai's carseat forward facing.
He loves it! I love that I can see him now and he and Ezra can hold hands better :)

We had a great time and are so happy to have such good friends out here. 

We just wished they lived closer!!

Our Waterbed

I found the idea for this here.

The other day we made a waterbed. I was planning on having this for Ezra's birthday party, so I wanted to make sure it worked and was fun for the kids. I planned to color the water and fill it with toys, but I was eager to just get it filled and see if it would work. We didn't end up doing it for Ezra's party since we were moved indoors due to weather, but this was certainly not the last time we'll do this activity.

After they played on it for awhile I thought it would be fun to bring out finger paints and get messy. They loved it.

I asked Makai what he was doing. I caught the end of his response in this picture, "I painting."

I think next time we'll do shaving cream or baby oil. We had a great time.

Ezra's 4th Birthday Party!

So, I have said before that I tend to make a big deal of birthdays. I can't help myself, nor do I want to. I LOVE birthdays. My mom started it and I am happy to carry on the 'overboard birthday celebration tradition' with my kids. (especially when they love birthdays and get as excited about them as Ezra does.)

We had a party for Ezra on Saturday, July 21st. It was going to be a water party in the backyard and I had been researching fun games and ideas for about a month. Well, it rained. And it was cold. So we had the party inside instead. I scurried around the day before trying to find some cool indoor games. Thankfully some of the games I had planned could be brought inside.

His party was Avenger's theme by request.

We started out making super hero masks. Some of them turned out way too cute to be made by kids. I loved seeing all the different creative ideas. I didn't take any pictures in the beginning because I was busy and not thinking about it. Thankfully a friend of mine offered to take pictures for me after lunch and I am sooo appreciative!!

Here's the Iron Man Balloon Pop:

I made a laser thingy with a push pin on it and taped it to a glove so the kids could be like iron man. Each balloon was filled with candy. It was so funny to see how the boys were wild and rough and some of the girls were so careful and slow about popping their balloon.
I am proud to say that this was all my idea and I thought it was the most fun game we played. Maybe I'm prideful?

Here's the Hulk Smash:

This idea was something I found online, but I altered to be Avenger's style. The kids punched through the hole and got their goodie bags. Originally Ezra was going to be on the other side handing them the goody bags after they punched the hole, but for times' sake we just handed it to them when they were done.

The table looks like a mess now, but we had Captain (America) Crunch, chick-fil-a chicken nuggets, jello fruit thingy, chips, fruit and veggies. Plus tons of not so inside/white carpet friendly drinks, but thankfully NO spills! I was amazed.

We played Captain America Freeze (since he was frozen). It was a stretch and I thought my water idea was way better for Captain America, but we made it work and the kids had fun dancing and freezing. (You have to notice little Rachel in the pink tutu bathing suit. She insisted that we play water games and didn't want to leave until she got wet. At least she got wet in the rain walking out to her car. I think I will try to have a water party sometime before the summer is over so I can use my ideas and make Rachel happy!)

Pin the Mask on the Hulk:

I think next time I play this I will tie one hand behind their back so they can't feel their way around. It's way funnier to see where they put it the first time they walk over to it without feeling it yet.

I got a fantastic deal on this cake because: 1. My husband works at Wal-Mart so we get a discount and 2. Someone didn't come pick up this cake and it is waaayy cooler (and expensive) than the one I ordered, so they gave it to me for the same price of the cake I ordered! I was soo excited. It didn't even bother me that the 4 and Ezra's name were all smudged from having to change the name. It is bigger and came with cooler toy toppers that are practically glued to Ezra now.

My camera died before we could get pictures of him opening presents, but he got some really awesome presents. He insisted that we take every single one out of it's package soon after his friends left and he has been playing with them ever since.

It was really so great to have so many good friends come and celebrate with our little man. Ezra was so happy that all his friends came just for him. Thank you to everyone who came and made this a special party for him and for all the help from the mom's while my head was spinning a little!

Happy 4th Birthday Ez Bez! We love you mucho and hope it's many many years before you turn 5...

Ezra is 4

Ezra turned 4 on July17th. He was counting down the days the whole week before. It has become tradition in our family to wake up to a room full of balloons the morning of your birthday. We also got him a train/lego table and a cars poster and had it all set up in his room for when he woke up. He was so excited when he came in my room to wake me up and tell me about it.

I made him colored pancakes that morning (also a tradition with the kids) and then we all got ready and headed to Six Flags for the day to celebrate our birthday boy!

Here's a little update on our new 4 year old:

He's the sweetest boy ever and only seems to get sweeter.
He's always telling me I'm beautiful and how much he loves me.
He loves video games and gets excited when we let him play.
He's really into the Avengers though he's never seen the movies.
His favorite movie is still Cars 2 and each time he watches it is like the first time to him.
He has a very awkward nervous/pity laugh and it makes me smile every time I hear it.
We took a major break from learning to read (it stressed me out) but he has slowly started to teach himself.
He loves sword fighting and getting beat up (especially by daddy).
He gets terrible bloody noses about every 1-2 weeks and usually in the middle of the night.
As sweet as he is, 4 years old has made him a little bit more sassy from time to time which makes me so sad.
He is still afraid of the wind.
He loves to dress up and can become any character instantly.
He loves playing outside and especially splashing water on people not expecting it (mostly mommy and Makai).
He still lets me snuggle him and loves when I lay my head on his chest.
He talks with his hands a lot.
He moves his eyebrows up and down while he tells you something that he's excited about.
He runs everywhere and always has.
He's my early riser.
He likes to use big words like obedient, dehydrated, and catastrophe. Though it usually ends up sounding like ta-astrophe or something similar to that.
He loves to be told stories. I started making up stories about a boy named Magic Z, but I have since been fired and daddy has been hired and crowned the best story teller. It's an extra special night if daddy gets home before bedtime.
He still naps. Some days he asks to skip nap and then will tell me around 5 or so that he really shouldn't skip nap because he's so tired.
He says "of course" in front of most responses (occasionally followed by "not").
He gets so excited when he sees I'm doing laundry because that means he can wear his Superman jammies.

He's such a joy to have in our family and I couldn't imagine my days without him.

Pictures of his party coming soon!

James' 30th Birthday!

It's soo weird that James is now 30! It just feels like that makes us much older than we feel. Thankfully he has over 4 years on me, so I can tease him. His birthday was July 2nd. He had to work, like he does every day :( I crawled out of bed while he was getting ready for work (a major sacrifice for this sleep-loving lady). I really don't think I've made breakfast for him in like 3 months since he got this promotion because it's just too early for me. But I did on his birthday!

He took one look at his eggs and said, "Gross." Then he quickly mixed them out of the '30' shape. He said it looked like a pile of turds. Awesome. At least he appreciated the poster and video I took of Ezra singing happy birthday and left on his phone that morning.

Then we went to work to meet him for lunch. I was hoping to go someplace nicer than Five Guys or McDonald's, but he had court for work, so we waited until he was available and by then he didn't have much time for lunch :( We opted for Quizno's.

Then he went back to work and the boys and I stayed behind and decorated his car:

You can't see the paint in any of the pictures I took, but this side says, "Caution, old man driving." There are 30 post-it kisses and a big happy birthday sign on his steering wheel.

Then we waited an waited and waited for him to come home from work so we could have a little party. He came home about an hour and a half later than we thought he would, so Makai didn't quite make it to the party.

There are 30 balloons each attached to one thing I love about him. He seemed to enjoy this part. We also had some decorations including light-up balloons because Mr. Tressler is slightly obsessed with LED and light up thingys. Ezra and I hid in the dark and yelled surprise when he came in, which of course Ezra loved.

His "cake". It's key lime pie because the local store had to throw out their cakes due to a power outage and this is the next best thing for James.

Then I gave him his present. I searched all day for a fish tank because he has wanted one since before we got married and even has a "secret" stash in his drawer for one. However, I never did find out and when I told him about it he told me we're just going to use that money for our family vacation in September. So I gave him my back-up gift that he has been in need of: A new pillow. He wasn't too excited about it and each morning while I'm making the bed I notice his new pillow on the floor and his old lumpy pillow in its' place.

Even though the day wasn't as successful as I had hoped, I tried at least and I think he appreciates my efforts. We did end up taking him to dinner the next time he got a day off and we went to Six Flags and called it part of his birthday too :)

Here's proof that he will always be young at heart:

This is at six flags in the big ball room. James had way more fun than the kids. I had to tell him we were ready to go about 3 times before he finally came with us. haha. 

While he can be very serious, he doesn't ever take himself too seriously.
 And yes, James, to answer your question, of course I'd still love you if you looked like this!

Love that "old" man of mine!

4th of July

Our 4th of July started out hopeful with daddy off work for the day, but he was sadly and abruptly called into work right when he woke up, even though he had worked all day and night the day before and didn't get home until 5 that morning :(

So sad, but we tried to not let it get us down. We went to a children's celebration at the mall where we were able to listen to a live children's musician and the kids got their faces painted!

Makai's had already smeared quite a bit by the time we made it out of the mall and to the car where my camera was, but he's still the cutest Tiger I've ever seen.

Ezra requested a pirate and LOVED it. People kept commenting on it and he said,  "Mom, everyone just loves my face! Can you believe it?" He was so sad when it faded and when we finally washed it off.

After naps we had a barbeque thanks to my Father-in-law and then the kids and I headed to the parade. It wasn't nearly as cool as Rexburg's small town parade, and it was sooo hot, but the kids loved it just the same.

Post nap and sweat smudge. I finally wiped it off while waiting for  our political parade, I mean 4th of July parade..

Ezra is such a great brother

Then we went to the fireworks. I sat behind a larger sort of head and couldn't even move around to see much, but the kids loved it and it hardly took us any time to get out of there, so that was a major plus!

The 4th of July is such a fun holiday!

One Big Update

Well, it's been awhile. We got kind of busy, so my blog suffered. I'm going to try to play a lazy version on catch up. The last post was about us being sick. That lasted for quite awhile. Poor little Makai even had to do breathing treatments. It was the cutest, saddest little thing.

He hated having it strapped on

once we realized he would hold it and keep it on his mouth, he was much happier to do the treatments

While we were all trying to recover from whatever sickness we had, the boys and I took a trip to New Hampshire to visit my family for a week. Flying with two toddlers in not fun especially because I always get such miserable motion sickness. However, there was about 5 minutes when my boys were angels and I found them like this:

I was tearing up seeing them snuggling like this.

 Ezra and Makai loved spending time with their cousins Tyler and Lily. 

Lily and Ezra riding the jeep. 

Makai LOVED this thing. I loved watching him ride away and crash into things. He didn't seem to get that you push the button AND steer :0) 

Tyler and Makai. He was so good about holding on to him.

I let Lily paint my nails :)

Then my mom, the boys and I travelled to Utah to spend some time with my sister and two nephews while her husband has been away at Basic Training for the Army. We surprised her which was received well, but really isn't a nice thing to do to someone. Thankfully she's just my sis, so it didn't matter. We had fun letting all our boys run around screaming and playing. It was really nice to see her and hopefully distract her for a little bit.

Chase, Ezra, Kyler, Makai

ring around the rosie before our photo shoot

Chase and Ezra at the airport saying good-bye

We got home the day before Father's Day, which James actually had off some how. (He has been working sooo much and as long as 26 hour days. No less than 15 hours days and goes in on almost all his days off :( We miss him.) We made him a "World's Best Dad" shirt with little hand prints and all. I love the traditional Father's Day gifts. Maybe next year we'll make him one of those horribly embarrassing ties. We also gave him a "handy-man-for-dummies" sort of book because that seemed like a traditional gift too and... well, he may need it.

Then I had a week to get ready for girls' camp. I am in the Young Women presidency at church and was also given the calling of Camp Director, so there was much to be done. I was terrified to leave my boys for a whole week. I had never left them. I was away from Ezra one night when I had Makai and it was so emotional for me, so I was really nervous. I may have cried while driving to meet their babysitter the day I left. I cried buckling them in their seats. I cried again kissing them good-bye. Then I really cried when they drove away waving. I called them the first night and just lost it. I'm a baby when it comes to my babies. I got better the rest of the week because it got busier and I didn't have much time to feel homesick. Plus I knew they were in good hands. 

Girls camp was an adventure. It's certainly a sacrifice to be there, but it was enjoyable too. I may have let loose a little on the last day and there is a possibility I won't be invited back to camp ever again :) JK. Though the girls really will never see me the same, I'm sure. It rained on us the last two nights and we honestly believe that lightning struck ground just outside our tents. It was really terrifying, but we all survived it!

Now we're home doing birthdays and summery things, so stay tuned for more updates.