Peter's Birthday!

My husband is such a wonderful friend to me, a great husband and a terrific father.  We were excited to celebrate him on his birthday.  He requested a roast beef dinner and mint brownies so that's what I gave him.  Makes me hungry just thinking about it :-)

He didn't end up finding his birthday present until later in the summer (a new grill!) but he eventually did find one he liked and was able to purchase it with the help of his parents and sister too.

already enjoyed yummy steaks on his new toy :-)  His old one that we had found at a garage sale about 10 years ago finally bit the dust!

Happy Birthday Peter, you are soo loved by so many people.

Weekend visit from Poppy & GongGong!!

We have had to cancel a few family get togethers over the winter and spring because of sicknesses (GongGong's appendix, our flu, strep, etc) but we were finally able to have a weekend visit from some of our favorites!!

It also happened to be that we had our sweet friend Ruby over for the weekend while her Mommy (Anna) was having her two sisters in the hospital (welcome Hazel and Violet!!).  She's like a part of our family, was as good as gold the whole time, and was quickly adopted as a new love of Poppy and GongGong.  We ate yummy food, caught up on life, hiked McDowell falls and had a great time.  As always, it is too short, but we love that we live within driving distance of so much of our family.

1st school Valentine's Day

It came as no surprise that I totally dropped the ball when it came to making Valentine's for Benjamin's classmates.  I'm still getting used to the whole school idea and often forget that Ben goes to preschool two afternoons a week.

So I did a quick Pinterest search using the candy we had on hand (smarties) and found an idea we could do quickly in the morning before it was time for school.

And in true Benjamin fashion he lost interest after about 10 minutes but I made him perservere and they turned out pretty cute.  He wrote out all the names and was excited to pass them out.  Granted, when I have 3 boys in school I will most definitely be buying Valentine's from Walmart because ain't nobody got time for all that crafting, but it was a fun project with my first boy!  I still can't believe he's old enough to start the classroom holiday craziness!!

Benjamin is 5!!

I have a love/hate relationship with my boys growing up.  Each stage is really fun, but I also know that my time with them is fleeting and I just want it to slow down!!

This year Benjamin turned 5 and he was so excited.  He decided that he wanted a Lego Ninjago cake and we found a picture on google that looked like the one he wanted.  I had to get creative because he wanted all the ninjas and legos.  So this is what we came up with....

I had to make the ninjas and legos before we went to GWL so I had just taken them out of the freezer.  I used part of the cake scraps from Jonah's cake to make the cake ball Lego ninjas with melted candy melts.  I used miniature hershey bars dipped in melted candy melts to make the legos and put mini M&M's on top.  Nothing too fancy but Benjamin liked it so that's what I was aiming for :-)

For his party we decided to have a joint event again with his best friend Micah who shares a birthday with him.  They had a party at our church where they all made their own pizzas.  Of course, everyone loved this idea and it was fun to watch them create their culinary masterpieces.  The fact that we got to enjoy a pizza too didn't hurt!  They played a few games and I think they really enjoyed just running around and being crazy kiddos.

On his actual birthday we had his favorite people, Auntie Amanda and Nana over for dinner and ice cream sundaes.  They of course spoiled him with perfect gifts as always and it was a fun night.  We are so blessed that so many friends and family love our little guy, it is a gift I hope he will learn to treasure!

Benjamin, you have grown so much this past year and we love you like crazy.  Happy Birthday our sweet Benny Ben!!!!

Great Wolf Lodge

Peter and I are realizing that often times when it comes to Christmas gifts, it gets harder to find budget appropriate gifts for everyone that won't be forgotten 5 minutes later.  So we've been working really hard to come up with ideas that make more memories and quality time together versus the latest greatest toy.

So for our best friends this year, we decided to gift them a trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  We found an amazing deal and even convinced them to let us invite ourselves along too!  Even though no one in either of our families had been before, the kids were SO excited.

Since Ethan was so young, my sister so graciously offered to watch him for the 2 days while we were gone.  I knew he was going to be spoiled and loved on and that allowed me to enjoy a few days with my oldest boys and our friends.

We took off on Thursday morning at the end of January (the kids had been counting down the days since Christmas!!) and got to the Lodge right after lunch.  We arrived just after they allow you to check in and once we got settled in our rooms quickly, we headed down to the water area.  The kids' eyes were huge as they took it all in.

We swam and swam, ate dinner in the hotel room, played their Magic Quest game, watched their storytime and all went to bed happy but tired.  The next morning we enjoyed a breakfast we had brought and headed down for more swimming.  Benjamin and Jonah went down this purple slide about 100 times, they were having so much fun.  The adults took turns going on the bigger water slides which were really fun.  We really only stopped to eat our packed lunch and we finally headed out that evening after ordering a few pizzas.  We got home really late that night but the boys fell asleep in the car on the ride back and I was more than delighted to come home to Ethan.  We sure were tired though and spent a good part of the next day (Saturday) just resting.

We all had a blast though and really want to go again.  The boys ask about once a week if we are going to Great Wolf Lodge.  Apparently they have no concept of budgets, but we are glad that they had fun.  Love living life with our friends!

I think they had ice cream 3 times??   #roughlife

Same time next year???  :-)