Sunday, April 22, 2012

Easter Egg Hunt, Easter, and Bowling....Quite the Busy Week!








 
My mama and I

 
Take a kid bowling and he plays on the ball chute...oh yeah!

Mohawk time for Uncle Joe

 
Easter Egg, Easter Egg...where are you!


 
Eli got ahold of my camera...I cracked up with I flipped through my pictures and found this one!

Spring Break Excitement

Eli tested for his yellow belt..he was very excited to pass his test!


 Gotta love the Children's Garden!

 Eli "walking" the dog.

 Can you find the fish?

 Jace lovin on his cousin Kennedy.

 Love this picture!!

  Downtown boot tour

 My boys love statues!


We had a blast during Spring Break!  Nana and Papa arrived (the boys were insanely crazy with excitement).  Eli had to know what states Papa drove through to get to Wyoming.  He can still recite all the states too (funny thing is that Papa left our Arkansas, so Eli had to rework his order of states).  A couple of days later, Uncle Joe drove out...another wild crazy excitement for the boys!  A few days later, Uncle Mike and Kennedy came to visit.  We had a blast with everyone!!

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Camping in Texas







Before kids, Rob and I used to participate in spur of the moment adventures. When I asked Rob what he wanted to do for his birthday, I wasn't surprised when he came up with taking our first camping trip of the 2012 season.  It was his responsibility to come up with someplace to go....so he looked on the computer to see where the first place was that averaged 80 degrees or higher!  We really didn't have any other reason to go to Lubbock, Texas except to get away from the wind of Wyoming.

The boys were in heaven as the playground was right across from our camp site (kudos for Rob for setting this up!).  We could enjoy our camp site while the boys played and played.  Needless to say, the boys were exhausted each night.  Eli loves to make new friends wherever he goes...there wasn't a short fall of kids to hang out with.  There was even a gun "fight" a time or two.  One of the greatest events took place in the pool.  Eli is NOT a fan of the water, however, he was the last one to get out of the pool....I actually had to beg him to get out!  YEAH, Eli!!!

Eli gets so excited to put a sticker on the states that we have camped at.  You see, on our camper, we have a map of the United States.  We were able to add Texas and New Mexico on this camping trip.  He was hoping to put Oklahoma on the map as well but we didn't spend the night there.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Karate and Valentine's Day



Eli is offically taking karate lessons.  It is so crazy to seem him shy and intimidated...believe it or not, karate lessons are a struggle for him.  He tends to be very nervous.  We are hoping in time, it will boost his confidence!  Over the past month, he has gotten better.  At the beginning of each class, they have to do warm-up exercises.  They usually run in a circle, stop when the music stops, and then do an exercise.  It takes everything for him to run....yes, you did just read that.  My little kiddo that can't stop running just stands there.  This past week, he actually ran with his class....all of the parents cheered for him!  I was doing a little happy dance of my own.

Call me a kid, but I used to love picking out valentines as much as selecting a new lunchbox!  So, I always have to make a big deal about having the kids select valentines.  Jace had to have the Super Hero box which included Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, and Iron Man.  Eli knew immediately that he wanted the Star Wars valentines.  So, a week later we opened the cards to have Eli write on them for his kindergarten friends only to find out there wasn't enough space for him to write on (it was a sucker valentine wrapped in plastic).  So, scornfully, I had him use the label maker to write his "to" and "froms."  Now, being a teacher, I figured I would take a little heat for not having him "write" his own names on his card.....at least he helped type the names into the label maker...haha!!!
Last year, we started a tradition of getting the boys costumes instead of candy for Valentines Day.  Green Lantern has been the "it' movie around our house...so they both got costumes from Green Lantern. 

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Happy 10th Anniversary!!

My sweety and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on Feb. 16th.  WOW!  What a wild ten years it has been.  We have visited 18 states (lived in 3), lived in 10 houses, and been to China twice.  I think I have worked in 6 different schools. 

To celebrate our anniversary, Rob had a beautiful piece of glass art made for us.  It has our wedding date on the upper section, then on the sides, it has the boys names and the year we became a forever family.  It is simply gorgeous!!  The picture definately doesn't do the artwork justice.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Family Time During the Holidays

Justin and his little bros

Jesse....the new Thor!

It has been quite some time that Rob has had his kids "home" for Christmas!

Mr and Mrs. Jesse Swanson

The boys LOVE Jesse!

Captian America

Amanda trying out being a Mountain Girl

One of the worst muesum....at least we had a cute photo session.

The gang sledding...the high elevation (9,000) can wind anyone out!

Amanda giving Jace some lovies...they hit quite  few bumps on the way down the hill.  Jace was not impressed!
We were very excited to have Justin, Amanda, and Jesse here for Christmas.  Amanda and Jesse flew in on Christmas night to stay with us for nine days.  We had so much fun hanging out, sledding, going to the Denver Zoo, sledding, and a day of museums.  Jesse had the boys rapped around his finger as he loves super hereos and guns.

Christmas Fun

Jace insisted on wearing "eye"protection while making Christmas cookies!

Eli the big guy....ready for the cookies to come out of the oven.

Eli with his decorated hand.

Jace with his decorated hand.


Family Picture

I am Thor!

Guns...Guns...Guns!!!