Itty Bitty Sports

(Blurry soccer picture)

Preston just finished his first round of Itty Bitty Sports.

The first week was soccer.

The second week was football.

The third week was basketball.

Unfortunately illness hit our family again. Preston made it through week one just fine. And he loved the first day of football. After that either he or I was too sick to go. So he missed the rest of the series. I feel bad. I think he really would have liked basketball. I looked into signing him up again in the summer, but our schedule won't accommodate any of the sessions. He will just have to wait until fall.

Poor neglected second child.

As a side note: Nolan LOVED going to sports. He wanted to be right in the action with the big kids. I spent most of the time keeping him out of every one's way.

It's That Time of Year . . . .

The time of year when men and boys start wearing socks and sandals.

Wordless Wednesday

Mean Green Machines

Another soccer season has come to an end.
Tyson is getting better each year.

I am looking forward to the fall season all ready.

A Visit With Lisa and Family

One of the highlights of Tyson's birthday each year is the chance he gets to hang out with Lisa, his birth mom. This year we planned to meet at a park for a picnic dinner. Thanks to rain, we moved our little gathering indoors. We had a house full of Tyson's birth family. Lisa brought husband and three kids, her parents and her little sister. It was a lively group. We ate and visited while the kids ran amuck, screaming, giggling, wrestling, playing basketball, laughing, etc.

It was priceless.

One highlight of the evening was the cake. Lisa's sister made Tyson a one-of-a-kind Wild Kratts cake. It was awesome!

The details were adorable.

Tyson's Birthday Extravaganza

*Please excuse the spacing issues in this post. Blogger hates me.

Why is Tyson's birthday such an event each year? I promise, one of these years he is going to have a birthday that only lasts one day.

Most of Tyson's actual birthday was spent traveling with family for a memorial service. I tried to make it special for him by letting him choose what we had for dinner (pizza), letting him rent a redbox, and letting him pick out his own birthday present. I have been planning for the last six months to buy him a new bike for his birthday. But when we got to the store to pick one out we realized his isn't quite tall enough yet! To his great delight I let him wander the toy store and choose his own gift. He chose a Transformer.

The next night we had cake and ice cream at Grandma's house.

(A cake covered in snakes and bugs. He loved it.)
After last years birthday party I swore I would never throw him a huge friend party ever again. This year I am eating my words. Our original plan was to invite one or two friends to go the movies or Trafalga, somewhere fun like that. Then Dan did a business deal with a new fun center, Monkey Island. Part of the deal included a birthday party. How could we pass that up? Tyson was able to invite a boat load of friends to Monkey Island for his birthday. Easy right?

The week of the party I decided to be a good mom, and turn this generic Monkey Island birthday party into a Wild Kratts themed birthday party. I designed Creature Power Discs for all the kids. At the beginning of the party they were all given "Monkey Power." They spent an hour running, jumping, climbing, and sliding like monkeys.

Then we had pizza and Tyson opened his gifts.

(Korina, Tess, Caleb & Payton)

(Tyson, Rhys, Brian, Landon, Zane)

(Vika, Conner, Justin, Kooper, Preston)

(Brianna, Emmy, Porter, Sasha)

After dinner I gave the kids a cup cake with an additional creature power disk on top.

When they were done eating they ran and played until their parents came to pick them up.

It was still insane, crazy chaos, but at least it wasn't at my house and I didn't have to prepare games and activities.

The Smolder

Have you seen Tangled?

My kids love it. They have most of the movie memorized.

One of their favorite parts is "the smolder."

They've been doing their best to perfect their own smolders.

Even Dan wanted in on the action.

Oh, be still my heart.

Sharing

"If I had a penny

and you hadn't any

I'd buy a candy stick

And let you have a lick."

"That's sharing, sharing.
Everybody caring, sharing.
That's the thing to do."

*Did anyone else sing this song as a kid or was it just my family?

Messy Nolan

Nolan is enjoying the freedom of feeding himself.

It's a work in progress.

I'm So Lucky

I get to hang out with this kid all day.

Spring Break

It's hard to tell by the weather, but it is actually spring. The boys had spring break a couple weeks ago. It seems like half the school district went to Disneyland, and the other half stayed home. We were in the half that stayed home. We had a fun Staycation. Dan was able to take some time off work to spend with us each day. We finally took the boys to see Tangled in the theater, which they loved. We ended up buying it the next day, and they now have it memorized. They boys had a fun day playing with cousins. And we also spent one evening at Trafalga (along with hundreds of other people).

Nolan rode his first Merry-go-Round. He loved it.

He had a death grip on the horse when I tried to take him off. The big boys enjoyed the bumper boats. I admit, I was very nervous sending them in a boat by themselves. All the other boats were filled with kids much other than they are. And I really don't trust Tyson's driving abilities. But in the end they had a great time.

And Preston figured out how to avoid being drenched by the other kids.

Our Trafalga adventure was cut short when someone pulled the fire alarm and the entire park was evacuated.

Easter 2011

(WARNING: Picture overload)

Easter was a lot of fun this year.

We started with our traditional city Easter egg hunt.

Just like last year, I sent Tyson off to do his own thing with his own age-group and I stayed with Preston.

Preston did a little better this year at actually picking up his own eggs. He was thrilled at the four eggs he ended up with. Tyson got a smaller haul this year as well. That 6-8 age group is quite competitive. But Tyson didn't seem to mind.

He was too busy eating his candy to give me a good smile.

That afternoon we colored Easter eggs. Tyson liked coloring the eggs multiple colors, and Preston loved using the white crayon to color "tornadoes" on all his eggs.

Nolan was quite frustrated that we wouldn't let him play with all the "balls." I shouldn't have been surprised by what he did when he finally got his hands on one.

What else are you supposed to do with balls?

Yep, he threw it.

That night we started a new tradition. After Nolan was in bed we made Resurrection Cookies with Tyson and Preston. They enjoyed it, and it really helped them understand the Easter story a little better. We were able to have some great discussion with the boys about Christ's life and the Resurrection.

The next morning we woke up to Easter Baskets and eggs hidden all over our house.

And, of course, the bunny spoiled the boys.

Preston loves his new Bumblebee dress-up.

Tyson scored a new scooter.

And Nolan couldn't have been happier with a basket of balls and snacks.

Thanks to lingering colds we spent the rest of the day at home enjoying each other's company. We were sad to miss church on Easter and Easter dinner at Grandma's but I'm sure everyone else appreciated us keeping our germs to ourselves.