Other happenings in March and April

  This is a post with some random pictures from March and April...

 

Tire Swing Fun at a beautiful, local park. We love Waxhaw, NC!

One day when I was doing something with Levi, I noticed Wyatt was writing something down in the other room. Later, he showed me what he was doing. In the picture below, you will see...I was shocked and amazed! He just loves math and write these type of problems out for fun...just out of his head. And he loves to play with calculators too!

The picture below is of my cutie pie, Levi at his Spring Program in Preschool. He is standing by some his artwork that he did this year.

 

And of course, I have to have an Easter basket picture!

Wyatt finally lost his first tooth! One month after he turned 6 yrs old! He has been wanting to lose a tooth for quite a while. And he literally "lost" it...we do not know where it went. We think he may have swallowed it while eating cereal in the morning!

Levi was very, very happy and proud to be able to get his very own library card! You had to be 5 yrs old and able to write your first and last name!

And just 2 days after his 1st tooth came out, he lost his 2nd one! This time, he wiggled it out and caught it! He was very happy to g $1 from the tooth fairy!

This isn't a pretty picture, but these are our blueberry bushes that are finally budding and going to produce berries this year! Very excited to get our very own blueberries from our backyard in a few months!

The Zoo in March and a Visit from Cousins

My sister and her 3 boys were able to come and stay with us for a whole week to visit! Her oldest is just 4 months younger Levi! So we had a 6 yr old, 2 4 yr olds, a 2 yr old and a 3 month old! It was a tons of crazy fun! Here is one of the best "nice" pictures that we got of them all together!



And here's a silly one with the "older" boys...thought it best that the baby be removed from the couch when they started posing for this one!

And of course we had to dress up as super heroes!

From right to left: Batman, Wyatt. Mr. Incredible, Ethan. Batman, Levi. Superman, Hudson.

Striking a tough guy, superhero pose, and cutie pie Hudson too!

The boys had been asking for a months when Daddy could go to the zoo with us! We cleared a Saturday in March and prayed for good weather! We had a perfect day!
Here are our not quite as little anymore, monkeys climbing up on the high rocks.

Where did this cute monkey come from?

Being silly in a hole in rock! So handsome even when being goofy!

They remembered Grandma reading to them about lemurs and wanted to go get a picture next to the info about them to show her!

Levi loves to walk around w/ the map open and tell us where to go to next!

They always want to pose on these metal statues!

Here are some more pictures from the week my sister and her kids spent with us!
Below are some good morning smiles!

Aunt Emily with all the boys!

Levi loved to hold baby Austin and put his cheek close to him.

Wyatt also loved holding him, in fact, they were even fighting over would get to hold him next!

Wyatt Turns 6!

My firstborn is now SIX years old! I can't believe it! We had a fun birthday party with all things "Ninjago"...it's a cartoon with Lego people as ninjas! Thanks to my cousin, Andrew, I have a lot of great pictures for memories sake!

Most of my party décor is from ideas and links that I found on Pinterest. Most things I just printed out directly from a link and then laminated a few of them to re-use for Levi's 6th birthday next year!

 

 

Below is a picture of all the little ninja party guests! Each guest brought an extra long-sleeve shirt and we showed them how to make a ninja hood out of their shirt (no cutting or gluing required!)

 no sew ninja hood

This picture is out of order, but...
On the actual day of his birthday, I made him a huge pancake in the shape of a #6 along w/ some pink food colored heart pancakes. And of course birthday pancakes have to have sprinkles on them!

And back to the birthday party...
We had to play some ninja games of course, and what better than speed slicer on the Wii!

Some other ninja activities that we did were "Finding your Ninja Name" and "Decorate Your Ninja Star". We made up the ninja stars before the party because it was quite involved to make them. And by "involved" I mean it took a lot of thinking and perfection to fold the paper in just the right way. Thankfully I had my Engineering cousin there to help me! When the boys are older, it will be a fun activity to make with them, but I couldn't imagine trying to have 6 five and six year olds trying to fold the paper perfectly to create the star! It's harder than it looks! Check You Tube! :-)

One of the favorites by far was "Sensi Wu Says" (a spin-off on Simon Says). Adam was gracious enough to hold my Sensi Wu beard and play the part of Simon, I mean Sensi.

And here are the Ninja's in-training participating in Sensii Wu Says

 The food and drink were all ninja themed as well. Once again, a big shout out to Pinterest! I'll post all the links at the bottom of this post!

Even these cupcake toppers were from Pinterest. I just printed, laminated, cut out, and attached to a small piece of drinking straw to stick into the cupcake! And they will be used again for Levi's 6th birthday party next year!

Snakes are a big part of the ninjago cartoon. The boys got a kick out of the veggie snake!

The goody bags used for when the piñata was broken. Print out ninja eyes from Pinterest.

Ninjago jello cups! Homemade. Easy. Pinterest!

 

 All the party guests chowing down! Yum!

Our Birthday Boy!

My cousins, Andrew and Luke with Wyatt!

links:
water bottle labels
no sew ninja hood
ninja food
ninja weapon making
ninja jello cups

Finally Some Snow Worth Talking About!

This deserved it's very own post! We have lived in NC for 5 1/2 years, and this is only the 2nd time it has snowed "this" much..."this" being 4 to 6 inches! That's a big deal for NC! Growing up in PA, we probably wouldn't have even had a school delay for that much snow! But we were excited for the kids to experience this none-the-less!

The amazing thing about this snow fall is how fast it accumulated! We had just been outside doing the piñata for Wyatt's birthday 2 hours before these pictures were taken and there was no precipitation coming down at that time! A few of our parties guests had to stay longer than planned because their parents were stuck on the bad roads! As soon as all the guests left, we got on our snow gear and went out to play! It was so pretty!

 

 

Most of the snow even stuck around through the night and we were able to enjoy it for a few hours the next morning before it totally melted by the afternoon!