Hiking pictures

Here are some pictures from hiking a couple of weekends ago. :-) 

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my sweet hubby! This year I printed some "All About My Dad" pages that I found online and had Oliver and Buttercup fill them out. The results are adorable and hilarious!

Oliver's answers:
My dad's name is Dennis.
He is 33 years old and 6 and 3 in tall.
He has black hair and hazel eyes.
My dad likes to wear polo shirts and his favorite color is blue.
My dad likes to go to the Lego store and his car is a race car.
My dad's favorite sport is swimming and his favorite tv show is creepy ones.
He likes to cook eggs.
His favorite food is spaghetti.
His favorite drink is Sprite and his favorite dessert is cake.
My dad is the best at swimming.
My dad tries really hard to swim good. (Ha ha ha!!)
And he is so special to me because he loves me.

Buttercup's answers:
My dad's name is Daddy.
He is 10 years old and super tall. :-)
He has black hair and blue eyes.
My dad likes to wear clothes and his favorite color is orange. 
My dad likes to go to places, like Safari Champ (HA HA HA!) and his car is a putt-putt.
My dad's favorite sport is running and his favorite tv show is a grown up show.
He likes to cook hot dogs and weenies.
His favorite food is ice cream.
His favorite drink is lemonade and his favorite dessert is cake.
My dad is the best at being a daddy.
My dad tries really hard to help us get down from super high things. (HA HA HA HA HA HA!) and he is so special to me because he's my daddy and because I love him and because he likes eating popcorn. 

I love these!!! This is definitely going to become a new tradition. :-)  

Road trip to Granddaddy's house

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Anna and I drove the kids to Granddaddy's house in Louisiana. The drive usually takes about 7 hours without kids, and surprisingly, it took only 8 hours with kids! Whoo hoo!

On the way there, our car ride was very uneventful. We stopped for lunch early and let the kids run around for a little while, then got back on the road.

(Sorry for the blurry phone pictures!! I can't figure out how to make them not blurry!!!!!! Arrgh!!!!!!)

Theodore fought his nap for a while:


But then he finally gave in and decided to fall asleep:

I love that smooshy cheek!!!!

The kids were super excited to see Granddaddy! Oliver couldn't wait to get outside and start working in the garden. He had to wait until the next morning, though. :-)  Anna and I took the younger two to a playground while Oliver stayed home and helped Granddaddy in the garden. He built this impressive shelter from banana plants!

The next day, I took all 3 kids to the playground and to see Mike the Tiger at LSU. Mike was very active, which was fun for the kids! 

Later that day, the kids played with food coloring and did acrobatics outside:

Then, all too soon, it was time to go home! 

On the way home our early stop was at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Park, where Oliver and Buttercup got to hold baby alligators. :-) 

Then after 6 more (mostly) uneventful hours in the car, we finally arrived home! So glad this baby boy can entertain himself happily with a book, especially after only napping for 15 minutes. :-)

Two years old!

Theodore is TWO today! Can you believe it??? This is such a fun, fun age....I want time to stop so we can really enjoy every moment of it! He is just so fun to be around. Such a sweet, funny little guy, with a sweet little voice and squishy cheeks. He does and says so many adorable things every day! We are so blessed to have him in our lives. :-)

We had Theodore's birthday party last weekend at one of the sprinkler parks around here. About 2 months ago, I rented a pavilion at the park for his party -- and good thing! The park was packed!   

It was pretty windy when we were setting up, with huge gusts of wind coming out of nowhere.  All of our stuff was blowing over:

And the mean old wind kept blowing away the birthday boy's balloons! 

:-(

 Thankfully, the birthday boy has an awesome big brother who is always ready to save the day!

(Only one of his many trips to rescue the stray balloons.)

Ah, reunited at last!

This is what happens when you ask a 7 year old to smile for a picture:

This is what happens when you ask a 6 year old and a 7 year old to smile for a picture:

And this is what happens when you ask a 6 year old, 7 year old and almost 2 year old to smile for a picture:

We had the usual antics from Heather and Anna:

This is Theodore's BFF, Analiese (or, "Ahh-wee", as he pronounces it):

Theodore showing off his best balloon-dancing moves:  

Since the party was at the sprinkler park and there were lots of grownups around to supervise the kids, I planned on taking pictures of the kids playing in the water and having fun. But, as things usually go, I ended up putting my camera away "for a minute" at the beginning of the party and never taking it out again. The only reason we have pictures of kids eating cake is because my sweet friend Jessica asked if she could take pictures for me, which was very nice of her and for which I'm very thankful! :-)  

Happy birthday, Theodore! We love you!!