219/365

Celebrating with MeMe H & Blake
This afternoon, John's mom and Blake (John's sister Joanie's step-son) came over to celebrate the boys' bdays. Mindy got in town last night and will be heading out this afternoon to go to Oklahoma for Jake's 1st bday party (John's sister Rebecca's son). They brought McD's for lunch (per the boys' request) and after opening presents...Drew & Blake played DS games (since Blake had brought his DS with him)...followed by some time out swinging on the playset. Zach was SO excited to finally get to open some presents himself. :) He has done really well about not throwing a fit when Drew was opening present last Saturday and then also on Tuesday night. We keep telling him his turn is coming!!

218/365

1st Trip to New SAMs
A few weeks ago, they opened a new SAMs club just south of our church and MUCH closer to our new house. We have been needing to go to stock up on the usual household things (paper towels, TP, detergent, pull-ups, etc), but were having trouble finding a time to get there. So this evening, the boys and I met John after work at the Library next to SAMs so the boys could pick out some books...then headed over to SAMs for dinner (lol sounds funny to say we went their for dinner, but they have pretty good pizza and I had a yummy salad and an Coke ICEY!!). $300+ dollars and a hour + later we walked out having survived our the trip despite 2 cranky little boys. The check-out is always a shocking time since everything is sold in bulk there and it seems like very few things are under $10.

217/365

Happy 6th Bday Drew!
You started your day off with a bday candle in your cinnamon roll (since we had already had a bday cake on Saturday with your friends...and we will be having another on the 15th w/family) - which you thought was really great. The rest of the day was spent playing with your new DSi & the Lego Batman game...and also building your new Star Wars Lego ship set. Mommy & Daddy then surprised you with a trip to the movie theater before church to see "Monsters vs Alliens" (which you LOVED)...and to make that even MORE fun our friends, the Walkers, showed up to see it with us. You wrapped up your day with Wednesday evening church and dinner at McDonald's (per your request). Over all a pretty great day I would say :)

216/365

Birthday Presents
We decided to let Drew open his presents from John & I the night before his bday so we would be able to charge his new DSi, plus then he would have the whole rest of the day to play with it and John wouldn't have to get up early to be up to watch him open everything.

215/365

Out of bed!!
Zach was doing SO well about staying in his bed at night...not any more! We tend to fight him on trying to get him to stay in his bed for at least an hour every night...often more like 2. So this is the sight that greets me OVER and OVER again every evening.

214/365

Fathead Wall Decals
As part of their birthday presents, we surprised each of the boys with a Fathead on their bedroom wall. John put them up while I gave the boys their shower...so when they walked back into their rooms, they were greeted with their surprises. :)

213/365

Drew's Bday Party with Friends
This year the theme for Drew's party with his friends was Lego. It is amazing how difficult it is to find Lego party items! I was able to find some napkins with Legos on them, and a Lego ice cube tray (that I used to make little candies as well as ice cubes). The rest of the decorations were done with primary colors (& green since it is his favorite)....green table clothes and cups, blue plates, yellow flatware and red napkins...and red/yellow/blue/green balloons. Since we went with straight Lego theme...instead of the Lego Star Wars that Drew was really wanting...he picked out a huge Darth Vader balloon to get as well. For goodies for the quests, I found someone selling their used Pick-A-Brick containers (only available at Lego Stores) and filled them with Lego stress bricks (like stress balls), gold Lego brick key chains, Lego brick erasers, a small Lego set, the t-shirts I painted and a glow stick (leftover from the 4th of July). To help keep the kids entertained (since I'm not a big game person), we purchased an inflatable water slide for them to play on...and then they spent the afternoon between it and the playset. Since we had invited whole families to join us for the evening, we also had a BBQ hamburgers & hot dogs for everyone.

The delicious cakes that is pictured above was made by a friend from church. Erin did such an AWESOME job on it!! I am SO mad at myself for not getting a picture of Drew with the cake!!! UGH!!!