Happenings

Here are some things that we have been up to in the last part of Winter and (hopefully) into Spring!

Paw Patrol came to Build a Bear so I took Sam to get his first one...Marshall. I still need to get a picture of him with the finished product, but he had a great time!

Joey brought the LOGOSAURUS home for a week from LOGOS. He had to write his name on him and add something to him. He chose to make a blue cross out of paper and then put it on his nose. He also made a great video of him feeding the LOGOSAURUS tortilla chips!

We had conferences at school, and at Sam's they had a book with the kids having a sad page and a happy page. Here is Sam's sad picture.

Here is his happy!

Joey and I went to a comedy Kids in the Rotunda. Sam didn't come since we didn't think he would like this one very much. Before the show, we went to the Central Library to hang out for a bit.They have some pretty cool stuff there!

We went to visit Maebel and go to a new grilled cheese place. Maebel and Joey are best buddies!

Joey had a Scouting for Food event, where we went around and collected food that people left on their porches. Sam and Joey both had a great time! We were worried because Joey woke up and threw up that morning, but you never would have known it. He then was sick again the next day, but he hung on for this event and for enjoying a day with gorgeous weather (while the next day was rainy).

Sam had to help at 3 houses, and would have liked to do more but getting in and out of the carseat was a longer process for him than for Joey.

The boys did the Easter Egg "hunt" in Monroe this year. We didn't do it last year so this was the first year that Joey read the list himself.

The boys are definitely growing up! Both sat next to the Easter Bunny with no protest!

New monkeys!

Spring Break was a little miserable at our house. The week started off well with John taking the boys to Pump It Up. Sam got tired after 1/2 an hour there and they then came to go to lunch with me. This is Sam's side of the bench. He is laying down under the coat. This was the start of the pretty much week of sickness for one or both of the boys.

Joey had a blast at Pump It Up and at Fuddruckers for the first time.

On Friday of Spring Break, both boys were back to close to normal so we decided to go bowling for the first time as a family. Sam had never gone before so it was fun to see his reactions.

Sam and Joey both rolled a couple down without the ramp, but then we put that in place.

Sam would start in the back by the bowling balls and then take off running to the ramp to push the ball down. It was pretty funny!

The boys did the Easter Egg Hunt at Copps again this year. I was with Joey so I got a couple pictures of his age group.

Meeting the Easter Bunny afterward...

We did a hunt at home with G&G Rikli. We got to do one outside and inside.

Grandma and I hid some of the eggs outside where they matched the snow or paint or what they were next to. That made for some tricky ones to find for the boys.

We surprised G&G Hyland by showing up at 8am church on Easter. Joey was super excited to do the surprise...Sam the non-morning person was not as chipper, but he did enjoy surprising everyone.

I took some great pictures of Maebel!

Here is Maebel opening her Easter basket from us. It was exciting for everyone!

I attempted to get the grandkids with G&G. Sam was being ornery and wouldn't go in the picture...

...until several pictures in when he started photo-bombing the pictures and half smiling...

The Easter Bunny brought the boys swim suits. Joey had to try on the bottoms right away with the new shirt G&G got him (and Maebel's bunny ears).

Sam LOVES his new Minecraft shirt and loved the chick cup in his basket.

We went to Kids in the Rotunda as a family to see Truly Remarkable Loon. I think this is our first family selfie. :)

It was a great show, and while Sam had a couple antsy moments, he did great overall. Joey was laughing a lot through the show. Hopefully we can make it to a couple more of these yet this year before they are done for the season at the end of April.

What we've been up to!

As we go into 2016, I (Katie) am going to take over the blog so I can speak better to what both the boys are doing :)

Here are a few notes about Sam at age 4 that I wanted to remember...

-We were playing a game where Sam was pretending to be a plumber (we played it a few times both with Grandma Hyland and just me and Sam too), and Sam would answer the phone and then say he was right by our house to come fix the broken pipes. When he "hung up the phone" he would say, "Bye, wuv you, bye, wuv you" just like he does when he is talking on the regular phone. When he was playing with Grandma, she was "panicked" about her broken pipes, and after he fixed them he told her, "next time, stay calm".

-He loves to pretend he is a dog and will happily play that game for quite awhile.

-He loves playing stuffed animals one minute and will then switch to Minecraft or construction the next.

-He is VERY stubborn.

-We were playing outside, and he brought me what I thought was a snow valentine so I pretended to read it and then laughed and threw it aside (which is the little game we play). Sam said, "that was my duck" and burst into tears. We made a new duck and a nest with other duck babies in the snow.

Here are some things we have been up to over the past 2 months!

Sam is now into Minecraft as much as Joey is. They chose to use some Christmas money on some Minecraft characters.

We had a family fun night at Joey's school. They had gymnastics equipment set up this time, and Sam was all about that equipment. We really need to sign him up for gymnastics!

Silly at the photo booth!

Random picture of Maebel :)

Sam got a TON of Play Doh from Great Uncle John & Great Aunt Sharyn since Aedan, Olivia and Julia are done playing with it. Sam was SO EXCITED!! He wanted our kitchen table to stay looking like this.

I went with Sam to be snack helper at his school. He built a huge structure with the blocks (along with a couple other kids). He was so proud, and they got to put a sign up on it to not clean it up so that the afternoon class could see it. That was a BIG DEAL.

That same week he was Star of the Week. Below is what his bulletin board looked like.

The boys went squirrel hunting with Daddy and Grandpa. I didn't get any pictures the day of, but here is Joey the night before.

The boys and I went to a park to test out the snow. We went to the one with the giant plowed pile :)

Sam brought his shovel and did a lot of work helping the park clear their areas.

Joey was a Red Carpet Reader at school. I went and surprised him during the presentation (Daddy had to drop Sam off at school at the exact same time or they would have come). Joey was very surprised and of course asked, "why didn't you come last year when I got it?" I told him they didn't invite us last year!

We had a nice day outside so Sam and I built a road for his vehicles, and Sam was hard at work!

Joey had a Valentine's Day program at school. He did a great job participating in the singing, and he had a line to say where he thanked everyone for coming to the program. He did great on that too!

There's been other stuff going on too, but I somehow have to figure out how to keep straight where all the pictures are now that we are finally Smartphone owners and have 2 phones and a camera.