Tennis Practice

I love tennis. I wish I could play more, but this just isn't the season in my life. We try to play at home and teach Vance because I would love to play tennis as a family one day. We have a little racket and special balls for Vance to play with. He is actually getting pretty good.

I caught him adjusting his strings. How cute is that?! Very professional.
The sideways ramp is our at-home net.

A little backhand action for ya-

A Little Scootin'

Keller has started to scoot. He still isn't sure about being on his belly sometimes. He likes lots of encouragement so one night we all gathered around to make tummy time fun for him!
He was one happy boy that night! He can scoot half way across the room now. I think he will be so much more content when he is crawling so I'm trying my best to give him lots of scooting practice.

Eagle Scouts

Chad, his dad, and all of his brothers are Eagle Scouts. I think that's so awesome! I hope one day I'll be able to say the same about my sons. His dad has always wanted a picture with all of his Eagle scouts in their uniforms. Georganne asked if I would take them and of course I said yes. I didn't really know what poses to do but I think they turned out okay.

Zach insisted on a "thinking" pose. These 5 boys are worse than kids sometimes. I had to delete at least 1/3 of the pictures because someone was telling a joke. You would think with 5 adults they would know to just smile when someone is taking their picture - no such luck!

Congratulations Rand and Georganne on this accomplishment! I'm sure it took lots of effort and encouragement on your part.

Happy Birthday Vance

Vance turned 4 on February 13th! He had a marathon of birthday celebrations and still wakes up wondering if it's his birthday. We had fun celebrating with him, however I still can't believe my little boy is 4 years old!
Vance wanted to have a sports-themed party. We invited some friends from church, preschool and sports class. He was beyond excited to see all of them. I tried my best to keep the party very simple and not stress out about it. We hung a few decorations and bought some balls and medals for the party favors.

The only extravagant thing I did was the cake and cupcakes. Vance picked out a cake and I did my best to reproduce it. It took FOREVER, but I'm pretty proud of myself.

I copied over some invitations I found online. Man do I love the internet and google image search.

We were planning on borrowing my sister's smaller bounce house, but then Groupon had a deal for a bounce house that I couldn't resist. It was worth every penny. They dropped it off at 8:00 am on Saturday and picked it up at 12:30 pm on Sunday. We bounced and bounced and bounced!

I didn't plan much for entertainment. The kids played in the bounce house and the teeter totter...

jumped on the trampoline

practiced their baseball hitting skills

scored some goals on Chad

and of course we sang Happy Birthday and ate some cake!

Vance could hardly wait to open his presents. Everyone knows him pretty well because he got lots of cars and monster trucks. He is one spoiled boy!

We had a celebration with Chad's family too. His family has lots of January/February birthdays so we celebrated a few birthdays that night.

Vance with Grandpa and Grandpa Waldron. I couldn't convince Colton to get out of the picture. I guess it documents how inseparable they are. Colton usually calls them Grandpa and Grandma Waldron too.

Our last celebration was with my family. We celebrate all the birthdays in that month at our monthly family home evening. Vance requested Aunt Leslie's big frosted cookie for his dessert. Here he is with all of his favorite Terry ladies!

Happy Birthday Vance! We had fun celebrating with you and hope you had a fantastic fourth birthday!

Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day was pretty mellow this year. I picked up a few things for Chad and the boys. Vance made everyone some coupons and came up with the cutest things to "give" them. Chad gave me a new charm for my charm bracelet!
Oh how I LOVE my little Valentine's!

Vance wa super excited because he had a Valentine's party at preschool. He handed out some candy and super hero Valentine's so I couldn't resist buying this shirt. He came home excited to tell me every last detail about school that day.

That night I put together a very simple "love" dinner. We had pizza with the pepperonis in the shape of a heart, breadsticks with red marinara, shrimp with red cocktail sauce, pink milk, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. We ate by candle light and listened to my favorite love songs. During dinner Chad's idea was to take turns saying what we loved about each other. It was my favorite part of the night!

Chad and I went out to dinner last weekend for a more romantic celebration without the kids so the 14th was a perfect night in! I love my 3 Valentine boys!!!

Is something on my face?

Yes! Keller's little hands are always on my face! He is sticking his fingers in my mouth or up my nose or on my cheek all. the. time. When I'm trying to get things done I don't like it so much but when we are just cuddling I absolutely love it. I think it's so precious! I like to think he just can't get enough of me.Here is picture of Keller being happy without someone holding him. I have to be honest this is a rare occurrence (all the blog pictures would probably make you think otherwise, but trust me). Keller is not a bad baby. To me a bad or really hard baby is one with reflux or colic and is inconsolable. Keller is just extremely high maintenance. He would prefer for me to get nothing done and just hold him all day. I have all the baby gear (swing, exersaucer, jumper, bumbo, playmat, etc.) and while it sometimes provides me a little relief it doesn't usually last long. I have tried everything I can think of but no luck. I have listened to my fair share of crying (which is more crying than most moms will listen to before giving up) but he doesn't seem to be learning when I insist on him entertaining himself a little.

Keller's neediness has made me even more grateful for the bigger gap between him and Vance. I am so lucky that Vance is pretty independent and old enough to listen to what I say. I can't imagine doing this with another infant/toddler at home. I only have so much patience! Keller has also made me VERY paranoid in the bedroom if you catch my drift. There will be no accidents at our house. While I love Keller, I need at least another 3 years to work up the motivation to do this again.

Lucky for Keller, I LOVE babies. So even though I think he would make most moms frustrated beyond belief at the end of the day, I am just exhausted - very rarely frustrated. I think their is a difference between frustration and exhaustion. Frustration includes angry feelings while exhaustion is simply tiredness. This stage is hard, but I feel like I'm handling it as best as anyone could! Or maybe these thoughts are just my coping mechanism...either way it's getting me through the long days so whatever!

Wow this post turned into something I didn't quite see coming. Enough rambling...good night!

On the Tramp

My big 4 year old! I can't believe how time flies. I will do another post about his birthday but just pause a moment and relish in the cuteness...
Colton and Vance wanted to show me some tricks on the trampoline. They have some mad skills when they aren't busy jumping on each other or falling through the springs (yes both of those things happen from time to time).

Vance has no fear and I'm sure he'll be able to land a flip by next year. He definitely takes after his daddy!

California - Disneyland

Let the magic begin! I tried hard not to take too many pictures. I wanted to make sure I was experiencing the moment and not trying to photograph the moment. Somehow I still ended up with a ton of pictures. Oh well!
We sure missed Chad on this trip. However I have to be honest, it was nice knowing he was home taking care of Keller. It was also a good opportunity for Vance and I to bond. I know we do a lot normally but I really feel like this trip was good for us. He always wants to play with Chad, but since we've returned he clings to me occasionally too.

Nothing beats a good corn dog and Disneyland has one. I had to indulge myself :)

We did't take a lot of pictures with the characters, but since our shirts all had Goofy on them we had to take this one. We got so many compliments on our shirts. Who knew?! Vance and Colton's said "Here comes trouble" and Vance demanded to know why Brayden's didn't say that because "Brayden gets in trouble!" haha

Colton and Vance really liked the parade. They sat in a trance for pretty much the whole thing.

Vance didn't say a word the entire parade until the princesses came. Then he looked at me and said, "Mom! I REALLY like those girls!" I have a feeling we are going to have our hands very full the teenage years.

He gave them a little wave as they passed us by. Sometimes I hope for a little girl that I can dress up in the ridiculously overpriced princess costumes. For now I am happy with my rowdy boys.

After about 8:00 Vance started asking to go home but he found a second wind and we didn't leave the park until 10:30. Vance was exhausted and fell dead asleep on the tram ride to our car. I was exhausted too!

It was such a fun trip. Disneyland is so magical and I love going as a parent. I can't wait until we can go again!