Various pics from April that really do not fit anywhere else.

All anyone ever wants to do is eat candy and then have me take pics of their colored tongues. 

This little tree is such a part  of our lives. It has been decorated for holidays, used as a base for countless birdfeeders, climbed, used as base in every game in the ditch and, overall, just really served all of the purposes we needed. The tree is clearly a female. 

One day Brandon surprised me at work with coffee. It was pretty amazing. 

We have had so much rain this month and my kids love nothing more than to sit outside and watch the lightning and count the seconds between the thunder. They love this because it is usually after 9pm and they are  bedtime stalling. 

One day our power was out at AE and we had to literally direct traffic and problem solve and all of the things for 2 hours in the rain. It was freezing and nobody was dressed appropriately for this particular activity, so we scrounged around foe extra clothes & ended up representing the AirForce ROTC. 

So, you might know that Anderson has this "eye thing" in his left eye? It's only been, I don't know, a 7 year journey of surgery, doctor visits, patching, medicines, worry and exhaustion. 

Turns out that ALL of that is like a magnet for a playground injury. One of Anderson's friends stepped on his LEFT EYE during recess one day. A bump (not the official name) formed, which was basically a bruise from the trauma (per Dr. Cogen's multiple emails.) So, we experienced a 3 week fun time of a twice a day "Treatment" consisting of an antibiotic, (the pharmacist gave us someone else's at first!) heat/pressure, gooey medicine in the eye, etc. It was not fun. It did, however, help us in our decision to let him try out tackle football in the football. Since we clearly cannot protect his eye all of the time, we might as well let him enjoy life! Much more on that decision to come....

Moments like this pretty sum up this parenting gig. 

Pics from Max's school are my favorite. 

Anderson had his Bball party (2 months after the season ended-it's whatever) at Putt-Putt and it turned out to be a very eventful evening. 

First, the ball claw machine thing had some kind of kink and basically every kid was able to win a ball on the same token. If you have a 7 year old then you know that this was the highlight of the evening. 

Well, it was the highlight until THIS happened!

Max/Brandon won the 1000 tickets! You should see the neon orange octopus that came home with us that evening due to this moment. 

"Mama, take my picture and send it to Uncle Zack."

Some coupled have date nights or trips away; we have moment together on our kitchen counter, watching random things on our phone. 

#Winning

Max came to work with me one night and had THE TIME OF HIS LIFE! He kept calling my office, "your work" and asking to go back there whenever we were anywhere else in the building. He ran around the cafeteria, explored all of the rooms, ate all of the treats in my office, wrote all over my board, etc. There was a community meeting with the Superintendent/School Board Members/a few of my bosses  and we maybe busted in with light up shoes, various Tootsie Roll pops and my phone blasting Ghostbusters. What can I say, I keep it professional at all times. 

That evening, Clare was awesome and took Anderson to Jack's soccer and baseball games! Anderson was supposed to go with me to work, but all he wanted to do was watch Jack so she humored him and added a 4th kid to her mix. 

I love when I get pics like this when I have to work late. 

I also love that my parents live so close to us and have this amazing backyard. 

I do realize how lucky I am for all of this. 

We are desperately trying to help the bees, which means I have resorted to trying to keep plants alive. I will keep everyone posted on this failure. 

Because I cannot turn down a free activity, we hit up Michael's "slime bar" where the kids got to decorate slime with way too much random crap. 

Easter Weekend

Our Easter weekend turned out out to be filled with lots of activities, enough sunshine to leave us all burned and almost enough candy to make Max happy. 

We spent the first part of Friday playing at our house. Max always manages to turn a seemingly innocent activity into a disaster aftermath. 

Exhibit A. 

(Also, this was all over the house because he was supposedly trying to find me. Thank the Lord for washable paint.)

In the afternoon we hit up ijams for a few hours and, as always, had such a great time. We have not been in forever because the weather has not been great, but this day was perfect. 

The Brimers even joined us, which made the day even more enjoyable!

Charlie was so excited about the frogs. His enthusiasm made me realize that he is becoming such a little person!

Max. I love him. He was so excited to help catch reptiles/amphibians/bugs. He also lost it multiple times during hours 4 and 5, but overall he represented pretty well. 

Unlike Anderson, he actually needs to rest every now and then. 

The 3 of them had such a fun time together and it made me realize that I do enjoy this older kid parenting thing. 

I love his little fingers. Raising boys is my favorite. 

On Saturday, we literally spent 10 hours outside. I am talking that we ate all of our meals out there and everything. We kicked off the morning by decorating eggs. 

And....by destroying them. This has always been Anderson's favorite thing to do and I let him because nobody but me is going to eat the eggs anyway. 

We played baseball, football, soccer, construction; caught bugs, blew bubbles, went exploring, rode bikes, found worms, created mudholes and got sunburned. It turned out to be a pretty good day. 

Later in the evening Max got an additional bath thanks to his new stamp set. 

Easter Sunday proved to be a fun time when the boys saw their baskets!

Anderson was most excited about his Einstein book, his hazelnut candy and the giant Hershey kiss. 

Max was most excited about his giant Hershey kiss. 

Clearly nobody was interested in wearing any clothing. 

We were outside cracking open dino eggs by 7:30am. 

I hid about 30 eggs with candy, coins and random toys around the house. 

The hunt ended with the grand prize of some random Star Wars stuff. They have just recently decided they like Star Wars and I am trying to figure it out. For example, I thought the Stormtroopers were good guys. It is so confusing. Is this how Muggles feel about Harry Potter??

We spent over 3 hours at McFee where the boys had a healthy snack, rode bikes, explored, played and half of them got stuck on a barbed wire fence. 

I bought them new kites for their baskets on crazy clearance last year and they are very high quality so they actually work! Max was SO proud of the fact that he was able to keep his up in the air. 

He also worked on his first Lego set. I always send the legos to Brandon. Everyone is happier that way. 

We went to GG's for more Easter goodies/egg hunts and a delicious dinner! 

Love this pic. 

Max loved showing Pappaw all of his new toys and talked his ear off. 

We ended the weekend with  basketball represented by this high quality pic of Uncle Curtis teaching Max some moves. 

Max: almost 4.

This kid is somehow almost 4 years old. First, how did we EVER survive all of those years without him. Second, how has he fit so much cuteness in 4 short years??

Max is all of the things I never, ever imagined that he would be when I was pregnant. He is so unlike Anderson in so many ways and I think I just expected another one of that style.

 How lucky I am that I was completely wrong in my prediction/expectation.

Max is silly most of the time, laughs a huge belly laugh out loud, prefers nothing more than being authentic at whatever he is pretending, still loves construction, wants to repel from a helicopter, believes in magic and surprises and excitement, loves to make huge messes and destroy everything around him ALL OF THE TIME, regularly loses his balance thanks to the size of his head and feet, clearly has a mind of his own based on his preference of clothing options, says the best day of his life was when I slept in the top bunk with him, eats about 7 foods total, can drink a juice box in one long gulp, WHINES.ALL.OF.THE.TIME (especially when Anderson is around...), refers to everything as "weekends," watches YouTube videos like it's a job, hugs every kid/adult in his classroom before we can leave everyday. Basically, he makes me exhausted and grateful all of the time. 

I feel especially lucky that I was chosen to be his Mama. 

Almost every school picture has some variation of Ghostbusters' attire. 

He makes forts out of everything. 

He ran inside frantically and came out looking like this. 

SO proud to wear his Tennessee helmet and uniform to school for "T" Show & Tell. 

His best girl, Reese. 

(side note: She is 3 months older than him.)

Still pantless at almost 4. 

He loves playing with pretend food-cooking it, creating it, serving it, selling it. 

He cannot wait until he is 4 and can play all of the sports. 

He brought his little volcano with all of the goods to make it work for his V show & tell. He was SO excited about this that he couldn't sleep that Thursday night.  

Lots & lots of whining.

He earned his green necklace at swim lessons! This is a big deal because you have to swim the entire length of the pool to earn it and, most importantly, it is a big deal because green necklace kids don't require an adult to get in the pool with them! I HAVE ARRIVED!!!!

He was so excited to go through the "treasures" from his egg hunt at school. 

Some videos:

Riding his trike

Ghostbusters Singing

Max playing laser tag

Max swimming