Daddy's Birthday

Robb's birthday was Thursday and Bryce and Caleb have been making plans for the last 2 weeks. I took them shopping at Menard's and Caleb picked out a drill accessory that Robb wanted. It was a good thing he knew what he was looking for because I was a little clueless. I bought him a sander, which again I was clueless in picking out. Bryce had decided that he wanted to buy him stickers to put on his wakeboard and snowboard. So we headed to the mall and I drug 3 kids through the skateboard shop and Hot Topic. A friend of mine said we were probably ruining the image of the store. I thought that was pretty funny. We definitely weren't the usual customers. However, we found a Ninja turtle sticker and then Bryce picked out one with a pair of scissors that said "hey kids run with me". I thought it was too funny not to get!
Thursday we went to Dairy Queen and picked out an ice cream cake and then we waited all day for Robb to get home.
Bryce and Caleb thought it would be fun to hide and yell surprise when he walked in. So that's what they did. The boys have been very into parties lately so I thought why not let them do what they want. Robb opened his gifts with the help of 3 kiddos. I think we did okay on the choices, except for the scissor sticker. We grilled out and then ate the ice cream cake.
I hope he had an okay birthday. It wasn't his first pick of what he would have liked to do, but the Nebraska weather hasn't been warm enough for him to go boating yet. I guess in our younger, crazier years we would have taken the boat out no matter the weather and Robb would have wakeboarded even in freezing cold water.

Zoo Pictures

The "BIG" Zoo

Again I am behind on my blogging. Last Sunday we went to the Omaha zoo with friends of ours from Omaha. We have gotten in the habit of not telling Bryce and Caleb what we are doing or where we are going until we leave, so they were so excited when we told them we were going to the Omaha zoo. The weather could have been a little warmer but at least it didn't rain and no one got sun burnt. We met Rick and Brittney there and headed to the petting zoo first. The boys got a kick out of trying to feed the goats and watching two that were fighting. Abby thought the petting zoo was great! She tried to pet and kiss any animal that would let her get close. She also randomly shouted out BA BA to every animal that she saw. The boys and I have tried to convince her that other animals make different noises but she always goes back to BA.
We walked around to the outside animals and the boys were very impressed with the new Madagascar exhibit. I think Bryce really thought that the lemurs would be wearing fruit on their heads singing "I Like to Move It, Move It." But he was impressed all the same. I think we all realized how much walking you actually do at the zoo, especially when you are pulling a wagon with 70+ pounds in it.(Thanks Rick and Brittney for helping us drag our children and all of our stuff through the zoo!)
At lunch time we headed to the Rain forest Cafe where we managed to lose 2 out of our 3 children for a few terrifying seconds. Once everyone was found, we had a nice lunch. It was a little eye opening to Robb and I how long a meal out takes with 3 kids. Rick and Brittney were done and we spent another half and hour cutting up food, wiping spills, and passing out more food/condiments. (Yeah, we have a condiment problem at our house.)
We finished up the zoo with a quick visit to the rain forest, desert dome and the aquarium. It was a great day! The kids were asleep before we even got on the interstate and they didn't even have to walk the entire time. I will say that Bryce walked most of the way and Caleb walked as little as he could get away with. Later that night, Bryce told me his legs were so sore that he thought they were going to fall off. I thought this was pretty cute.

Super Heros

If you know Bryce at all, you know that he eats, sleeps and breaths super heroes. Today the Children's Museum was having a day dedicated to super heroes. So of course we had to go. We didn't tell them what was going on we just had them each pick a costume to wear and told them we were going somewhere fun. Bryce and Caleb were pretty curious about what we were doing in "Halloween" costumes, but I think it was a good surprise. They got their picture taken with Iron Man, Batman, Spiderman, Cat Woman and Abby got her picture taken with Tinkerbell. It was so cute to see the look on their faces when each character would come out. The costumes were pretty impressive and the people wearing them did a good job interacting with the kids.

Preschool Family Picnic

The boys had their family picnic for preschool on Thursday. It was fun to see all of Bryce and Caleb's classmates and teachers. It was too bad that it was so chilly out but everyone still had fun. They attended Pioneer Park Preschool this year and will also attend there next year for Pre K. They have really enjoyed it and the teachers are so great with the kids!

Mother's Day

Mothers Day

I have started to fall behind with my blogging, so here is my attempt to catch up. I had a good Mother's Day weekend. I talked Robb into going to the Farmers Market on Saturday morning even though it was still pretty cool out. I always enjoy going to the market but its not really Robb's thing unless we have something specific to buy. He humored me for the sake of Mother's Day, and we got to go. On Saturday, my mom, sister and brother were also in Lincoln to help Mitch move home from UNL. We ate lunch together and then they all went to get Mitch's stuff. They later came back and we played outside. They boys had fun playing with Uncle Mitch learning to skateboard. ER here we come again!
On Sunday, Robb and the kids made me waffles for breakfast and let me sleep in (a little bit). We went to church and had a pretty relaxing day. It was kind of nice to not have much going on. I also got to take a nap when the kids did and we just hung out together as a family. The kids got me these really cute picture frames. They are called Little DiVinci frames and you can easily put your kids new art work in them so it is framed. They also drew me pictures to put in the frames of course.
I must say that some days as a mom are not easy and I feel like I don't have any more patience in me, but when I look at them I realize how much they brighten our lives everyday! Love ya Bryce, Caleb and Abby. Thanks for a great Mother's Day!

Messy Olympics

I guess I felt brave because when I saw the sign up for Messy Olympics, I knew this was something that we had to do. Cooper YMCA hosted the Messy Olympics which was for moms and sons on Friday night. The flier said to wear old clothes and bring something to change into, so I didn't know what we were getting in to. The boys were so excited about this. Why wouldn't they be, a time where they can get as dirty as they want and they won't get in trouble.
We ate Jello without using our hands, had to find a cherry in a pile of whipped cream again without hands, and had to do a three legged race. We also dug through a 5 gallon bucket of spaghetti and sauce to find gummy worms. This was the most disgusting game of all. Caleb, my messy one wouldn't even do this one but Bryce thought is was pretty cool. The boys favorite game was when I had to put a bucket on my head and they had to fill it up with dixie cups from another bucket. By the end I was drenched because they had stopped trying to get the water in the bucket and had decided that it was funnier to just pour it on my head. We had a snack and did a stepping stone craft project which I think will turn out really cute. It was a great Mother and Son night. Robb wasn't quite as lucky. He got to spend the night with a crabby Abby since she wasn't feeling well.

Mother's Day Tea

On Thursday I got to go to the Mother's Day Tea that the boys had at preschool. They have been looking forward to this for a week now and from little bits of their conversation that I have overheard, they have been working on a special project. It has been cute because Bryce would start to tell be something about the "special project" and Caleb would say "SHHHHHHHHHH that's Top Secret". Too cute!
When we first got there the moms all went into a room and the kids met in the classroom. The kids came walking in all wearing yellow socks and sang Robin in the Rain. It was adorable. Bryce sang a lot of the song but Caleb looked pretty nervous and just kept smiling at me. We then ate breakfast and got to open our gifts/super secret projects. The boys had each made me a card and a bird. It was so sweet to see how proud they were of their projects. We ended the morning by planting flowers in the butterfly garden at the preschool. It was a fun morning with the boys!

Boxers, Briefs or Both?

I decided after shopping for pajamas for the boys that we would just do boxers. I have always hated paying $10 for each pair of pajamas, so I didn't this spring. Instead I bought little boy boxer shorts and white T shirts. Robb was pretty impressed when I told him that these pajamas only cost $2 a piece instead of the $10 we were used to. The boys still wear undies under the boxers since they would be all confused if we told them that they could go commando in the boxers. I'm sure that they wouldn't understand that this rule didn't carry over to every other pair of shorts that they wore. So to answer the question they wear Both, at the same time.

May Day

The boys love doing projects, especially if it involves food and friends. They started making their May Day baskets the second they got up Saturday morning. We had all 23 baskets delivered by 10:30 am. Silly boys!

15 Months

I can't believe that our baby is that old already! In some ways it seems like Abby should still be an infant and in other ways it seems like she has been a part of our family forever. She has fit into our family perfectly. She started out as a very easy and laid back baby and now she is a spunky little girl. It has been fun watching her develop her little personality over the last 15 months. She loves her brothers and does her best to keep up with them. She enjoys playing in the sandbox and tackling the boys, yet she loves girly things like her tutu, shoes and babies.
At her 15 month well child check up, Dr David thought she was right on track as far as development. He was happy with how well she was walking around and he said that we should expect her language to really start to develop over the next 3 months. She is already starting to say a few things. She makes animal sounds, says pup pup, da da, ma ma, ba ba, shoe, mine, ball, uh oh, epp for yep and bye bye. She is a girl that knows what she wants and gets very frustrated when you can't figure out what she is trying to tell you.
She also has thinned out quit a bit, now that she is walking. She weighed 23lbs 1oz which is the 50% percentile and she was 35 inches tall which put her in the 90% for her height. Maybe she will be tall like her daddy.