Swimming, a Birthday Party, & Fishing

This last week has been really fun for the kids, and busy for me. We have spent quite a lot of time with Katie and Hannah (and we always love that!)On Tuesday we met them at Chick-fil-la and spent about 5 hours there (the kids were playing great, why mess with a good thing). And then on Wednesday I kept Lila while Kim went to the doctor. She is always sweet and good and Maddie loved trying to play baby dolls with her. I say "trying" because Maddie would tell Lila what to do like feed the baby or hold it a certain way and then Lila would look at her like she was crazy and throw the baby down :) On Thursday we met Katie and Hannah at the park. We had a picnic and the kids played for a few hours. We finally let them play in the creek. Not sure if that was a good idea, but they loved it and got completely soaked. On Friday we went to Hannah's house to eat lunch and let the kids swim. Kim, Addi, Levi and Lila were there.The water was a little cold at first, but that didn't stop the kids from getting in. After they played for a while they got push up pops. Maddie and Lila got it all over there faces. Not to be outdone, Hannah got it not only on her face, but all over her arms and legs. It was hilarious!




On Saturday we traveled to Decatur to go to Hudson's birthday party.It was a really cute party. They had it at a firehouse there in Decatur. The cake was adorable and Melanie did a really good job with the decorations. They had a firetruck that the kids could climb in and after the kids ate pizza and cake and Hudson opened his presents, they went outside to play games. The firetruck then came around and sprayed water and let the kids run through it. Ian thought that was really cool. He hasn't stopped talking about it since. After we got back to my mom's, Ryan decided to take Ian fishing. Ian has been asking to go for a month now and Ryan just couldn't tell him no :) They didn't catch anything, but had a great time.

Mobile trip

Here are some pictures from our weekend in Mobile. We went to Lambert's one night to eat. That was really fun! I had never been there before and didn't realize how much food they gave you. Needless to say we had alot of food left over. Ian got to catch a role and he was really excited about that. Later we went to the beach. Ian and Maddie had watched a cartoon about going to the beach so they have been asking for weeks to go. Maddie wasn't too excited about the water at first. I think the waves scared her, but eventually she warmed up to it. Ian, however, loved getting wet and letting the waves "chase" him.

Bluebirds!!!

We finally have bluebirds in our bluebird house! Ryan tried to get a better shot (he wanted one of the bird flying out), but this one is all we got. We actually saw them and thought they were building a nest because the female kept flying out and returning with what we thought were twigs. However, Ryan was standing close to it and he could hear lots of baby bluebirds chirping, so the mother bird must have been bringing worms to her babies. How sweet!

Getting ready for Easter!

Here are some pictures of the kids coloring easter eggs and icing cookies. They were really excited about easter. After Ian's nap that afternoon (Saturday), he came up to me and said "Hey, were is that rabbit?" I guess he thought the Easter bunny should have come while he was taking a nap :)

Easter Party

We had an Easter party at the church yesterday. We were going to have it at Emily and Jared's house but because of the rain, we decided to have it at the church so that we could hide the eggs inside. The kids had a really good time and ate tons of candy! Thanks Emily and Jared!

Survivor Retreat

We had a great time this past weekend at our first Survivor Retreat with the church. It was suppose to be held at the camp but because of the tornadoes that were predicted, they decided to have it at the church instead. Of course the weather was fine both Friday night and Saturday (crazy weathermen). Friday night was a devotional and then a picking of the teams. Ryan, the kids and I were on team Sheep. We also had our first challenge that night. It was called Rahabs spies. Each team had to hide two players and then everyone would go and look for them. Alex and I hid for our team and we were never found - yeah team! However, by the time the game was over, we crawled out from the bottom pantry shelf and my legs were asleep and my neck was killing me. (Definitely getting old!) We stayed until about 12:30 and then went back home to sleep (sleeping on the floor did not sound appealing to me). We came back Saturday morning and stayed all day. We had more devotionals and challenges. We also had classes for the guys, girls, and kids. Katie did a great job with our class. I think everyone had a really good time and even though my family isn't going to Lads to Leaders this year, it was great to study the book of Joshua. There are so many things in that book that I had forgotten. Everyone in charge of the retreat did a great job! Can't wait for next year!