He's FOUR!

I can't believe this kid is four.  This one is supposed to be my 'baby'.  Thank you to Grandma Kindt for the musical presents!  He absolutely adores the triangle and the lap harp!  The whole family keeps filling the house with the sound of the harp.  It's beautiful.

 

 

 



Hunter's birthday weather was awful.  It was the day of incredibly dangerous strong storms and tornadoes galore.  The rain was harder and deeper than I've ever seen in my life (even for Georgia!).  There was a tornado about 45 minutes north of us.  Joe left for work travel and had a horrendous day in the process.  Aunt Kelsey and her kids decided not to travel back to Indiana that day, so we all went together to Monkey Joe's.  Luckily it was Wednesday, so it was half price day (if you say the secret code word). :)



I was so glad that he at least had a cousin to play with on his day, instead of being all alone with Mom in a crazy storm. :)

 



Since the boys were having a massive combined birthday party later on with fun themes/cakes, we just did simple cupcakes for his birthday night, to blow out some candles.

Joe's Birthday!

Joe, somehow, turned 32 this year.  I can't believe I'm married to a 32 year old guy.  I thought I married a 23 year old...?  I wonder if it'll ever click that we're old.

 

Joe and I have had the tradition since our first year of marriage that he requests a specific cake/dessert for me to make.  It's something unorthodox & majorly different from year to year.  It started mildly with a request for four layer chocolate cake.  The next year it escalated to a raspberry trifle.  After that he upped the anti to a cake that looks like a hamburger (my personal favorite to make).  Others since then have been a Reeses peanut butter cake & a MEGA four layer chocolate cake.

 

This year he wanted a cake that looked like a BBQ Chicken Pizza (since that's his favorite dinner that I make from scratch- the real pizza, not a pizza cake).

 

How'd I do??  Haha :)  Joe's sister, Kelsey, was in town visiting from Indiana, and she majorly helped me.  Getting the sauce the right shade of red/brown to be BBQ sauce was the hardest part!

 

Joe's birthday was gorgeous outside- just under 70* & partly cloudy.  Amazing for JANUARY!  He wanted to spend the afternoon outside, so he came home from work early and we all drove down to Centennial Park with our frisbee and soccer ball.

Joe wanted to eat burgers at Five Guys on the way home from the park, and then we had his cake back at home with the cousins and our BFFs the Schlossers.

Broken

Poor Hunter broke his thumb!  It's the first broken bone in our family (since our marriage; Joe has plenty of breaks from his childhood).  I count ouselves lucky that with two boys (one almost 7), nothing had happened yet.  Between all their wrestling, ninja fighting, jumping off things at the playground, and climbing around on the bunkbed, we couldn't believe how he ACTUALLY broke a bone:  he tripped in his bedroom.  By himself.  On nothing.  Just fell while running across the clean floor of his room.

 

He has a fracture in his right thumb at the base.  Since little kiddos heal so fast, and it was right near a growth plate, he'll heal in only three weeks!  The break was on Friday January 18th, he got the cast on on Wednesday the 23rd, and the doc will be available to take it off on Monday February 18th.

 

I'm so shocked the cast hasn't bothered him at all.  He actually likes his peanut smasher.  :)

Zoo with Cousins!

We were so happy to have Joe's sister Kelsey visit with her two little kiddos.  We had a great time at the zoo, even though it was barely 50*.  :)

 

Our favorite moment was when two gorillas with their babies came right up to the window.  The kids all got lots of baby time, even tapping on the glass with them back & forth.  But mostly the gorillas just picked their noses and ate it.  It was gross.  And hilarious.

 

Baby birds: Rosie, Jared & Hunter

Basketball: The Pirates!

Sawyer started basketball last month through Upward Sports (Johnson Ferry Baptist Church) and is having a great time being on the team named "Pirates"!  Here they are before a game, hearing from one of the refs and getting ready to say their prayer together (have I mentioned I love the South?).

While it's a lot of fun, he has definitely learned that he's more of a soccer star. ;)  Someday we'll be able to provide our boys with a driveway with a basketball hoop to practice on, though!  And of course at this age, they're all just having so much fun being out there together with new friends, that they don't even care that they've lost all three their games so far.  Haha :)  Their coach is so patient with them!

Christmas Catch Up!

Sawyer met Santa at The Avenue (mall).  Hunter was scared to death and screaming with a death grip on us to not make him go over by him.  Haha :)

We had SO much fun with our Elf on the Shelf, Simon!  This was one of our favorite days: he made us 'elf donuts' for breakfast (cheerios with icing & sprinkles).  The boys were so sad to see him go, since he went back to the North Pole with Santa on Christmas Eve.  We're so excited for him to come back next Christmas!

Our Christmas week pizzas (so fun, btw):

The kids sang at the church Christmas party.  Technically Hunter wasn't in primary yet (still in nursery), but I guess they were all out playing in the hallway and he got corralled into the group as they lined up to go up on stage!  He did VERY, INCREDIBLY well!  You never would've known he wasn't supposed to go up. He stood still and sang a lot of the words.

Our beautiful tree, loaded with goodies (mostly from Grandmas):

Christmas morning, unloading the stockings Santa filled!

Opening gifts:

Thank you for the game, Grandma!

...and thank you for the awesome pirate stuff!

A BIG thank you for these awesome Perplexus mazes!  They play with these EVERY DAY, and they must be SO good for their minds and motor skills!  Highly recommend these toys.  Hunter has the "Rookie" and Sawyer has the Original.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Decorating our sweet, $30 pre-lit tree from Target last year.  :)  Maybe someday I'll have the big, fancy, perfectly coordinated & decorated tree, but for these years I'll just enjoy having little children who want to break and/or rearrange the ornaments each day.  It's so fun to watch the magic in Hunter's eyes as he stands at the Christmas tree, moving the ornaments around.  It was often several times a day.  I don't want to deprive him of that.  I'm already uptight about enough things around our house.  :)

 

 

One of the first things we do to rev up the Christmas season is build our annual mini gingerbraed (graham cracker) houses.  Joe and I have been doing this since our first Christmas together when we were dating: 9 years ago!  Once kids came along, I started making individual houses, so each person can work on their own.  I make them early in the day so the 'glue' is totally dry and they're ready for decorating (tiny kids wouldn't have the patience to do the building yet; but Sawyer did start helping me with the building process this year).  We're rewarded with having a nice big "Christmas Village" of multiple homes on a shelf somewhere.   



Thanksgiving at the Cabin!

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving this year.  About the best you could expect when you're across the country from your family.  We went with two other young families (who also live far from family) up into the Blue Ridge Mountains to stay in a big cabin together.  All of us cook amazingly delicious food, so it was a fantastic Thanksgiving Day line-up!

 

 

(Above) The grown-up table

(Below) The three year old table.  I think they each ate their rolls & then left to play.

The hot tub out on the deck, which the kids used way more than the adults.  In fact, Joe and I were the only adults to even get in!  The kids had a blast!  It was usually in the 40s-50s outside when they went in.

Lots and lots of games were played:

After Thanksgiving Day, we broke out the sugar cookies & decorating (Christmas shapes & sprinkles):

The kiddos played a lot of pool in the basement (no pics of that, whoops), played a lot outside with the dog that visited almost every day, and spent one afternoon playing with clay (these amazing animal shapes were done by Brittany, though).  :)

The cute & sweet dog, Noah, who visited every day & often stayed for a large portion of the day.  Apparantly he lives down the street.  There were notes inside the cabin from other renters who'd talked about the sweet dog named Noah who comes to visit.  Our boys were in HEAVEN having a dog for four days!  They were SO upset when it was time to leave.

Goodbye, Cabin!

Atlanta Children's Museum

Time to finally catch up, since Blogger is letting me post again!  Looks like it was a fluke.  Or a scam that didn't work out well for them.  :)

In NOVEMBER (a long long time ago...) we finally went to the Children's Museum downtown.  Most people have said it's too overpriced, but that going to the free day isn't worth it either (it's too packed).  A friend found a deal online for half priced tickets, so we finally went.  I have to say I agree:  it's DEFINITELY not worth the full price.  It's not nearly as impressive as Chicago's, or a few other cities we've gone to;  but it's very "neat" and clean and nice.  Just small.  My own kids were getting bored after a couple of hours, when usually a Children's Museum is something I have to claw them away from after the full 8 hour day. 

 

 

Painting the white wall.  Probably my favorite thing.  This would be awesome to have outdoors in our yard or on our deck.  Just a thick white plastic over a white painted wall/board, and let the kids paint away!  When you're ready to clean it, just run some water over it (they had a big jug they poured out) and squeegie it all clean.  Repeat. 

Hunter playing dress up!  Fireman.

Tiny kids' section: magnetic fishing.  There was much more of course, but I realized the pics aren't that great.  Afterwards:

Centennial Park was right across the street, so we let loose to RUN and look at the Christmas decorations that were being put up.

 

They wrestled all over the "Leaves" sculpture, but ultimately just love each other.