Arizona

We went to Arizona for a mini family reunion for Jonathan’s family a few weeks ago. It was only Conan’s second time on an airplane and he was so excited about it. He loved watching the planes out the window at the airport and yelling, “Airba! Airba!” every time he spotted one.

We got to spend some quality time with Jonathan’s grandparents while in Arizona. It’s wonderful to be able to see so much family on one trip.  I completely air balled getting a picture of my kids with their great-grandparents, though, so we’ll have to make up for that the next time we visit.

Here Lincoln is holding the brand his great-granddad used to use on his cows. And Conan was just running around like crazy, trying to eat lemons .

 

Someone noticed a bat sleeping in this tree, so we all gathered around for a look.

This is the only picture I got of one of my kids with one of their great-grandparents.

Jonathan’s parents had a little kiddie pool set up in their backyard, and most of the kids thought that was awesome.

Conan, however, preferred to hang out outside of the pool.

Lincoln has been waiting and waiting for a squirt gun. He’s even been working to earn one at home, so he was in seventh heaven when he got to play with this blue one (that’s his favorite color, and he won’t let you forget it).

Here are a few more random pictures from my camera. I kept trying to get candid cousin shots… and kept failing.

These are some pictures Kariah took on Saturday when a lot of us participated in the “Run to Death”. A 5K mud race with obstacles and zombies. I was pretty worried about the zombies going into it, but luckily there were only about five and I didn’t have any nightmares that night, although I was finding mud for days afterward.

Easter Weekend

We just enjoyed a fun filled weekend of Easter festivities. Here’s a recap:

We started off the weekend with a trip to the National Kite Festival on the Mall. We had never been before, so we didn’t really know what to expect. Getting on and off the metro was something of a trial, but otherwise it was wonderful. The weather was perfect and we loved seeing thousands of kites in the air at once.

Conan could not contain his excitement and had to be chased constantly.

A picture to prove I was there too.

Lincoln was also a little ball of energy, begging Jonathan to chase him/be chased by him.

Finally, here’s a photo of my favorite kite of the day: a pirate ship. I had no idea there were so many varieties of kites available.

That evening we had dinner and an egg hunt with some friends. This is the first time Conan really participated, but he seemed to enjoy it. He couldn’t be persuaded to pick up more then two eggs, but he really liked those two eggs.

Lincoln is an old pro, though, of course.

Isn’t this always the way with little brothers? Why should Conan find more then two eggs when he can just get his brother to do the work for him?

On Easter morning Conan got up first, as usual. I expected to be able to just get him and walk past the Easter baskets back to our room, but that was not the case. As soon as Conan spotted the Easter baskets he started lunging for them. When I let him down, he went straight to his to check it out. Lincoln wasn’t far behind.

We finally ended up decorating our eggs on Easter afternoon; somehow it just never got done before then. But it was a very nice was to spend some of our Easter Sunday.

Lincoln’s 4 Year Old Pictures

 

I talked Lincoln into taking pictures by doing it at a caboose, unfortunately it was pretty cold and windy, so we didn’t last very long.

Lincoln’s Train Party

Last Saturday we celebrated Lincoln’s 4th birthday with a train extravaganza at our home. I’ve been experimenting with Photoshop a lot lately, so I designed a lot of the elements of our party myself. It was fun, but could be time consuming.

First up is the invitation. I found the train images online.

We were preparing right up until the party began, so I didn’t get a lot of pictures of the decorations. In addition to the table and giant four below, we had a lot of pennant flags made from scrapbook paper hanging up around.

A close up of the water bottle labels I designed. There is a train on one side and it says “Lincoln is turning 4".”

Jonathan and I made the cake together. It’s not as pretty as I would have liked (why didn’t I frost the bottom of the smokestack?) but Lincoln loved it, and that’s all that matters.

The birthday boy, in his freezer paper stenciled shirt, showing off his new smile. He’s dentally advanced.

We played a couple of games during the course of the party. The first one was “Pin the Smokestack on the Steam Engine.” I used the same train image from the invitations and Photo shopped the smokestack off. I had it printed as a engineering print (you can get a much bigger print for a lot less money) at FedEx Office, along with different colored smokestacks on cardstock so we could tell who was closest. I’ve used FedEx Office a ton over the last month, first for his Valentines and then for his party.

The second game was played was called “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” It was hard to get a good picture of this one, but basically we had a ton of “coal” (aluminum foil balls) that the kids “shoveled” (moved with plastic spoons) into buckets. They were very serious about this task and the room was very quiet while they worked.

We also made individual, train shaped pizzas. This is easy with 4 year olds because they don’t require a lot of extra ingredients. To some of them, pepperoni was a bridge too far.

Lincoln had a lot of fun opening his presents. When the time came, all the other children rushed to grab the present they had brought and crowded around the birthday boy.

I wish we would have remembered to film all of Lincoln’s friends singing him “Happy Birthday” but we are the world’s worst parental filmmakers. I’m hoping he’ll just remember since he’s four now. I bought a sparkler “4” at the party store, so there was nothing to blow out, but it was sure pretty. He got to blow out regular candles on his actual birthday, so all was well.

It was a really fun party, but a lot of work. As a result, I think Lincoln and Conan will have to share parties in the future. Two parties in two weeks would be a little rough, sorry boys.