Nathan's 5th Birthday

Oh my, I really wasn't ready for this guy to turn 5.  I always let them pick what they want and this year Nathan wanted a cold cereal that I never buy for him. Oh well, it is his birthday. Plus, we have early church and a hot breakfast is not the easiest thing. Note the crown. His preschool teacher gave it to him when he celebrated his birthday with his class a couple of weeks prier. He kept it nice and neat for his really birthday.

A Razor Scooter from Mom and Dad

 Little lego sets from his brothers. Yes, we do have another lego lover in the family

Building the new lego sets while Mommy does dishes.

For dinner this year Nathan menu request was, Spaghetti, french bread, Carrot and celery stick , and fresh fruit salad. 

 The Cake

First thing Monday morning, Nathan went to the store to spend his birthday money from Grandma and Grandpa. And guess what he got? Yep, more Legos!

May Maddness

May has been very busy for all of us. So here are a few of the highlights.

Jon had surgery on his hand. Here he is waiting in Pre-Op

 The bandage is off and the swelling and bruising mostly gone. Because Jon is on a business trip in San Francisco right now, he gets to keep his stitches in for an extra 4 1/2 days.

Preschool Graduation

Alright, alright, alright, I'll admit it... I'm not okay with this milestone for my baby boy and yes I did shed a tear or two (or more)

 Nathan's teacher Miss Lori would come up on this podium, she would announce there name then they would walk to the stage. Nathan was the very last kid and when he got up I tried to click a quick pic but all I got was this blurry shot of him jumping off the podium.

 Here's a shot of all the graduates. (Actually it's only half. They had to spit up by days so the Mon-Wed kids did it at 6 and the Tues-Thur kids were at 7) Nathan is the very last one on the left. the program was very cute. After they introduced each child, they sang about 6 songs and then presented the awards. Nathan received the 'most improved award'.

He even received a medal

The next day then had there graduation party. They did a picnic at a park and rented bounce houses, snow cone machines, and cotton candy. Nathan had a blast.

We went to the award ceremony for the big boys. Ky received a Raptor Recognition Medal. Both Landon and Kyler were in to win the grand prizes from the school but neither won. They were giving away two bikes and two i pod shuffles.

April Happenings

Of Course we celebrated Easter. This year we tried a different technique for coloring eggs. You simply make crayon shavings and as soon as the eggs finish boiling you put the shavings on and watch them stick and melt all over the egg shell. It was pretty fun and a lot less messy.

 The finished product

 Working Hard

Skywest had their annual 'Bring your Child to Work Day'. It is set up so that the participants (ages 8-15) come and get to do some hands on experiences and learn about different areas of Skywest. Landon got to work dispatch, maintenance, pilot, flight attendant, and ramp agent. Then the CEO came down and talked with all of the kids and their parent and took a picture with them for the company newspaper. After the classes they parted for lunch and finally Jon took him to his actual office to show him around and introduce him to some of the people in his department.

 This is his future pilot shirt they gave him along with a bag full of company goodies (pen, notepad, calendar, paper airplane kits, etc)

Toothless

Mr Kyler here keeps loosing teeth . He lost 3 in about 10 days. Boy is the tooth fairy getting tired of coming to our house.

This past Saturday we went to a little rodeo that was being hosted by an assistant living home that our niece Megan works at. Megan was in charge of some of the petting animals (bunnies,chicken). They had horses to ride. Jon help with assisting the elderly getting on the horses and walking beside them on the ride if they were unsteady. The boys loved riding the horses and kept going back to ride them again and again. 

Here's Nathan

 Kyler is riding bare back

 And Landon

 They also had a booth making balloon animals, barrel racing (which was actually a wheel chair race. Some one would sit in the wheel chair and hold a stick horse and another person would push them around a couple of barrels and back.) Here are our pictures from photo station.

Our signs say 'He did it / She did it'

 The boys sign says 'wild bunch gang' and they are holding bags of money

Grandpa's Birthday

All of Jon's siblings came in town this past weekend to celebrate his dad's 70th birthday. We had a  big barbecue for him complete with banana splits and cookies for dessert (he didn't want cake). This is the giant cookie I made him. 

School Fun

Over the past few months the boys have had some fun activities at school. Here are a few pictures of what's been happening with them at school.

For the letter P each of the kids in Nathan's pre-school got their faces painted by one of the teachers. The boys were all pirates and the girls were princesses.

Rrrrr it's Pirate Nathan!

 Dr. Seuss Week:

Each day during the week of Dr. Seuss' birthday the kids got to show their school spirit. I only remembered to get pictures of two of the days

Crazy Sock Day 

 Crazy Hair Day

The boys really are at a disadvantage when it comes to hair. They wanted to spray their hair crazy colors but we were leaving on an airplane right after school so we had to it to just using Jon's hair glue instead.

 Kyler's grade put on a very cute play called How does your garden grow? It was so fun to go and watch. I got to go in early and help with get the kids in costumes and do make-up/face paint on all of them.The kids were dressed as flowers, gardeners, vegetables, birds, bunnies, gofers, scarecrows, and weeds. Ky was so excited to be a weed. (its what he really wanted)

Here are all of the weeds doing their song/rap. I thought I got a video but it didn't work right. The chorus went a little like this:

We're the weeds, we rule

We're the weeds, we're cool

 Getting his face painted

 My tough guy

 Nathan came to support his big brother

Take Home Pet:

Nathan's pre-school has a take home pet named Moxie. Moxie is a stuffed bunny that needs be cared and loved for. She has her own little cage/carrier, blanket and a bottle of magic carrot juice. Moxie is Nathan's responsibility for the whole weekend.

Mini Indy

 Almost two weeks ago, Jon had the opportunity to participate in the Mini Indy Race. The race is a fun way to earn money for charities and for the scholarships put out by SkyWest Airlines. Jon got to miss two days off of work to go have fun and drive go-carts. He was on Team Securaplane. (they build the batteries that go inside the airplanes. So each team had a pit crew and drivers. Jon was driver #3 and part of the pit crew. Thursday they practiced with their teams, did team photos and auctions for charity. Friday was race day. This year they held the race up on the old airport tarmac. Each race was 10 laps long and required 2 pit stops. Each team did 4 qualifying races and then the finals but with almost 40 teams it took most of the day. Jon's team ended up taking 13th for the day.

 Jon and his team watching Leo (their head driver) make his way around the obstacles on the back side of the track.

 Coming around the turnpike. They made the final tight turn more challenging by hosing it down to be slick.

They had an actual race car and driver there for you to meet and a military officer had this tank that the kids could go inside and see how it works.

 Nathan testing out the car.

 Jon doing some repairs. 

 Jon carrying his jack. His job, in the pit crew, was to jack the car so that the tires could be changed and the drivers could be switched.

Spring Break on the East Coast

Back around November/December ish I told Jon that for spring break I wanted to go SC to see my parents. He of course agreed especially since its been 9 years since I've been back . (yep that's right, 9 YEARS). When the time came closer it was actually a very busy time for us here. Mainly because we moved into a new house about 10 days prior to spring break. Nevertheless, we were still taking our vacation. I mean really, we fly for free, we have no excuse, right! So Friday after school (every Friday is a half day for the elementary schools here) we packed up our van and drove 45 minutes to Cedar City to catch a flight to SLC. We waited around just to find out that there was only room for one of us on the flight. (trouble with flying standby). So we went ahead and drove to SLC. The boys were great in the car and were surprisingly well-behaved in the airport considering our flight didn't leave until midnight. Yep, we have officially taken our first red eye with the kids. They did great! They slept the entire flight ( I wish I could say the same about me). Once we arrived in Atlanta the boys and I boarded a flight to Charlotte and Jon turned around and flew back home. (Because we drove the van to SLC, Jon had to fly back in there and do the 5 hour drive by himself. Poor guy he finally got home around 1 AM.) 

Anyhow, once we arrived in Charlotte, my parents picked us up and we headed to there house in SC. *side note: an older lady sitting beside Kyler on the plane asked him where he was going and he said, "I don't know. I'm going to see my grandma in SC but this plane said we are going to NC". I gladly helped him clarify.

We spent the rest of Sat just enjoying my parents house and eat pizza. On Sunday, we of course went to Lancaster Branch. It was so wonderful to go back and see everyone again. 

On Monday, Grandma took all of us to Riverbanks Zoo. I told the boys that the last time I had gone to this zoo was for my 2nd grade field trip... they said I was getting old.

The Gorilla exhibit was great. We were very close to them and we got to see them get fed. I think it was the high light of the trip. We stayed there for about 30 minutes just watching them and listening to one of the trainers.

Feeding the Giraffe

 On Tuesday we needed to do some shopping but decided to take the boys for a picnic and small nature hike. We even got to see the bald eagle nest... but the eagles were on the other side of the canal. After lunch I had to stop by my friend Emily's house. She had just had a baby a few week prior so I didn't get to see her at church on Sunday.

Emily and baby Liam

We came back to Grandma and Grandpa's house and had dinner then Grandpa took us over for a tour of his new office building. It was amazing to see the new office and I loved that they took parts of Lancaster history and reused it. While we were walking around the outside we were crossing over the water and Nathan's foot missed the next stone and his shoe went in the reflection pool, so my mom quickly bent down to get it and ended up dropping her car keys in the reflection pool too. We were all joking that the security guard that was watching us on video was probably getting quite a laugh out of it.
Wednesday morning we loaded up the boys for a 5-6 hour drive to see my sister Krista.
After work on Wednesday Jon took a red eye back out east to spend the rest of the vacation with us.  Thursday we celebrated little Miss Halli turning one. She was so precious and the boys loved playing with her

 Aunt Krista let Nathan and Ky help make the birthday cupcakes

 Isn't she just too cute!!

Friday we all headed to the Lost Sea Adventure.

This date was burned into the wall of the cave with a torch during the Civil War

 Some of the pictures are hard to see because of lack of lighting... sorry

 When we got to the bottom of the cave we got on a glass bottom boat and went out into the water. There were tons of huge fish and the tour guide would throw food out to them and them were going crazy trying to get some. Halli loved the fish. She kept trying to get in the water and laughed and laughed when she could see the fish. Yes, the fish are blind due to lack of light for so long. So they stayed around the same area of the pond and would follow the boat because they knew that meant food. (above pic is the fish, bottom pic is from the boat)

Very early on Saturday morning (4:00), my parents drove us back to Atlanta airport to fly home. (it was a 2 hour drive from Krista's house) It was a great trip and the boys loved nothing more then to spend time with their grandparents and actually see their home. (and to finally put to rest the fact that NO my parents don't live in an airport, they actually do have a home) Hopefully it wont be another 9 years before we make it back out there. 

Flying Home!