Mommy's Birthday Weekend

My birthday this year fell on a Friday, which I really liked.  My mom was nice enough to drive up on Thursday, so that Bob and I could go out to dinner that night.  Then, on the morning of my birthday, she stayed at the house with the kids while I went out for a morning on shopping by myself!  It was great!  Thanks, Nana, for such a great birthday gift!  

Since by birthday was on Friday and Bob obviously had to work, he decided we would celebrate on Saturday, which sounded great to me!  I got to choose what we did on Saturday, and picked to go hiking close to our house as a family.  It was a kid-friendly hike where there were fun things to look at (not waterfalls, though) along the way.  We had a great time!

Addie smelling the flowers:

Levi did the same:

Enjoying a little break in the hike:

It was an artsy hike-this was some kind of concrete couch we found along the way. 

Addie with her hiking stick.  Gotta have that.

Picture with Daddy!

I love the Daddy/daughter pictures:

Levi got to hold a caterpillar for the first time.  I think he liked it...

Here is Addie singing "Happy Birthday" to me through this weird looking thing

There's the whole contraption.  Like I said, there was random stuff to look at/play with along the trail:

Most randomly, was this metal structure we found just before the end of the trail.  It was a huge hit for our skinny little kids!  It kind of looked like a hen house, but with no place for the hen to sit at the top.  Just a skinny staircase, then a drop off.  Our kids managed to crawl up in it, though, and had a blast!

A 3-year-old totally should not be able to fit in there, but once Levi did it, she had to make it happen!

Once finished with our hike, we stopped at the park close to our house for Addie to show off her biking skills.  It's so fun to watch her enjoy her bike so much!

Levi's not quite ready to be able to ride his own bike yet, but he was happy to stroll, thankfully.

Close up:

Then, we played at the playground for a few minutes.  This is one of Addie's favorite things at our playground-not sure what it's called, but it's something to climb up.

Levi running around, probably looking for another child he can run up to and give hugs and kisses.  

Sliding!

Trying out the monkey bars:

On Saturday evening, Bob grilled out steaks and made all the fixings as well.  It was delicious, and so nice not to have to cook AT ALL for dinner!

Presents time!

Reading a card...

Levi's new hat...a manila envelope.

My card from Addie:

And my gift from Levi!

It was a great birthday weekend!  Thank you to my awesome husband that made it so special and fun!

Easter Weekend

We had a fun-filled Easter weekend!  Uncle Corey and Deborah came down to visit for the weekend, do it was nice to see and hang out with them.  Also, it happened to be Bob's half-birthday on Friday, so they got to celebrate that with us!

On Saturday morning, we went to a local park that was having an Easter Egg "hunt."  It was our first time doing that, and we did not realize we needed a strategy for it.  Thankfully, our kids didn't mind only getting 3 eggs out of the 7,000 that had been distributed over several baseball fields.  Addie's friends, Addisyn and Summer, were there too.

Right after the 30-second hunt was finished.

We also had an Easter egg hunt for our kids at our house on Easter Sunday.  They loved it-Levi more than Addie.  He was much better at finding and picking up lots of eggs.  Addie was too picky-she just wanted the pink and purple eggs.

There he is, in action.

He even found the candy inside!

Family picture

I know this is out of order, but blogger just decided to change up the editing options on this and it takes too long to change the order of the pics.  So, to back up, we did not go to church on Easter morning.  Instead, we took advantage of the beautiful morning that it was and went hiking.  I did feel a little guilty not going to church on Easter morning, but don't worry, we went that night!

                                                      Playing in the water near a waterfall

                                                                    Having fun with Daddy!

We unfortunately forgot to bring the hiking backpack, so Levi got to actually hike for the first time ever.  Hopefully we won't do that again anytime soon!

On Saturday afternoon (going back in time, once again) we colored Easter eggs.  We all had a good time!

             This is Levi looking like he's about to get into some kind of trouble.  A look he has often.

                                                               Everyone hard at work.

                                                                     Kid picture!

                                                                  He got the idea...

And so did she!

Addie's actual birthday

As previously mentioned, Addie's birthday was on April 4th. Although that was almost 3 weeks ago, I am just now getting around to posting pictures from that day.

I asked Addie on her birthday what she wanted to do-I had kept the day wide open so that she could choose how we spent our time. She said she wanted to go to a park with swings (something that there are not a lot of around here, unfortunately-lots with slides, but not many with swings), so off we went.
Levi is at a stage where he wants EVERYTHING his sister has (or does) so he decided to get on the big boy swing next to Addie

Our 3 year old. Another little girl at the playground struck up a conversation with Addie and asked her how old she was. Addie said, "I'm 3." She realized that as of that day her age had changed!

We met Daddy at Chick-fil-a for lunch. Can't go wrong with that!

After a dinner of pork tenderloin and macaroni (some of Addie's favorite's), we had princess cupcakes for dessert!

There was a special Ariel ring on the top of the cupcake.

Lots of presents!

She got a baby alive doll from Uncle Josh and Aunt Amy-a huge hit! (thanks, guys)

And...her first "real" bike-a Dora bike!

Although it was hard to pull Addie away from her baby doll to get her to come see what present she had waiting for her in the garage, once she opened it, she hopped right on and was ready to go on a bike ride. She did surprisingly well and we ended up doing 3 consecutive laps around the neighborhood. Way to go, Addie!

Just to get a little more caught up on here, I'm going to update on Addie's 3 year old well check up at the doctor. She weighs 29 lb. 12.8 oz (50%) and is 38.5 in. tall (90%). When the doctor said she was in the 90%, I had her repeat it-I've never had a child over the 50% in anything, so I was quite surprised! Thankfully, she is a very healthy, happy little (but getting bigger) girl. We are so thankful for her and pray her year of being 3 is the best year yet!