More Easter Fun

On Good Friday Michael had the day off, so we went over to Gran and Grandma's house to play and have fun! Anna Marie came over too!

Jonathan hanging out with his Great-Grandma.

Ben says, Me too!!!

I love this one of the 3 of them.

The boys having fun with Gran.

Aunt Annie Rie has VERY strong legs!

 

 

A fun Easter Tradition, we HAVE to do...Dye Eggs! This is one of Michael's favorite things, we all enjoyed it!

The boys wanted to hold the eggs before we started dying them.

I saw on Pinterest this idea of doing the different color dyes in the muffin tins! It was great! Much better than the cups that can easily knock over. They can see the eggs better and you can do more at a time! They had tons of fun!

On Easter Day, the Easter Bunny came, we went to Church, came home to find the REAL Easter Bunny on our driveway! It was a fun couple of weeks!

The boys Easter baskets that the Easter Bunny brought!

Ready to go to church! Sharp looking fellows!

Michael and I were asked to help with "Wee Worship" on Easter morning. Usually a couple, will help the children's directors with the Preschool aged kids during the main service. It's actually fun, the director leads the kids in a story and we sing songs. Then the rest of the time the kids read or color. This pic was at the end, we checked Ben out of his class and brought him in with the big kids while we waited for the rest of the kids to be picked up...they were SO EXCITED!

We purchased 2 Easter Lily's, 1 in memory of my parents and 1 in memory of Michael's father, Theron. Jonathan helped me pick up our Lily's after church!

I wanted a pic of Ben, but he kept getting right up in the lens so I could only see his eye ball! Crazy kid! I finally got this one, he knows he is being funny!

My sweet boys and me in front of our house!

Michael and the boys! Handsome crew!



THE REAL EASTER BUNNY???

Benny's Ears

Ben had tubes in and adenoids out last Friday, March 3, 2013! His surgery was scheduled for 11 am at Cook's Children's in Downtown Fort Worth. Everything went great and he is almost fully recovered! We are so excited to see if this will bring him relief from his chronic ear infections and sinus infections!
Thank you everyone for all your emails, texts, calls...it meant a lot to us that so many of you were praying for Ben (and Michael and me!)! We were a big ball of nerves until we had him in our arms again! But thankfully, all is well!

Michael is reading "My Big Truck Book" to the boys, bright and early the morning of the surgery.

Cook's Children's is a fun place! I wish we had this type of play area at our house!

 

He was such a sport going through all the tests...weighing, blood pressure, heat beat monitor...love his sweet spirit!

Dressed and ready to go! Got our dino (that I made) as our personal item!

Weighting...The surgery was supposed to begin at 11, but they didn't come to get him until 11:45!!! We were on pins and needles!

So we watched a little TV - he is saying, "Choo, Choo!"

I think he is just beautiful.

He even had time to make new friends!

The surgery is all done and he is back in daddy and mommy's arms! He did not come out of the anesthesia well. He cried a lot. We think it was because he was so hungry and tired. But he had 3 rainbow popsicles and he was much better!!!
You can see the tub across his right thigh, that was his IV. They gave him a bag of liquids before we left to catch him back up for what he didn't get for the first half of the day. We were happy about that, but Ben did NOT like this tube at all! He kept trying to rip it off. Thankfully he didn't!

We headed home! Got Jonathan, who had spent the day at his friend Gage's house (thank you Mandy!) and Ben and I both slept!!!
So glad it is over and hopeful for no more ear infections!!!
 

Easter at School

*Quick update! Ben did NOT have the tube procedure today. He came down with the tummy flu that Jonathan had earlier this week. So we postponed the procedure 1 week. The new date is May 3rd. Thank you for all your prayers and support! We had such a overwhelming response to my last post on the boys! It warms my heart that so many people love my boys and want to see them succeed! Thank you for all the LOVE! We love you all too!

Both boys had Easter Egg hunts at the Day School! It was the first of the Easter activities and it was Ben's first official Egg Hunt! So I was there to take pictures, of course!

I just love this one of him. He was very determined.

Tongue out, he means business!

Ben said, "Got one, Mommy!"

Jonathan's class was out on the playground as Ben's class finished the Egg Hunt. So as we passed by, Ben wanted to stop and show Jonathan his loot! Brother approved!

I loved this! All the kids in Jonathan's class are now pressed up against the fence. This class loves Ben. Ben will sometime run into their classroom at pick up time and the room explodes with laughter. Ben loves it! One of the boys always say, "Baby Alter! Baby Alter!"

All the kids wanted high-five. Ben thought it would be funny to pull on Rachelle!

Now it's Jonathan's egg hunt!

Jonathan's class! I love all these kids. It has been such a great group this year!
From the left: Jacob, Jonathan, Marco, Sabrina, Luke, Brady, Taryn, Gwen, Rachelle, Shaylyn, David, Lily, Brendon, Miles and Charlotte.
 

Swimming, Soccer and Tubes

I honestly expected for it to have been longer than 2 1/2 weeks since my last post...this month has been a BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! I expect April to be busy for the rest of my life, I have boys birthdays to celebrate. We had a big celebration last weekend. I will post on that soon! But there are other things too...

 

We had lots and lots of fun Easter activities, more on that in a bit. We started swim lessons for both boys, we have Jonathan's soccer games ever Saturday morning. Since it is Spring, we have been working in the yard to pretty it up for ourselves and the party. Jonathan has made HUGE strides in his development in the past month. Each of us have been sick with a little something here and there...stomach bug, sinus infections, ear infections...you name it.

 

We decided at the beginning of the month that we needed to do something about the boys swimming abilities. Jonathan's new best bud, Gage, has a pool at his house and Jonathan said, "maybe we can go swimming and I can stand on my tip-toes and Gage can swim around me..." I hated that for him. I want him to know how to swim - not just so he can have fun in the pool, but for his own safety! So we enrolled both boys at a Swim School. They have a 3 month program that meets once a week. We have gone 4 times now and both boys are doing amazing! They were both timid in the beginning, but Jonathan can swim under water almost by himself (he holds the instructors pointer finger) for 10 seconds. Ben can swim underwater, with NO ONE touching him for 3 seconds. (the picture of Jonathan above is at the first lesson, he no longer needs the floaty on his back). I am so happy that we are doing this! I am looking forward to more progress and fun in the sun this summer!  

It makes me so happy that he likes it so much!

Another amazing thing that Jonathan has accomplished this month - writing his name!! It was a goal for us to master this by the end of the Pre-K year. I am so excited for him! It is a long name to remember all those letters! We finally did a game of assigning a word to each letter. Such as: J is for Jonathan, O is for Owen, N is for Nathan, A is for Apple, T is for Tree, H is for House, A is for Apple and N is for Nathan! And low and behold, he remembered it! YAY!

I had his end of year evaluation with his teachers last week and they said he is ready to move on to Kindergarten! Registration is just a couple weeks away...scary!
In our meeting they showed me his "Journal" which is a daily drawing, that they have to describe and the teacher usually writes on the drawing what the child said it is. But this time, she asked him what it was and he said "friends" and she told him to write it on there and sound it out! "FRZ" was what he came up with! I was beaming with pride, I asked if I could take a picture!! I just love to see him grow and learn. It is an amazing time for him right now!

 

On a roll for Mr. Jonathan - earlier this month, he scored his first goal in a soccer game!!! This is huge! He has wanted to since he started playing last Fall! Before every game he will say, "I sure hope a score a goal today." He awesome goal was the kick off from the center of the field. He kicked it so hard and straight, that it went right through the other kids and right into the goal! It was AWESOME! People were even talking about it after the game!
This is right after the game - all smiles!  

J giving Daddy and Ben a high-five!

 

 

After approx 13 ear infections, Ben is scheduled to have Tubes put in his ears and his Adenoids removed THIS FRIDAY, April 26th. Please pray for our sweet boy. Even though it is a routine surgery, it is still really scary for us! We are so hopeful that it will help him and he won't suffer as much or at all any more! Ben's 2nd Birthday is this Monday, April 29th. So I hoping for a full recovery by then. This pic is at the ENT appointment. Ben said, "Look Mommy, Big-Tall!" He is a BIG talker. It is amazing how many words he knows and uses them ALL! He is fun, silly, sweet AND A RASCAL and I have lots of things to update on him too...all coming soon!



And in closing, here are some pictures of our yard, Spring has Sprung and I love all the pretty flowers!

 

Spring Break 2013 - Aubrey's Birthday

On Tuesday evening, our last day in El Paso and Las Cruces, we went Aubrey's Birthday Party! We actually didn't know when we planned the trip that we would overlap her 4th Birthday, so we were excited to be apart of the fun! Aubrey is my cousin Angela's daughter. I forget what they makes her to me, but she is my boys second-cousin. They had all the family meet at Peter Piper Pizza in El Paso! Peter Piper is similar to Chuckie Cheese! My kids were super excited to go! Birthday party, more time with second-cousins, cake, games, pizza...what more could a kid want?
We all had a great time seeing everyone one more time before we left bright and early the next morning. We had such an amazing trip! We can't wait to go back again! We can't thank our family enough for being such generous hosts!

Ben and Aubrey saying hi!

Jonathan, Aubrey (the Birthday girl) and Ben riding the merry-go-round.

Um, Ben didn't want to get off the Merry-go-round. Great-Aunt Maureen was very sweet and VERY patient as she tried to coach him off so we could go eat.

Finally got Ben back to the table. He is drinking some water and chatting with Great-Grandma.

Jonathan, Aubrey and Eli are chowing down! My cousin Angela, Aubrey's mom, is serving the pizza's!

Jonathan and Aubrey really hit it off!

Sweet second cousin's!

Cupcake time!

Ben enjoyed his cupcake!

The kids had so much fun playing this, but the funny thing was, we never put tokens in! They were just seeing the demo! Ha!



Sweet kids!

Uh Oh, back on the horse. Now he WILL NOT GET OFF! Patient Great-Aunt Susan is waiting so sweetly. I finally had to remove him so we could leave...there were a lot of tears shed. :-(

But he cheered up when he could ride on Great-Grandma's walker! Yay!