Will's Fourth Birthday

The first major get-together at our new house was Will's Fourth birthday. Abbey kept putting off planning his birthday because she really wanted it to be at our new house. I had told her early on that she needed to give that dream up, because there was no way we would sell our house in time. In fact, it sold in 3 weeks.

Abbey planned a very special "Curious George" birthday for Curious George's human equivalent, our own Will!

All three of Will's girlfriends were at the birthday party. Allie, Paityn, and of course, his Mama.

The kids enjoyed jumping on the bounce house and eating lots of hot dogs and hamburgers.

Will loves his friend Wyatt. He doesn't understand that Wyatt is a first grader.

Abbey did a fantabulous job decorating like always.

Abbey also made a delicious key lime "Man with the Yellow Hat" cake.

Will was thrilled to get his very own copy FROZEN! We were not as thrilled as he was. I think that Tuck says "Let It Go" in his sleep!

Will really wanted a pinata at his birthday. Mr. Brian got Will a "minecraft sword" and Will used it to hit the pinata.

I think that we had to end up calling in Cate to help us break the pinata, but it was a lot of fun.

Abbey also made a chocolate "Curious George" cake. I'm sure it was delicious, but I chose to focus my caloric intake on the key lime cake.

Will LOVES Brian! LOVES him. HE was so thrilled Brian came. How many high school juniors would willingly come to a four-year-olds birthday?

Tuck thought the bounce house was super fun.

Uncle Bill's Beach House 2014

One week after we moved into our new house, we headed to the beach. It was a great time to relax after we had been through a stressful few weeks of moving.

This year we tried out a different condo complex instead of going back to the beach house where we had stayed. We realized that the boys really did better with a pool and also realized that the condo stays cleaner when there is a pool to rinse off in.

We liked the condo, but it was definitely different from what we were used to. No real difficulties to speak of (until we checked out and the owner of the condo wasn't very kind!). But, the boys had a blast. 

I guess the cold winter took its toll on the water because it was super cold. The boys didn't mind. I, however, did! The adults on the trip didn't get in the water much.

This year, in addition to Candace and Uncle Bill, we brought along Kelsie. It was great to have extra hands to help watch the boys.

The boys had a blast. They definitely liked the pool, but enjoyed the sand as well.

Because we now have two kiddos in "grade school" we have decided to push the beach vacay for next year back to the last week of "spring condo rates" (AKA - rates we can afford). We are going back to the place where it all started and have decided to rent two condos in the same complex. It's a little older, but has amazing pools and a great beach. I'm hoping the weather (and the water) is a little warmer.

We just love the beach and we are glad that our boys love it too.

The highlight of this year's trip was a plethora of starfish. The boys loved finding them and we had the grand idea that we would save them and dry them. Well, after a couple of days of having them out on the patio, I thought I might lose my lunch. Needless to say, the starfish stayed at the beach!

I don't know for sure, but I don't think that the boys ever asked about the starfish once we got home.

One of the low points of the trip was that on the very first day of the beach trip, our Canon Rebel rebelled. It went kaput. I still need to get it to the camera doctor. Thankfully, we had Candace's camera, but we forgot to take all of the pictures that we normally take like ... a family beach pic.

So, our annual picture at the Purple Octopus has to do!

Tuck enjoyed the endless supply of snacks.

The boys enjoyed our traditional lunch at Lamberts.

We all enjoyed time together savoring God's creation.

Our New House

I'm trying to get caught up on the blog and there are quite a few things that I haven't blogged about. One of the major things is catching everyone up on our new house. We moved at the end of April or middle of April. Honestly, I can't even remember. For me, it's the furthest out in the country I've ever lived. That might sound funny for those of you who know the little town I grew up in, but even though it was tiny, I lived right in the center of town.

 God really blessed us with an excellent realtor who sold our house far more quickly than we ever thought was possible. We also were able to convince our friends to sell us their house. We love our new house. I don't have all of the pictures of the house yet, but I do have the ones of the rooms we have redone. We deviated from our "golden yellow" colors to gray and love the new paint.

We have a dining room again which we really love. We don't eat there much as most people don't, but it is great when we have company over. It's also really great for folding laundry. I'm thrilled that we have space for my grandparents' kitchen table finally. I love having it in our house. 

The new house has enough bedrooms for all of our boys to have their own room if they choose to have it that way one day. Right now, Tuck and Will share a room and Reed and Nash share a room. That works well now.

We went with a similar blue to the one that we had in our old bedroom. We just always loved it. We are still looking for the right comforter, but for now, we have the old one. We love having ceilings high enough to use the beams on our bed again. 

We still haven't gotten the all of the boys to stay out of our bed for the night. At least one usually sneaks in sometime in the wee hours of the morning. But, I really don't mind. I like the snuggles.

Our bathroom is a little more snug than our old bathroom, but we do like it because access to our closet is from there. And, our closet is ENORMOUS.

I can't find any good pictures of our kitchen right now, but we painted it a beachy bluish green and love it. It's spacious and has enough room for a large table.

We love our backyard. It's much larger than what we have had before and the boys love running around and playing in it.

We are definitely blessed.

Bike Gang: April 15, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

Since the boys have learned to ride bikes, they can't get enough.

Brothers: April 14, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

Every once in a while the stars align and our boys love being together.

Relaxed: April 13, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

The very best theater we have ever been too. Power leather recliners.

Date Weekend: April 12, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

It's our 15th anniversary of our first date, so we went to Atlanta for the weekend. Great trip!

Talent: April 11, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

Tuck had a lot of fun dancing to the music at the talent show.

Old Blue Eyes: April 10, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

Will told his mom that he had blue eyes when he wore these.

Bros: April 9, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

Nash and Will were being especially cute and sweet tonight.

Radon: April 8, 2014: LandLife Pic of the Day

This week we had our home inspection. We currently have this radon detector in our bedroom. We don't have radon, but I think this is a way for the home inspector to charge $150 more.