Have a Ball and Make a Racket!

Have a ball and make a racket because Tyler is seventeen now!  Woo hoo!

 Reagan colored all of these birthday posters for Tyler.

 I printed some tennis facts and tennis jokes to add to the table.  A while ago I saw peanut butter cup cupcakes on Pinterest, and I knew Tyler would love them.

 His birthday dinner was steak, mashed potatoes, and root beer.

The birthday song video:

At seventeen, Tyler is:
-very intelligent
-incredibly handsome
-a reader
-the tallest person in the house (he has been for a while now)
-a licensed driver
-a fan of country music
-an athlete who prefers playing tennis over any other sport
-a bus boy at Fiesta
-a loving son
-a helpful brother

Happy Birthday to my first born.  I hope you have a wonderful year full of great moments you will always remember.

Dad is 40!

Tom turned 40 last week, and we had a great celebration at home.  He loves quesadillas, so that is what I made, and Reagan insisted on buying him his current beer of choice.

Tyler, Collin, and Reagan made the banner that is hanging above his head.  They each wrote and drew things that he loves, that he says, or things that they associate with Dad.

Dessert was a homemade chocolate chip cookie cake.

Here is our birthday song video:

Tom asked for this shirt, so that was an easy birthday present!  The gift wrap is so funny only because Tom is not big on celebrating birthdays for adults, and for as long as I can remember he has always said, "Hooray, you were born" or something similar when talking about adult birthday celebrations.  When I saw the paper, I knew he would love it.

Tom decided he wanted to celebrate this milestone birthday by running a marathon.  With a lot of help from family, Tom and I were able to sneak away to Burlington, Vermont for two nights.  He ran in the Vermont City Marathon while we were there.

Uncle Paul ran the marathon too.  They both did great!  Burlington was a very beautiful and super cool place.  I hope to go back soon.

Happy 40th Tom, I hope it's a wonderful year!

R is for Rockets

Kate decorated her very own rocket ship.  She spent a lot of time in her rocket that day.

Here is Kate wearing her space helmet:

I tried to simulate a rocket blast off for Kate.  Ha!  Well, not really, but I gave her a little ride in her rocket.  I kept counting backwards and saying "Blast Off", but she thought the backwards counting was so weird, so when it was her turn to count before the blast off, she counted forward.  So cute.  

Here are two cute rocket ship videos of Kate:

Boo was interested in space travel too!  He may have also been interested in the crumbs Kate left in the rocket.

We had a lot of fun with Stomp Rockets.  Very cool toy.  It was drizzling, and we still played with it for about an hour.

 Let's just call her an Astronaut Princess.

The rockets flew so high that we now have one stuck in a tree, and two up on the roof; I'm hoping for a little wind to send them back to the ground.

Here is a little video of them in action:

The rockets theme was great fun!  We are sticking with the letter R for one more week so that we can have some rainbow fun!

Random Photos

Collin learned about the phases of the moon recently, and the students created the ever popular Oreo cookie moons.  We did this at home a year or so ago.

Speaking of Collin, he is doing so well with the violin now.  I have noticed a lot of progress in the last two weeks.  Here is a video of him playing Bile 'em Cabbage Down.  

Kate still enjoys giving check ups.  Look at the "bandage" on Boo's leg.  Boo must have been tired, or extra patient at that moment.

Kelly was groomed by a mobile groomer this week.  It was so nice to have the groomer come to us, and she did a beautiful job.

Kate and I had fun with chalk recently.

I drew roads for Kate to drive her matchbox cars along.

We also used the chalk to turn Kate into butterflies.

Tom ran in a 5k last weekend.  We cheered him on as he ran!  It's so nice that the town races all go by Grandma's house; we have a great spot to cheer on all of the runners.

This is what Collin did while waiting to see Dad run.

The school year is winding down.  Five weeks to go.  Right now five weeks sounds like a lot, but we have a lot of busy weekends and end of school events coming up, so I'm sure it will fly by.

Mother's Day Hike

We had gorgeous weather on Mother's Day, and so we decided to head to the Blue Hills for a family hike.  It was so nice; I really enjoy hiking, especially when the mosquitoes haven't really come out yet.  I could never hike alone though because I have the absolute worst sense of direction EVER, and I often miss the obvious markers on the trails!

Driving to the Blue Hills was interesting.  It is rare for us to all pile into the car with the two dogs; it was a very full minivan!  Kate added to the experience by asking over and over and over and over again, "Where are we going?", "What are we going to do there?", etc.

You can see that Reagan finally has two front teeth!  She lost a front primary tooth when she was only three years old due to injury, and the new tooth is finally growing in; it's weird (but very NICE) to see her with two front teeth after all these years!  Also, doesn't Reagan look so happy in that picture?  It almost looks like she had a great time!!!  Ha ha ha.  Reagan is strong and athletic, but she doesn't like hiking.  She lets everyone know that she is not enjoying it.

This was Kate's very first "hike".  She was carried most of the time, but she did walk a little and I was happy to have her there with us.

 The view from the top; that's Boston in the distance.

I saved this picture for the end so that I could write a little about Kelly.  We weren't going to bring her, even though she LOVES hiking.  Kelly has been limping lately and the vet actually thought she might have had a torn ACL and need surgery.  She was on an anti-inflammatory and the limping went away, but she still appears to have some stiffness in her leg.  As we were packing up to go, Kelly was very excited; she knows what the packs and other hiking items mean, and she was ready to go.  The rest of us piled into the car, ready to leave, but we could hear her crying in the house and we just could not leave without her.  So she came, and she was fine out there, and fortunately, she didn't seem to overdo it because she still seems fine.  She's so funny; I wish I had thought to take a video of her as we approached the exit for the Blue Hills.  She knew exactly where we were and started "screaming" with excitement.  I'm so happy we brought her; it wouldn't be the same without Kelly.

*I was there, really, just the one taking the pictures.  I should have thought to get a picture of myself with the kids since it was Mother's Day.  I never think to make sure I get in pictures.

Here are a few short videos I took during our hike:

This was a great way for us to all spend time together.  I loved it.

Balance Beam

I keep forgetting to post the pictures I have from the Cinco de Mayo gymnastics meet.  I only took a few pictures, but I like the beam pictures I got (even though they are blurry) and thought I would post them here.

Reagan actually fell off the beam during this routine, but I was SO proud of her for getting right back up and finishing the routine.  She was tired from being up too late with friends the night before, and I think that hurt her balance a little.  She still managed to finish in fourth place on beam!