Paint like Picasso

For William's birthday party this year, we had an artist come to the house to instruct the kids on painting a skyline canvas painting. It was so fun! He had 3 of his school friends, 3 of his church friends, and then of course, Hudson. 8 kids doesn't sound like a lot, but when it's 8 6/7 year old boys, it's a lot!!!! They were good though, and they all seemed to enjoy themselves.

Who needs...

...a $50 bouquet of red roses on Valentine's Day, when you can get them for $5 less than a week later?

Park

Crew LOVES to be outside. He particularly loves to ride his bike, but anything outside will do. Now that the weather is nice, we have been frequenting the park nearly every day. 

Don't let the hat fool you. It was actually a nice day, but it was windy, so I wanted to protect Crew's ears. 

Oh, and don't let his cute-factor fool you either. He's A TOTAL MESS!

Punxatawney

In the 115 years that Punxatawney Phil has been predicting the weather, he has predicted an early spring 16 times, and 6 more weeks of winter 99 times. This year, he predicted an early Spring. YAY! The last few weeks have been really nice (with a few "cold" days sprinkled in there), but I'm starting to think that maybe Punxatawney got it right this year. With 3 crazy boys, it sure is nice to be to throw all 3 of them outside to play!!

Happy early Spring!

Dressin' up

Crew and Hudson played dressup last week, and I have to say: I feel safe with Captain America in the house... and Crew is definitely the cutest little mouse I've ever seen.

Lucky #7

Friday was William's 7th birthday, and we had a great day! While he did have to go to school, it was fun for him because it was Spirit Wear day (no uniform!), AND it was a half day. We took tiger cookies up to his class (his choice) for birthday treats right at 11, and then when they dismissed at 11:45 I took William, Hudson, and William's friend Miller to lunch, then we picked up Dave from work and we spent the afternoon at the zoo. It was PERFECT! The weather was amazing, and there were hardly any people there.

The Meerkats were my favorite, as usual!

sitting on the Kimono Dragon, after checking out the MOLA (a favorite for all 3 boys!)

When we walked up to see the Macaws, the one on the right shouted out to us "HELLO!"
The boys LOVED that!

After we dropped Miller off at his house, we went to William's favorite restaurant, Pei Wei, for dinner...and we met Mimi and Papa, Uncle Christian and Aunt Tasha, Keira, Emery, and Uncle Trent.  Dave took the boys to basketball practice, and the rest of us went home to get the presents and cake ready for when they got home.

We got William this huge space shuttle for his birthday. It's really cool because he can color and decorate it any way he wants AND play inside of it.

It was a great day, and William took full advantage of the "it's my birthday" card. Dave says I taught him well.