Riley's 6th Birthday (of Doom!)

Riley is such a fun kid- and he is wicked popular, which I never was. I was only popular when the popular kids needed help with their homework. I actually think that's still true, but Riley, on the other hand, is a people person. So, in order to fit EVERYONE!! into one place, we had his party at Kids in Motion, which we've done a few times now. Riley also wanted to have a Volcano Cake Of Doom- so that was an adventure in dry ice and fantasticness.

The cake was a huge hit- I baked it in the mold for a princess (top) and an angel food cake pan (bottom) and then carved an opening for a tall plastic cup which I filled with red jello and hot water. When we added the dry ice, it totally erupted, which was awesome and all the kids loved it. It's so hard to believe that Riley is SIX!!! He's so big and independent, and a great helper and big brother. And, we're really proud of him.

I am sooo horrible about updating this :)

But I'm trying. So, let's see, I think I left off with....wow, November. Okay, so we'll play a little catchup...starting with Riley's birthday. I apologize and I promise I'll do better (not that anyone's looking)

Family Fitness Night and Indian Powwow

We had a great time at Family Fitness night!! They had some great stations including one that showed you how many teaspoons of sugar (or in some cases, tablespoons!) were in some common drinks. The kids totally ratted Papa out to the nutritionist about his occasional Big Gulps! We also got to try yoga for kids- which Logan actually really loved!

Even Savannah gave it the old college try at the challenge stations where you did things like situps or pushups or jumprope to earn stamps. All the kids also got to try a fruit smoothie and sign a drug free pledge. The PTA did a really awesome job with this event!

Meanwhile at Logan's school there was an Indian PowWow! Since we have the costume already made, Logan went (albeit reluctantly) in costume, which was also perfect since it was Brown Day and he doesn't have very many brown clothes!! I think he looks adorable! His favorite part was the popcorn snack :)

Family Fitness Night and Indian j

Nighttime Concert

I'm a lucky woman. What can I say? Not many people get their own concert every night :) Although, with Riley understanding more and more, we probably need to download some more child-appropriate music than "White Wedding". The best part of this is that Savannah going "WAh blah BLAH blah" gets a higher score on singing than Daddy ;)

Today was also my "orientation" day at work and the kids stayed with my grandmother's Saturday companion's daughter who let them watch Transformers (yeah, the grown up one) and Spongebob (which they KNOW and told her they weren't allowed to watch). Oy vey. That'll teach me to assume people know better!!

Anyway- enjoy the pictures!

Where oh where has the Jelly Bean?

Sooo, yeah, we've been busy!

First Momma went on Mission team and the kids got time at home with Daddy! What fun for everyone! Momma had a great time going to Midlothian with 3 girls from church, she's always loved missions! The fam back home had a great time with daddy going camping and to the park! Yay for Daddy!

After Momma got back, it was Vacation Bible School week. We had over 80 kids and it was tons and tons of fun!! You can see a picture of Riley's class here, they were the K/1s and they were quite the group of energy balls! God bless their teachers!!

However, following that week, Mommy resigned at church in order to take a new position. She had two offers at very wonderful choices and spent lots of time praying and agonizing and letting Daddy make decision matrixes for her.

Ultimately, she decided on a new church, which you can check out by going here. Momma is excited to be part of a prayerful, established congregation, although she misses the kids at her old church something terrible!! Change is always difficult, but our whole family is very excited about this new position and our new church family-to-be!! We checked out services on Sunday (there were 2 happening at 11 AM and we went back and forth between the traditional and contemporary- Momma does love a contemporary service) and this coming Sunday will be our first official one!

Savannah Lynn had her 18 month checkup and has finally broken the 25th percentile for weight! She's now 23 pounds!! Such a change from her 8 month check where they labeled her failure to thrive!

Both boys are now officially signed up for school and will be attending the same preschool Riley did last year, which is also an early elementary. Riley will definitely benefit from the smaller class for one more year, even if it is a significant financial difference from the FREE public school!!! Logan is very excited, and so is Riley. Savannah is stuck with momma, except on Tuesday and Thursday when momma's working :)

In other news, we got to join Gramma and Papa on their boat down at Lake Anna! We had a ton of fun- Riley rode the innertube for 45 minutes straight!! Daddy couldn't join us due to some healing time needed after a very sensitive snipping- but we had a blast anyways!!

Ice Cream Juice

We are just incredibly hectic this week! And it doesn't help that mommy has lost her mind! Getting ready for mission team and VBS is not necessarily helping my mental state. I keep forgetting things I have to do and just need to be better about making a list. As soon as it's over we're going to start working on our school schedule, including planning clothes for the week in our "sorter" (which is really a shoe hanger-upper) and morning devotions for Riley.

Yesterday was swim lesson day! All of our kids are doing awesome. Logan can float now and should be able to pass his next 2 levels, but since the "level lady" wasn't there yesterday, we'll have to wait. That's okay, we plan on swimming for awhile ;)

Savannah swam 10 feet underwater and dove down to get the diving sticks! She's so sweet, though, because the wetsuit uniform makes her bum have an air bubble so she can't get back up without help because she's a little bottom-buoyant!

Riley, of course, is a crazy man and can't wait for swim team in the fall!! Such a swimmer- just like his daddy and uncles!

Today we went to church in the morning and painted a few of the backgrounds for VBS. Riley and Logan were big helps and I tried to convince Savannah that today would be a great day to learn to like TV and watch a Veggie Tale, but she mainly sat in her stroller and fussed until she conned Ms. Rachel from WSUMC into picking her up :) After that we got stuck up in traffic and were late to my voice lesson. The kids went with my mom who met up with us after her TSC meeting (she's probably opening a Tropical Smoothie! Get excited people!) when I got back we let the kids watch a Scooby Doo movie (not my finest hour, but I'm so stressed right now that by the time I go to bed I actually dream I'm working on VBS) and then had dinner.

Since it was gramma's house, they also got Ice Cream. She rocks.

Logan was super nice and shared a bite of his chocolate with Riley, who shared back...some of his melted Strawberry Cheesecake- but Logan said "Ryerye, that's not Iwce Cweam, dats Iwce Cweam Jooooce". Ice Cream Juice. Classic.