our march madness

What's been going on this March around here?  Lots and I love it!  Love spring!

Soccer practices have started up for the boys...

This boy celebrated his birthday at G&G's house with ice cream cake!

We celebrated St. Pat's at Rolla with their parade.  Evan got a little crazy waving his hands for candy :).  He really loved it!

We got to see lots of puppies at a family friend's house.  My kiddos were in heaven.

Evan never wanted to leave this spot.

This boy let Grandmommy pull his first tooth.  So big!

Love this...spending time with Granddaddy over spring break looking at old pictures.

We then spent a morning with lots of our favorite friends seeing a Charlotte's Web play.  My kids loved it after reading the book this past summer.

We are blessed with so many great friends!

We then spent that afternoon hanging out with everyone else in KC :) at Science City.

My boys favorite part of science city...the tug of war.

Spring break was also about getting things done around here...which included a whole day of cleaning out closets.

The kiddos & I spent a few hours at the KC zoo on a beautiful spring day.

Love these three and how much they are growing up.  No stroller today at the zoo.  I think E&E barely made it walking ;), but we accomplished it....woohoo!

This girl had her last gymnastics class for the season since she will be starting up soccer too.

Ellie loved Friday afternoons with these girls!

We went to Garmin's annual Easter egg hunt.  Love traditions!  However, this is Avery's last year to do it because he will be too old next year...so sad.  His plan is just to help out Ellie next year :).

So many eggs!

Trust me they were happy....just so cold.  Maybe the next time mom tells them to put their jacket on before they get out of the car they will listen....maybe, but probably not :).

The boys had their first soccer games of the season!  Love!  When did this boy start looking so old??  No goals for Avery yet, but he played really well!  He was so excited to get #10 this year, the same number as his idol Leo Messi!

My little #6 scoring his first goal of the season!

What does the little sister do when she has to watch back to back soccer games on a Saturday?  Why build a cone house, of course!

Love our little kindergarten team and Coach Ryan!  Fun times!

We are ready to start our super crazy April!

8. wow. wow.

8 years old

That deserves a wow, wow.

How did this boy turn 8 years old already?! 

This boy who is almost finished with 2nd grade and going to be starting 3rd grade, probably any day now by the way time flies!  THIRD grade...that's crazy...I taught 3rd graders way back a lifetime ago and those kids were like old and could actually read & comprehend & could be trusted using the restroom alone....well sometimes ;). 

This 8 year old loves...

Pokemon cards (his latest obsession),

minecraft, 

watching minecraft videos on YouTube (he would do this all day long if he was allowed),

his brother (he really does most days except when Evan INSISTS on sleeping in the same bed with him every single night...most days he's okay with this, but some days he just wants his own bed...I don't blame him ;),

his sister (always a great big brother),

 soccer,

everything about soccer (KC Sporting, Leo Messi, soccer books...)

baseball,

rooting on the Royals,

the color green (always & forever),

reptiles,
science experiments,
P.E.,

his mom & dad (well most days :).

Happy 8th birthday buddy!

His presents included what he loves:  Pokemon, minecraft, soccer, & Skylanders

A pink cake, yes, but only because he LOVES strawberry icing!

A little look at this boy's weekend:

hanging with some sweet little friends...he's great at playing with the little kiddos!

Soccer playing/watering the garden.

Trampoline running & jumping with those other two.

And begging dad to get you wet with the sprinkler since the weather was finally warm!

I hope you have a blessed 8th year buddy!

a first & some sledding

We accomplished a first around here.......and it was a big success!!  What was it, you ask?  Our kids' first friends sleepover!  

Yep we did it :)!  

I think the keys to success were to invite family friends, to keep it super small, and to keep them busy.

I even see more sleepovers in our future!

This was actually Avery's sleepover to help celebrate his 8th birthday, that is tomorrow.  Wow, the big 8, but more on that in another post.  Avery invited 2 close friends to join us for some games at Chuck E. Cheese (games only because their pizza is not good), then we picked up some pizza & a movie on the way home.  The boys spent the rest of the night eating pizza, wrestling, opening presents, sword combat, ice cream sundaes, cowboy shooting, movie watching, and more wrestling.  Yeah I think a girl sleepover may go a little different than this, but we do love our boys around here!  The movie was over at 10 and some boys may have been caught up until midnight having long discussions....over what I couldn't tell you, but they finally fell asleep and all stayed asleep until 7.  I call 7 hours of sleep a success :).

See they all survived the morning after!

This weekend we also enjoyed probably one of our last snows for the season with a little walk at the dog park with Bella for her birthday and some sledding!

Crazy, happy dog...you can see how Bella was running circles around us...

Happy 2nd birthday Bella!

Some crazy sledding by the boys!