Happy 4th Birthday, Lane!

Yesterday was Lane's 4th birthday!  (Just like everyone always says, I can't believe my baby is 4 already, he's growing so fast, yada, yada, yada....).  He's at the age now where he could really look forward to his birthday. He told me for months what he wanted for his birthday (Bob the Builder stuff, a sleeping bag, and a baseball glove).

Finally the big day came!  I asked Lane how old he is:  "I'm still 3."

"No, Lane, you're 4!  Today is your birthday!"

"But I'm still 3.  I didn't grow at all!"  I explained to him that he really was 4.

Lane and Katy were really excited about the candles on Lane's cinnamon roll in the morning.  After a normal Sunday of church, lunch, and naps, we headed over to my parent's house for a birthday celebration.

Since Brooks' birthday is May 3rd, Casey wanted to celebrate his birthday this past weekend (she might have a baby by next weekend!) so we combined Lane's and Brooks' party.  Definitely made it easier for me - I just had to make a couple sides and buy a cake!

Lane was really excited to open his presents.  He got everything on his list...lucky boy!  We bought him Bob the Builder Duplos, and Grandma and Grandpa and Great-Grandma and Grandpa bought him a sleeping bag. (I found a cheap baseball glove at a consignment sale a few weeks ago, so he already had that!).  He got some dinosaurs, a bubble wand, and a squirt gun from Casey and Blake and a kids' CD from Bret and Laura.  He was pretty excited about everything!

Since Casey already had plans to make Brooks a cake, I figured that we didn't need 2 traditional cakes.  I love ice cream cakes so I picked one up from Dairy Queen earlier in the week.

Both boys really admired their cakes!

Brooks had to watch Lane pretty close to figure out what exactly was going on!  Lane blew all his out and then we laughed while Brooks tried and tried.

Lane and Katy have had a great time playing Bob the Builder today.  Duplo sets was a pretty good choice for a present - the kids can share them and Katy doesn't feel left out!  I even heard Lane singing the Bob the Builder theme song and he NEVER sings!  Pretty cute.

Triking and Biking

I am so excited for Lane - he figured out how to ride his bike!  He tried and tried last summer, but couldn't quite figure out how to pedal.  Now that he grew a couple of inches, he caught on quickly!

His favorite place to ride is the tennis court - lots of open space and he doesn't have to worry about running into anything!

I bought Lane a new helmet last week and gave Katy his old one.  They love the helmets and insist on wearing them at random times...including during a trip to Walmart.  We got a few strange looks, but at least Katy's head was protected when she ran into the cart :)

Lane said that when he turns 4, he's taking the training wheels off...I don't think we'll be ready for that, but maybe he'll be ready to ride alongside me and Curtis.  So much fun!

Katelyn loves riding her trike and she is so cute motoring around!  She loves that she can haul stuff in the back and her baby has gotten more than one ride lately.  On this day, she was more interested in her big pretzel than she was in her trike, but she managed to ride one-handed for awhile!

*If anyone is sad about picnik closing down - I did all these photo edits in picmonkey and it seems to have a lot of the same features as picnik.  Hopefully it stays free!

Easter

Easter was a little spread out this year!  Casey and Blake had plans to go to Smith Center on the actual holiday, so we decided to celebrate with my family on April 1st.  We all showed up at mom and dad's after the kids woke up from naps (so about 4ish) and then started the Easter egg hunt.  

The kids found their baskets first...

And the hunt for the eggs began!  Katy caught on pretty quick and easily found as many as Lane did.  They had to check out how many the other one found!

Once Katy discovered that there was candy in the plastic eggs, there was no stopping her.  She opened the candy as fast as she could and stuffed it all in her mouth!  I let her have a little bit of fun before taking the rest away.

What is it about hard-boiled eggs and needing to throw them?  Years ago, us kids got in trouble at Grandma Jost's house for throwing hard-boiled eggs all over the attic (we think Bailey was the instigator!) and again, we just couldn't help ourselves (but at least we were outside this time!).  Katy thought it was pretty neat to throw the eggs and watch them explode.

We spent a little more time outside before going in for supper - ham steaks and lots of other yummy food!

Yesterday we celebrated with the Farralls at Brent and Christi's.  After a filling lunch of bbq'd ribs, we had another egg hunt where Katy ate even more candy and basically just hung out all afternoon.  The highlight for the kids was the trampoline:

I tried to get Katy to lay down in her pack and play for a nap, but she just kept saying "hop, hop, hop."  She just wanted to go outside and "hop."

Other activities for the week included me being room mother for Lane's preschool party and participating in the Henderson egg hunt (Katy got a TON of candy at that!).  We also did a few Easter crafts/activities to incorporate the true meaning of Easter.  Lane really liked the Resurrection eggs and making crosses to put in the window.  However, he still asked more questions about the Easter bunny than he did about Jesus/the cross, so we still have some work to do ;)

Busy Bag Exchange

First of all, thanks everyone for participating!  I've wanted to put together busy bags for quite awhile now, but it can be overwhelming to decide what to do!  I thought it would be much easier to just put together one type of bag and then exchange :)

Some guidelines:

1.  You can decide to participate in either/both the toddler swap or the preschool swap.  I think that most of us have kids in both age groups, so it would be fun if everyone did both!

2.  You will make one bag for every person in the swap.  So far, we have about 7-8 people which is great!  I think I will make the deadline for signing up (including choosing which bag you want to make) on April 11. So, after April 11 we will have the final number of bags needed from everyone.

3.  Definitely think about cost as you are choosing which bag to make.  The ideas that I will give are just that: ideas.  Feel free to change the activities a bit to keep costs down!  Some bags are going to be super cheap to make while others can get quite expensive.  I don't want anyone to go broke!

4.  If your bag includes paper/cardstock items, don't worry about laminating them.  Each of us can laminate the contents on our own if we want to.

5.  Put each busy bag into a gallon-size Ziploc bag and include instructions if you think it needs them.

6.  Deadline for swapping the bags will be in early May. Some of the girls participating I only see at GEM (formerly MOPS) every month.  The rest of you I think I see more often, so I will collect your bags from you so I can give out the bags at our May 8 GEM meeting.  This might get confusing yet ;)

Here's a spreadsheet that you can all look at different ideas for busy bags and sign up under the one that you want to make.  If you have another idea that isn't on there, just go ahead and add it!  And no, I didn't spend all that time making the spreadsheet - I actually got it from here.  Let me know if it's not working for you and I'll see if I can figure it out.

I think that's all!  If anyone has any questions or suggestions, let me know!  Have fun!

6 dozen eggs...

Once again, we had to get together to dye Easter eggs!  What a difference a year makes - last year Lane was the only one participating, but this year Katy and Brooks were able to too!

We gave Katy her own dozen to do what she liked with...she couldn't quite get it that she was only supposed to dye one egg at a time and only one color per egg.

We had ALOT of eggs!  Lane really enjoyed it and dyed most of them.

After a little while, Katy figured out that she could break the egg open and it was a yummy hard-boiled egg.  She had no interest in dyeing them after that - only eating them!

Lane and Brooks both had colored hands - Brooks' were completely green!  A fun get-together!