Having Fun

It didn't take the kiddos long to get back into the groove of things and get to playing. Grandpa got on the floor, and the boys thought it would be super fun to play "leap frog". Poor Grandpa...! But it was so great to just let the kids PLAY and not be yelling at them for making too much noise-no downstairs neighbors to worry about here! :)

Aiden's ready to GO! C'mon Devin!

They had a comforter there for a nice soft landing.

Do you notice Devin assuming the position like Grandpa?

Since Danno's accident he's been laid up and we finally got him on Facebook. I spent a lot of the weekend showing him different things to do-like games :) Hey-he's got a lot of time on his hands!

The boys love playing with the pool balls downstairs.

Bath Time!

I love that they have fun in the tub. But don't leave the water running-Aiden will FREAK out! I think he has this major phobia of the tub overflowing. It's pretty ridiculous. There will barely be an inch of water and he starts screaming and crying for us to turn it off. Oy!

The boys thought Danno needed a few things to cuddle with :)

All squeaky clean and ready for a movie.

Yeah, it didn't take them long to zonk out. But I think Kiki and Grandpa loved the cuddle time.

Surprising Kiki

Well, I'm finally getting myself back together and can start doing some blogging again. So many times I've wanted to just do a quick post with a few pictures I took, but since I'm so far behind, I really wanted to try and keep things in some sort of chronological order. And the last I left off was going home to surprise our families, mainly Kiki, for her big milestone birthday! If you recall, we got in Friday evening and surprised my mom and sister (my dad and brother-in-law were in on it). We had a fabulous dinner with them at my parent's house and spent the night. Saturday morning we ate breakfast and then my mom beautified all of us so we could go on to surprise Sandy at lunch time. Here's how it went down:
We got a large wardrobe box from my parent's house so that the boys could hide in it and pop out in surprise. We were able to get it set up and kept them quiet until they got in the box. I went and hid in the bushes to video her reaction and Micah hid in the garage. Larry was by his truck in the street with his camera to snap some pictures. I was waiting for the knock at the door to start recording, but never heard Micah knock...so I was unprepared when the door opened. I hurriedly tried to start recording, but inadvertently kept pressing the power button instead of the record button!! How frustrating!! So thank goodness Larry got these pictures, and I finally got my act together and was able to record a little bit of it.

When she opened the door and said "There's a box!" and then the boys started giggling and moving-and she then caught on very quickly what this was all about.

I stood up to get some better footage

And I think it's hilarious that she opens the box and then doesn't grab the boys out-she goes to hug Micah. So the boys are standing there in this box waiting for someone to get them out so they can hug everyone too! Luckily Uncle AJ came to the rescue :)
And apparently she was so overwhelmed that she completely missed me in the bushes :)

This isn't the best picture, but I love how he's reaching up.

SUPRISE KIKI!!! :)

Not the post you were expecting!

Again, I know I'm lame, but this is super funny to me :)
So, the boys were getting their shoes on so we could take Aiden to school when I noticed something odd about our pumpkins...
What the heck happened to the lid of our little pumpkin?? Now my first thought was "The Devinator strikes again!" and we left to school. Devin has been having fun taking the tops off and putting them back on, but he always put them back on. So I was thinking-great, he's thrown it somewhere. Perfect.
Then when Devin and I were on our way back up from dropping Aiden off, I noticed something in the tree.

And then I was thinking, how the heck did Devin get it all the way up there and land so perfectly?! Then I had an epiphany...our pet squirrel must have done this! And upon closer inspection I noticed the little bites taken out of the top. And I just busted out laughing :) Gotta love our squirrel!

Now I know you all find this super fascinating and as humorous as I do :) Wait, do I see some eyes rolling?? Yes! And I can hear you yelling at the computer for some "real" posts about the kiddos. All right all right...I'm getting on it!

Pet Squirrel

Yes, I'm lame. I know. It has been forever and a half since I blogged last, promising to finish up from our trip home in September-and what is my next post about? Our pet squirrel. Truth be told I haven't been on the computer much this past month or so. It has been super crazy busy, and you know how you feel like you need to "do this" or "finish that" before you can feel ok about indulging in something else...like blogging? And now I'm sooooo far behind in it that it's an overwhelming thought to know where to begin. I completely missed Aiden's birthday (posting about it-we had a fun and fantastic party with so many friends and family in attendance). We had both sets of parents make it out here for visits and the party, and now this weekend I have a very good friend coming to visit as well! So I'm still going to be a little preoccupied, but I think after she leaves on Wednesday I will be back on track and getting caught up. Here's what you can look forward to in the coming weeks (I promise!) Sandy's surprise 50th party, Aiden's soccer games (yes he's playing soccer!!), fun with family during their visits, Aiden's Birthday, first horse rides for the boys, Devin's first college football game, hiking, and many more antics courtesy of the Devinator. I hope to start getting some posts done soon, and will avoid posting too many in a day :) Thanks for checking in!

What should we name our noisy friend?

Surprise!!

We had the awesome opportunity to fly back home for Micah's mom's 50th Birthday. AJ, Micah's brother told us that he was planning a surprise party for Sandy's birthday, and wanted to fly us home to be apart of it. Lucky for us, we were able to make it work with our schedules! Let the scheming begin :) We wanted this to be a special surprise for everyone, and had the chance to surprise my Mom and sister first. I knew I needed some help pulling this off so that my sister Hilary and her husband Daryl would be in attendance, so I enlisted the help of my Dad. He told everyone that he had a "Big Announcement" to make and they were having a family dinner. (Everyone thought he was going to announce his retirement-wouldn't that have been great...) So this was going to ensure that Hilary and Daryl would be there when we arrived that evening. Dad had informed me that Hilary was planning on leaving to go out of state with Daryl's family for the rest of the weekend...so I called up Daryl to let him in on our surprise as well. Again, fate was on our side, and he was able to plan around us so they would stay for our visit, while keeping it a secret from Hilary. And as you will see on the video below...they had NO CLUE!! :) hehehe

Almost there! In the limo from the airport...

I loved seeing the looks on their faces when we just walked right on in!
Sorry it's a little shaky, I was laughing and crying and hugging-so it was hard to keep it steady...

Papa did a great job helping us pull this off :)

I think Grammy was in a slight state of shock for most of the evening.

Hilary went back home after dinner and grabbed an overnight bag and the dogs and came back to spend the night :) It was AWESOME! And Devin couldn't have been happier having the dogs to play with.

I think he looks like a teacher in front of a class in this picture.

Chase me! Chase me!!

MOM! He's trying to take it from me!

I love you Grammy!

I loved that Dad was able to have Gigi over for dinner too. She was so confused as to what all the commotion was about when we first arrived (she wasn't facing the door we came in). It was wonderful that we got to spend some time with her too!

So after Gigi went home, and the rest of us stayed up late talking, we got up and had a wonderful breakfast made lovingly by my family. We got things packed up and ready to go so we could head out and surprise Sandy next.

But first, what visit to Grammy's house would be complete without getting beautified?? And boy did we desperately need it!

That is just Devin's hair!

And yes....all of Aiden's.
Grammy, you need to come out every 4-6 weeks to keep us looking good!! :) Thank you for all you did for us in such a short period of time.

Stay tuned for the next round of surprises :)

Random

I was going through some of Micah's pictures from his cell phone and wanted to post a few. It's been awhile since I've posted, and have some catching up to do, but here's a little bit for now.

This is Aiden protecting Devin from falling off the mulch. I miss having a house and a lawn. I don't miss having to take care of it, but we definitely miss our space.

This was the resident party the first week we moved out here. Here is Micah's class.
Dave, Stephanie, Geoff, Kristen (with baby in belly...who is now a few months old)! and Micah.

And then the spouses.
Dave, Stephanie (both single) Alexandra (Peds fellow) and Geoff, Kristen and Dave, Liz and Micah.

Devin has discovered how fun it is to ride on Micah's shoulders and he assumes this position almost immediately. It's hilarious and we laugh every time when he does it :) Here we are enjoying a day in SF.