The Party

Well, now that we successfully pulled off all our surprises, it was time to enjoy this great party and celebrate!

Look how gorgeous these cakes turned out! And the little mini cake is all gluten free for Sandy :)
Can you tell she likes frogs?

I don't know why this one is sideways, it's upright in my file, but every time I upload it here it is sideways. That big froggie is made of Rice Krispie treats-YUM!

Rachele (Beautiful lady in the background) has been Sandy and Larry's secretary for like ever, and it was her Aunt who made these awesome cakes and cupcakes.

Yeah, she broke down a lot ;)

Singing Happy Birthday

Make a wish!

I got a little bit of her speech.

So Yummy :)

It took everything inside of me to refrain from pushing Devin's hand and cupcake into Aunty Hilary's face...but I didn't want Devin to get upset about his cupcake. I'm such a thoughtful and caring mother :)

Is it good Aiden?

YUP! :)

Me and my mommy!

And even though Devin got a little traumatized in the jumpy jumpy, he is now 100% over it and loves jumping again :)

Present time!

I think she liked our gift!

She got many frog themed gifts, and they were all so great.

Kiki's little helper

Sandy is a wonderful Yoga instructor, and this was just the cutest card :)

I think Devin really wanted to play, and when they said no, he decided to take matters into his own hands. haha! I actually don't know why he chose to stick his feet in the hole, but it's cute.

Aunty Hilary and Uncle Daryl

Winding down after a fun party.

How gorgeous is that sunset?

Thank you to everyone who made this wonderful day possible!

And this says it all...Kiki Rules!
Happy Birthday Kiki-we love you!

Suprise Party Surprise

So obviously we came out for Sandy's birthday, and what kind of a birthday would it be without a party?? And what made it so fun was that she had NO CLUE! The party was on Sunday at AJ's house. The plan was to go to church, and then Micah was going to take her on a bike ride to help pass the time before we were due to arrive. Of course she suggested on the route that takes them past AJ's house, but Micah was able to suggest a different route and keep her in the dark about our sneaky plotting :) While Micah and Sandy were on their bike ride, Dan and I were on the computers. Hey-he had a lot to learn and explore! :)

When they got back from their ride, we told Sandy we wanted to take the boys to the park. I rode with Sandy and Larry (so I could video) and Dan rode with Micah and the boys (we told Sandy that Micah wanted to talk to Dan about something). Larry had some signs made up that lined the street going to AJ's house-but there is a back route to get to AJ's from their house. So we had to be sure to choose a park that would take us the other way. After we got on the road Sandy wanted to call AJ and tell him to meet us at the park (glad she suggested we call him so it was less obvious). Larry "gave him a call" and he said yes he would meet us at the park, but wanted to show the boys something at his house (a new machine or ramp or something). So now we were "detouring" to AJ's place and it would take us along the road we needed for her to see all the signs Larry put together. Perfect! So I took a video, and asked her to read the signs aloud. She got a little emotional ;) so a few of them are difficult to hear...but it's hilarious how many times she hits Larry's arm! ;)

She was 100% overwhelmed and surprised!

Hugging Micah

Hugging AJ

Hugging Danno

So many friends and family came out to show Sandy how much she means to them. It was a great surprise!

AJ and his Godson Devin :) All this was possible because of this wonderful guy. Good job AJ!

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?