Spring Fever!!!

Yes, we have it! Spring fever, that is!
Between the stir craziness of a much needed spring and the craziness of pregnancy hormones you can just bet that things are quite crazy around our place. But, as Kade likes to say, it's a good crazy....well, at least most of it is.
Before I get to the spring fever part, I will show you a bit of proof of those pregnancy hormones.
Here is the 26 week pregnant photo....

Yes, Tesa and Tyce are still growing!
We have an appointment next week to have another ultrasound so that the doc can check their growth and development at this stage. He also told us last appointment that we would be moving to every two week appointments after this. Yikes! That makes me realize that we are getting much closer. So excited, but still so much to be done to get ready for their arrival!

Now, on to the Spring Fever and the crazy that it has produced.
We went on a family date to Kade's favorite pizza place in town, Farelli's.
After the boys finished eating we broke down and let them "play" video games!

I dread the day they realize that if you put money in those machines they will actually respond to all the joystick maneuvering that they so frantically attack them with. For now, they are content to just "play" away and watch whatever happens to pop up on the screen, even if it isn't in direct response to their joystick wiggling and button pushing. So, we let them this time! Seriously, they probably spent half an hour hanging out in the video game area. I think we were just all happy to not be stuck in the house for a bit.

Now, the next bit of crazy had to be mostly related to pregnancy hormones because it was something that I did on my very own.
I took the boys on a Mommy-son date to McDonald's!

It was mostly as a reward for Kade doing a great job at the dentist.
He had to make a second trip to finish getting sealant on his teeth. They had both gone to the dentist the week before and gotten great reports. But the dentist wanted to go ahead and put some sealant on Kade's teeth. They got half way finished and he got a taste of the sealant and kind of freaked out about it. So they decided to just have him come back for a finish up later. So Kyle prepped him and practiced with him and I told him I would take him to get a Happy Meal (rare occasion for us, Happy Meals are usually reserved as a grandparent privilege) if he did well. He did great and I told Kyle I would take the boys to McDonald's for lunch. All. By. Myself.
Here are my handsome dates....


And for the first 25 minutes they were the perfect dates! Ate their lunch like champs and sat so nicely in the booth together. Then something clicked! I cannot even tell you how many times I ended up chasing Ryne around the restaurant because for some reason he thought that would be a fun game to play with his very pregnant mother. Kade kept wanting to put his tiny ninja men that he got from the dentist that morning in his ice cream cone. What???? Then he really didn't want to sit on the seat anymore, instead he preferred to sit on the back of the seat and disturb the people behind us. Oh dear, we HAD to get out of there! And as I gathered up our trash to throw it away, I CLEARLY stated to the boys, "wait right here while I throw this away and then we will go." And for some reason Kade's mind translated that into, "Go ahead and go open the door so that your brother has complete access to go play in the parking lot." As I noticed Kade at the door and Ryne headed for it, I dropped the trash and ran to grab them both. Kade proceeded to have screaming fit right in the middle of all the people trying to enjoy their delicious McDonald's delicacies. I got him quiet long enough to finish cleaning the table while keeping a hold on Ryne. Then wouldn't you know it, Kade refused to leave the restaurant with me. My thoughts....Who are these children??? What did you do with the boys that came into this place with me???? Why in the world did I ever think I should try this by myself???
Attack of spring fever? Bad parenting skills? I'm telling myself, just in order to keep myself from totally deflating, that it was MOSTLY spring fever.
Whew, enough of a replay there to get me all worked up with them again, and they are being super great boys this morning so no reason for me to be all worked up. Let's move along to something good that comes along with Spring Fever.
Grilling out!!!

We had a few peeps of sunshine and took advantage of it by getting the grill all fired up.
Made these yummy shrimp kebabs one night. And I have to say that Kade ate more peppers, onions and shrimp than any of us. It was super delicious! Yes, we do love grilling season!

Kade and Ryne got Easter cards in the mail from C.G. and Grandaddy.
They were really cool because the back of them was a giant coloring sheet.

Ryne was getting started here, and he colored on this card for three days.

It didn't take Kade as long but he still spent two days working on his.
I totally should have taken pics of the finished products, but I didn't. Just take my word for it, they looked great! Each card also had two five dollars bills in it. Ryne promptly took his out and handed it to Kyle and said, "here, Daddy, here's your card." Ha! Kade showed off his math skills by saying, "Hey, I got money too!" When I asked him how much, he examined the two bills and said, "Five and five, I have TEN dollars!" Our little mathematician! He is learning a lot in school, that is for sure! Even starting to read.
But the thing I think he enjoys most about school is the art.
Here are a couple of the things he brought home lately...

An Easter bunny and an Easter egg!
I should take more pictures of his art for you, he is a pretty good painter.
Ryne gets to go to school with Kade on Monday's now and he is really enjoying it, as well. His teachers say that he is also quite the artist. Mostly draws and colors in little circles and his teacher told me that was pretty creative because most of the time they just back and forth scribble at that age.
Our little Ryne is really growing up. Potty-training is going well. We still end up with an occasional stinky pull-up or diaper but hardly ever a wet one. In fact 9 times out of 10 he wakes up dry in the morning and after nap time. Yeah! Looks like we will only have two babies in diapers when the twins arrive and not three!!!

Okay, one last note about the results of Spring Fever and we will be done for now.
My boys are FULL of energy. All. The. Time. And lately they have just been running circles in the dining room and kitchen to get some of that energy out. Usually ends up looking like one big game of chase...which in most cases, it probably is. Now, I am typically the kind of Mom who would like to say "NO running in the house, please." But it is so hard to tell that to two little boys who really need to run and have been stuck in the house for rainy month after rainy month without an opportunity to get outside and just run. Well, last week, I was wishing that I had made the No Running In The House rule and stuck with it. Why?
Look at poor Ryne's head...

As he rounded the corner of the dining table apparently Kade caught up to him and gave him a little shove....right into the fire place. Ryne bumped into it and knocked off a little metal strip and then fell onto the metal strip with his head. It made a nice clean gash in his head and sliced off his hair in a perfect line where it gashed his head.
I didn't take pictures until the next morning and it was already looking better but you can see a little better in the up close pic...

I missed the happenings because I was upstairs getting ready for our Life Group that was going to start in about 15 minutes. I hear the crash and head for the stairs. Kyle was downstairs and I hear him say, "Terry." I quickly told him I was coming and he responded with "Hurry." And that I did...ran down the stairs in all my pregnant glory not quite knowing what I might find. Kyle just showed me blood on the floor and said he wasn't sure where it was coming from. Ryne was crying, but not hysterical and it didn't take too long to trace back from the drops of blood falling off of his ear and find the nice clean gash in his little head.
I quickly got a cool washcloth and cleaned him up and applied pressure. Kade, realizing that something bad had happened as a result of his "little shove" had promptly taken himself to his bedroom for a self invoked time-out. Ryne only cried for a few minutes and then looked at me with a sad face and said, "Momma, Kade knocked me out." It was so hard not to laugh. Thankfully when the bleeding had slowed I was able to see that we were not requiring a trip to the ER. Whew! That was good news because people were showing up any minute for Life Group. Kade came downstairs and said he wanted to tell Ryne that he was sorry ten times. And that is what he did. Counted off every "I'm sorry" on his fingers to make sure he got all ten in there. I think he truly did feel bad for hurting his brother.
Of course all of this lead up to a big talk about playing more calmly and not chasing each other and being kind, etc. It has helped some. But a gash in the head didn't slow Ryne down any and he still loves for Kade to chase him around. I'm scared to think how many more gashes there are to come in my future. Oh SUNSHINE please show up for more than three minutes at a time so my boys can run OUTSIDE!!! We have Spring Fever!!!

A Most Fun-Filled Day!

Before I get started, let me warn you that this post comes with lots of pictures?
Why?
Well, because I was having trouble narrowing down my favorites...if you will hang in there with me until the end, I think you will see why!

Now that you've been forewarned, let's get back to our fun-filled day. I seriously do not know if our boys could have had a more fun day today. And Kyle and I really enjoyed ourselves, too. We started the day at this place:

A giant indoor play area that you've seen me post about in the past. We've been to a couple of birthday parties there and the boys just love getting to go and play there. Today we had a Family Fun Day with our church and all met to hang out and let the kids play. Kyle and I were excited, too, because we invited some of our neighbors and they came to hang out. Super sweet family with three little girls. It was fun to get to spend some time with them today and introduce them to a lot of our friends from Life Church.
Here are a few pics from the day....

This blurry picture is evidence of the fact that we were the very first people through the gate at Charlie's Safari this morning! The significance? Well, we have one very competitive four year old that thinks being first at anything is SUPER cool! Therefore, we started the day off with a very happy four year old on our hands.
We showed the boys where to find us if they needed us and they were off to play.

Ryne found a slide he liked.

And another slide he liked.

Kade found an empty bounce house to jump in. He came over to me at the door and said, "Mom, don't you just wish you were a little kid again so you could get in here and jump around with me and have all this fun?" My response? "Of course, I do!"

Kade enjoying a little slide action.

And yes, Ryne liked this slide, too!

Climbing up!

Sliding down!
And wouldn't you know it, they wore themselves out enough that they were ready for a break...

A little cookie and root beer break.
When Kade was finished he came over to me and said, "Mom, that cookie sure did hit the spot. And that root beer got me all cooled off. I'm all ready to play some more." And he was off!
And he played a lot more!! So did Ryne!!!
They enjoyed every single minute of the day....well, all except for the minute when we told them it was time to put on their shoes on go. All good things must come to an end. Well, at least this side of heaven, right?

The kids weren't the only ones having a good time today.
The grown-ups seemed to be enjoying themselves a bit, too....

Kyle making his way down the slide.

Sarah and Sterling with a little double slide action.

Jonathan and Anthony down the super duper really fast slide!

Arin took a turn at the super duper really fast slide, too!
See, I told you the grown-ups had fun.

We all had enough fun that it was time for big naps after a quick stop at Taco Bell for lunch.
I think all four of us slept pretty hard during our Saturday afternoon nap.

After nap time Kade and Ryne had a couple of surprises waiting for them.

Easter cards from Monk Monk!
Kade is investigating that extra card that was inside his big card.
Can't tell you how excited he was when he realized it was a gift card to McDonald's which meant he could go and by things like ice cream cones, chocolate chip cookies and chicken nuggets.

Ryne was taking his sweet time opening his card.

And he really liked the bumble bee on the front. He was laughing at it as soon as he saw it.
I'm not sure he understood what his McDonald's card was for exactly but I do know he will appreciate it when he gets an ice cream cone of his very own!

The next surprise also came in the mail and it was their Easter present from Grandaddy and C.G. I knew what they were getting and was pretty sure they would be quite excited. So we decided to call C.G. and Grandaddy up on the computer and let them watch.

Here they are saying hello and anxiously waiting to get their next surprise.
It was actually something that they designed themselves.

CAPES!! The super hero kind!
C.G. called them up last week and had them get on the computer and pick out what colors and designs they wanted. So, ultimately they knew they were getting super hero capes, but they acted as if it was a total surprise.

Can't you see Ryne's excitement?

Kade looks pretty happy, too, huh? Well, you can tell that if you can look past the cluttered coffee table and actually see his face. Remember, I took advantage of nap time today instead of cleaning cluttered coffee tables. Give a pregnant girl a break!

Admiring each others capes. And go right on ahead and admire my cluttered coffee table if you must!
Guess what else they got?

Masks!

And here they are showing off their new super hero attire and telling Grandaddy and C.G. thank you.

I wish you could see their little faces in the bottom window better. They were just adorable all masked up and chatting away with C.G. and Grandaddy.

Cutest little super hero you've ever seen, right?

And there was no stopping them.

I was afraid that right there might be the last we would ever see of them. Right before they took off running, Ryne looked at us and said, "I ready to fly." And that he did, complete with the coolest sound effects ever. In fact, Kyle and I wished all night that we had had the video camera all charged up and running to catch them in action.

Not sure what happened on his super hero adventure but that face says that something must have gone wrong. Probably a run in with his big brother super hero if I had to guess.

We did finally talk them into stopping long enough to eat some yummy quesadillas that Kyle made for supper. Followed up supper with bath time. A much needed bath time after all the sweat that they produced playing at Charlie's Safari!

Look what showed up after bath time....

A lion!

And a scary monster!

Cutest lion and scary monster ever!
They played in their towels only until they remembered their capes!

And this is the part that I was warning you about at the beginning. The following is a series of pictures that made me cry I was laughing so hard looking back over them. I think you will see why I didn't want to leave any of them out.
Kade was all about posing for the camera. And Ryne was just being super adorable.
Please enjoy! I hope you get to laugh as hard as I have at our hilarious boys. My favorites are the ones of Kade jumping off of the couch with different super hero poses.












Now isn't that a dynamic duo???!!!!!





















Did you laugh?
I sure hope so!
Did you also notice that at some point Ryne ended up in his night-nights but Kade never did?
Well, Kade decided just last night that he no longer wants to sleep in pajamas, that he'd rather just sleep in his underwear. Funny thing is, the night before that he asked to sleep without socks on and woke up telling us that he really liked sleeping without socks. I guess he felt so free and comfy without socks that night that he just decided to go all out and shuck everything he could for bed time. He's such a funny kid! And just so ya know, his funniness changes all the time.
Case in point....
This picture is from our last trip to Wal Mart.

He sat in this basket the entire time we checked out watching himself in the little mirror that he found.

I did look up for me to take his picture but I was cracking up at him making faces at himself in the tiny mirror beside the basket that he found to sit in. Talk about a totally different kid from the one who continued to jump off the couch striking super hero poses for me tonight.
And Ryne, well, he just makes us laugh all the time, too!
His funniest moment tonight was when he put his cape on and we told him he had to be nice and be a good guy and he just looked at us and said, "I'm not a good guy, I'm just Super Man!"
Oh how I love my boys!