A little family time amongst the craziness

Our lives right now are crazy buys. I hope the boys look back and don't remember the craziness, just remember having fun as a kid. Hence, we took the afternoon off from chores and had some family bowling fun. I love times like these and hope we can do it more often.

And just a side note. This cute boy made this awesome sign at Sunday School. I love his teachers and love what he and Mason are learning there. He really is a helpful boy!

The boys favorite time of year (besides Christmas!)

My boys love, LOVE the time of year when the City of Columbus comes around and flushes out all the fire hydrants in the city. They have looked forward to it every year ever since the first year we were here three years ago. I love how it is so old school and how much laughter comes out of the kids in our neighborhood, young and old! I also love how nice the city workers are for letting the boys play for longer than the 3 minutes it takes for them to flush out the hydrants and for letting our group of kids follow them around the neighborhood for the flushing of 6 fire hydrants! They all had a blast though and I hope they continue to be excited for many years!

Cub Scout Campign Trip 2014

Mason joined cub scouts this  year as a first grader. I knew he would love it but was a little worried about the time commitment and the fact that Max would also love it too but was not yet old enough. What I am finding out is nice about the scouts is that often on the fun outings the whole family can join in on the festivities. It really is family oriented. So..that being said, this past weekend was our first cub scout camping outing. What could be more fun than a camping, creek playing, s'more making, story telling, flashlight tag, bug finding trip! I stayed home with Matthew and Miles so Brad could head out with Mason and Max. Of course they LOVED it and I am grateful for Brad taking some awesome pictures since I couldn't be there!

 The boys wanted to make sure they had enough firewood!

These boys LOVE playing in a creek!

Max is FIVE!!

 Happy Birthday Max!! You are finally FIVE and can stop telling people you are 4 1/2! 

When it comes to birthday's these kiddos have it made! Since our families live so far apart each kid end up with at least three birthday parties. This year for Max is no exception! 

 

Love how he is super excited about all his gifts!

Couldn't resist this one of Matthew chowing down on cake!

Mason really wanted to get Max a fish for his birthday this year. I'm not sure who was more excited!

A little note to Max:

You have been waiting to turn 5 forever! All morning long on the day of your birthday you keep telling us that you are 5 now and that you have grown so much overnight because now you are five. I feel like you look at the world with entire new possibility now that you are 5! I love how much you have grown this past year and am so excited to see you grow this coming year. You still LOVE Batman and even told me the other day since you were going to be five you were growing more Batman strength! You make me laugh every day and I love how sweet and compassionate you are to your family and friends. You can be quite the ham and love telling jokes and making people laugh. You are the first to make sure your family is happy and love making new friends. I love that you still want to cuddle and watch a movie with me :) You love to make things out of wood, play video games, play in the creek, watch movies and find bugs. You two favorite things now are batman and dragons!  I love you forever and I can't wait to see you continue to grow!!

August/September Radonmness I don't want to forget!

 I traveled to the zoo with all four of the kiddos by myself! I was a little nervous but we made it and I'm pretty sure everyone had a good time. I know by the time we were done I was WORN OUT. Pretty sure by the end I was pushing 3 kids in a stroller while carrying one!

 He's getting so BIG! We finally got the exersaucer out and even had to move it up a setting because he was getting to tall!

Our neighborhood patrol man! The streets are safe where we live now!

Crazy boy!

 The many funny faces of Miles.

 We visited the Indianapolis Children's Museum with our friends. It helps that they could get us in for free with their membership!! The boys had a blast. We had not been there in a while and they loved seeing all the new things. One of their favorites in the carousel.

 One Sunday afternoon we loaded up the car and headed out for a Sunday drive to see if we could find milkweed with caterpillars. We were able to find two. Which was perfect since really only Mason and Max cared if they got one. They turned into huge butterflies!