My Handsome Boys

The boys playing over the weekend...

Enjoying the sunshine with their cousin Zoe.

                                 

                           

                  Oh, I love them so!!!

Easter 2012

The boys on Easter morning...

                                                   

                                                              Their Easter baskets...

This was all of us after church but Landen would not cooperate.  He'd look anywhere BUT at the camera!

             Hunting eggs at Nana & Papa's...

Ethan lost his 3rd tooth on Monday night, April 9th.   He was so excited!!!  The tooth fairy left him $5 and an American flag pin that he has wore to school every day last week.

Spring Break 2012

On Spring Break, we took a very restful trip to Pigeon Forge, TN.  I forgot the charger for my camera so please forgive the bad quality of these pics, they were taken with my phone.  We arrived on Saturday, March 31st and that evening we just ate dinner, unpacked, rented movies ("Hop", "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close", and "Happy Feet 2"), and went to the grocery to stock up on what we would need for the week. 

Our second day there, Sunday, we lounged all day....watched movies, played games, and ordered pizza for dinner. Oh, and I read the third book of the Hunger Games trilogy.  

Monday (April 2nd) was my birthday!  So, we shopped at the outlets, played at the arcade, had dinner at The Chop House, and ended the day by playing mini-golf.  It was truly a wonderful birthday, made even better by phone calls and Facebook birthday wishes from my friends and family!

On Tuesday, we left the cabin EARLY (by vacation standards anyway) around 7:30am and drove to Bryson City, North Carolina to ride a train through the mountains.  It was a two hour drive each way to the train depot and back home and the train ride itself lasted from 9:30am-3pm!  We Josh had lunch on the train.  The boys had hot dogs but the bun was as hard as a rock so Ethan ate just the hot dog and Landen refused to eat any of it.  Neither of them even wanted to touch the carrot sticks and after one bite I knew why...they tasted old.  I had ordered a salad but they put blue cheese all over it and the dressing was peppercorn and SPICY!  So, Josh was the only one who ate and he had honey glazed pork chop.  It all tasted and looked like room service food, even the dessert.  I mean how can you mess up chocolate pudding??  

Anyway, Ethan enjoyed the train ride (of course) and we did get to see gorgeous views in the mountains BUT Landen was bored so he was into everything.  He launched one of his Hot Wheels at the lady across the isle from us....luckily, she was a sweetheart!  All in all the train ride was over-priced, long, and at times boring. By the time it was over we were tired and hungry and to make it even better it poured down rain right as we were getting off the train.  They are supposed to have one of the "best model train museums in the U.S". so we took the boys into that but it wasn't impressive at all.  We have been to model train shows in Nashville, TN that were much better.  Ethan couldn't find anything at the gift shop that suited him so we had a minor melt down there and when I went to change Landen's diaper in the restroom that you had to go outside (into the pouring rain) for there was no changing table, empty cabinet, ....nothing!  So, I ended up having to change him in his stroller backed into a stall!  Yeah, that wasn't fun....he is too big for that.  Anyway, we survived it and Ethan can now say he has ridden a train through the mountains...moving on!

Wednesday, we just kind of took it easy.  Slept in, had breakfast, played Monopoly with Ethan, went to the park where we practiced baseball and played on the playground, made a quick stop by TJ Maxx while the boys napped with Josh in the truck, got dinner, and went back to cabin where we played Uno Attack and the guys played Wii while I read Bloom by Kelle Hampton.  It was such a good book...I laughed out loud and cried a lot while reading it.  I had been waiting for it to come out for several months now and had pre-ordered it from Barnes & Noble for the Nook. 

On Thursday, we headed to the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg.  We hadn't been in five years or so and the boys really had fun!

Friday, we swam at an indoor pool (it had turned of chilly on Thursday), played more games, and watched "We Bought a Zoo".  We also packed everything up so that we could head home first thing Saturday morning.  Our ride home didn't start out too well...we left the cabin and planned to drop off the movie we had rented and stop by McDonald's before getting on the interstate.  We pulled into McDonald's parking lot and Landen vomited all over himself, his pillow and blanket, and the car seat.  We had given him his antibiotic (for an upper respiratory infection) before we left and then he drank a full cup of milk between the cabin and McDonald's....yeah, it WASN'T pleasant!  And from now on we will ALWAYS feed him before he takes an antibiotic...not plan to let him eat in the next 15 minutes after taking it.  I spent 30 minutes cleaning him and his car seat up.  I had to change his clothes and put a  clean blanket in his car seat until we could get home where I could wash it.  He was fine the rest of the day, thankfully.  As soon as we got into town, we headed straight to the ballpark for Ethan's practice and then to pick up our chihuahua at my grandmother's after that.  We had a great trip but MAN, were we  glad to be home FINALLY at 5pm that evening!

Field Trip

On Friday, March 23rd Ethan's class went on a field trip to the Corvette Museum.  I went with them and it was a very enjoyable day.  The kids really like the "nano world".  There were neat hands-on activities that they loved taking part in.  The day before we went I was in Ethan's classroom helping out and he said "Mom, what does nano mean?" I responded with "small" and his teacher, who had just caught the tail end of our conversation, couldn't stop me in time. She had been trying to get the kids to guess what nano meant that day and I was totally unaware of that.  So when Ethan asked me, I just thought it was his usual curiosity and I answered him casually only to find out that I had given away the answer!  He giggled like crazy...little sneak, ha!

The car part of the Corvette museum is neat but it didn't hold the kid's attention for very long.  A large portion of it is only interesting if you are a car enthusiast but all in all I think they had a great time!

On Monday, March 26th Ethan caught his first crappie all by himself on Kentucky Lake while fishing with his dad and Papa.

Blast off!

On Thursday, March 8th we met up with some friend for our first ever hockey game.  Landen stayed with a sitter but we took Ethan with us to enjoy the game.  We watched the Nashville Predators play the Colorado Avalanche.  Ethan said after the game that it was "boring".  I found it anything but boring!  Fans were screaming "you s*ck" at the opposing team and the players were fighting left and right.  Josh loved it!  I wouldn't mind to go back but I don't think it teaches kids very good sportsmanship, so I don't think we'd take Ethan again.  A few days later Ethan couldn't stop talking about how "awesome" it was.  I guess once he had time to think about it he was impressed by the head bashing and rude chants, lol!

Bath time is always fun with the boys... Landen loves to put every toy that he owns in the bath with him and Ethan loves bubbles.  Ethan never wants Landen to take a bath with him and any time Landen knows that Ethan is taking a bath all he wants is to get in with him.  It usually ends in one of them crying.  But they happily took separate baths over the weekend.  Well, Ethan wasn't very happy with our reaction once we saw the mess he had made... 

Yeah, that took a while to clean up!

This past Saturday we launched Ethan's rocket that we had gotten at Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago. He has been obsessed with launching it but we had forgotten to buy the "wadding" that you need and so we had to wait until we went back to buy it.  Anyway, both boys all three boys really enjoyed building and launching the "rock-rock" as Landen calls it.

 It's been pretty calm around here.  We've had to fight some nasty sicknesses....Ethan had an ear infection and still currently has a bad cough.  And over the weekend, Landen had a mean stomach virus.  Today is the first day that he has been completely back to his normal self.  On Monday morning, I went to wake E up for school and found him like this...

Asleep in his playroom!  His cough must have woke him up in the middle of the night and this is where he ended up, ha!

Ethan's team has began baseball practice, so we've been doing that a couple of times a week.  I really enjoy watching him play....but mostly I am chasing Landen around the ball park trying to keep him away from the road and off of the field.  He wants to do everything that his big brother does!

The two of them played outside for a while on Saturday....

Ethan is going through a cowboy stage.

"Slide Mom, please?"

Don't you just love the cowboy hat with the athletic wear? 

Sweet face.

"Say Cheese!"

"Whee!"

Aww...brotherly love, so sweet.