Vacation with Grandma Kathy and Papaw!

We were lucky enough to get to see Grandma Kathy and Papaw this last week when we went to Pigeon Forge/Gaitlinburg. The kids had so much fun...if you as what their fave part was, the answer is always "ALL OF IT!!" I have way too many pictures to put all of them on, but I am going to try to get at least one of each child, and perhaps my favorite ones.

Grandma Kathy, Corbin, Papaw, Miles and Hunter

All Hunter wanted for the last couple of weeks was to see an "ocopuss" His dream came true!

Corbin is about to be eaten by a megaladon!

Miles sure loved eating (especially because he got more dessert than normal)

Ella-marie and Hunter with Smokey the bear.

Levi doesn't really have any idea what's going on.

Five Little Monkeys...

jumping on the bed.

One fell off and bumped his head.

Mom and Dad took him to the emergency room

and the doctor said,

"No More Monkeys Jumping On The Bed!"

Levi got 4 staples in his head. There was a lot of blood, lots and lots of blood. Levi is just fine and started running around as soon as the doctor stapled him and gave him a drink of water. Thank goodness Patty was home next door and could watch the other kids when we took our run to the emergency room.

Carowinds!

We were lucky enough to be able to go with Spencer's band to Carowinds Amusement Park this past Saturday. The kids had a blast and the lines in the kiddie part were quite short. What a day! What a long, long, long day!

Hunter and Ella-marie loving the carousel!
Miles and Hunter in the red boat, and Corbin in the blue.

Corbin and Hunter flying with the Red Baron (in the background you can see Miles and Ella-marie too)

Amber and Levi, just resting for a moment.

This picture is an action picture, taken whilst whirling at top speeds in the hot-air balloons of death. Miles and Corbin are not screaming, yet...

This is during the same ride, and Levi is a little worse for wear. But what a fun time it is!

Levi finally took a nap at 7pm for exactly 10 minutes. Totally unacceptable, but there wasn't anything we could do about it.

Quote of the Week

Mom "Hunter, I am not your servant, I am your Mom and you need to treat me nicely."

Hunter "You my servant. Go to bed!"

Random Pictures...

I have some random pictures to share from this week.

Random is definately the word to use.

Ella-marie and the "tote" that I made yesterday.

Two hours=a magnificent tote.
Hunter wanted to show off my tote too!

This picture is from a Sunday, and if you can't tell, Hunter went into my room and decided that he wanted to wear my pantyhose. It went as well as can be expected, he did a pretty good job considering he was pulling them on by himself.

Here's a close up. I hope that you are appreciating this...

And Levi decided that he was cold and found a sweater of Corbin's to wear.

He is just as cute as a bug.

Bike Riding Extraordinaire!

I took Miles out to learn to ride a bike today. I didn't have very high expectations, but I figured we could do an hour of working on it. Lo and behold, just when we were both ready to quit (after 40 minutes), I just decided to let go because I couldn't keep up anymore and ZOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!! away he went! It was quite a shock to both of us. Miles realized that I wasn't right behind him after about 20 seconds and then panicked. That didn't stop him though because he got right back on and said "Let go Mom. Mom, let go! Moooooom!" I guess my little bird was ready to leave the nest and I was unable to let go. So, Miles learned to ride his bike in 45 minutes. Quite impressive. And then he didn't ever want to stop.

I do want to share my favorite crash of the morning...Miles was riding quite well, but didn't quite turn in time to continue on the parking lot. I saw his arms both go up in the air, his whole body launch up and then.............nothing. He completely disappeared from sight. He had gone over the edge of the lot and down into a grassy ditch. I was laughing so hard I could barely run over there to help him out of it. It was very funny to see. Miles wasn't even hurt in the process. It was a good time.

Happy Spring!

Happy Spring to everyone! I just want to say that Spring is my favoritest season of all, and I'm so glad it's here. The weather has been absolutely perfect and we took advantage of that yesterday when we went on our first official hike of the season. What an adventure!

Levi and Spencer are very happy. Yes, I know that Levi is wearing a 'girl' hat, but I don't have another boy hat right now. Somehow all of my little boy hats have fallen away into nothingness.
Here the children are looking at an American Toad. It was right beside the trail and was kind enough to let them look at it. I tried to take a picture, but it was too well camoflaged. This was just the beginning of a fantastic hike.

This is what I like to call "The fallen tree of death with lots of mud and goopy water surrounding it!" And it was right across the trail. So up and over we went, a little wobbly, but all in one piece.

Note the water/mud surrounding Hunter. He didn't mind though, it was all good.

Since Hunter was brave enough to stand on the log, Ella-marie decided that she was brave enough too.

If these aren't happy hikers, then I don't know who is.

We ended up seeing birds, toads, frogs (getting a little frisky), turtles, geese, ducks and various sundry bugs. It was a great day!