Father's Day Weekend 2015

Our family had a great weekend to celebrate Thomas's birthday, Father's Day and the first day of summer!

The fun began on Saturday morning. After breakfast, we let the boys play around a little bit...

Stokes, Thomas and  William

They sure do love their Da-da!

Silly boys

Then we loaded the boys up and went to a local farmers market! As soon as Stokes crawls into the van, he immediately finds his way up to the drivers seat and gets behind the wheel.

Not sure if we're quite ready to drive yet, buddy!

He's crazy. :)

Farmer's Market! It was a billion degrees outside but we thankfully were there pretty early. We didn't buy much, but wanted to walk around and "window shop". It was a great excuse to get out of the house and just do something.

Our next door neighbor has a booth there at the Farmer's Market. She makes homemade cupcakes, cookies and French Macarons. Delectable! We, of course, stopped by her booth and chatted and picked up a few treats. I think she has her booth set up to look so cute! Check out her website - Handmade by Marlena.

Handmade by Marlena booth

The Farmer's Market is right next to a playground so we took the boys over to play for a little while. It was actually pretty nice at the playground because it was shady and the breeze was blowing.

First stop: the swings!

William

Stokes

Ryan

He LOVES the swings!

He would just laugh and laugh. That does my heart good to hear it.

All 3 of them swinging away!

Thomas and I took turns pushing them

When Stokes and William got bored of the swings, I let them out and followed them to this play area. Part of the time, they were going in different directions, but there weren't really any other people there at the time, so I wasn't too concerned. The hardest part was keeping my eyes on both of them and making sure they weren't about to fall off of a tall surface or get hurt in some way!

We headed back home after the playground time and had some lunch and the boys took a nice, longggggg nap. :) Ahhhh....

I had to do the typical Saturday stuff - laundry, errands, etc. But here's a glimpse of some of the sweet treats from the Farmer's Market that kept me going! They were SO.GOOD. My neighbor has true talent. I need to stay far, far away! Ha! I've told her that I'd buy some for the boys if she figures out an egg-free recipe. Stay tuned for that....

Strawberry and Triple Chocolate Cupcakes and a
Strawberry and Coconut macaron.
My fave??
Definitely the coconut macaron! YUM.

Saturday night was DATE NIGHT! We didn't do much to actually celebrate Thomas's birthday on Thursday, so I wanted to take him out over the weekend. We got a real babysitter to come after we put the boys to bed and we took off. I say "real babysitter" because we've been so fortunate to have had friends and family volunteer to watch the boys, or hire sitters for us, so I think this is the first time we've actually gotten a sitter!

Waiting until the boys go to bed before leaving for our date compromised our options for the outing. We missed the 7 pm movies and didn't want to go to a movie starting at 10 or later and some of the breweries I was thinking of going to close at 8, so I threw all of my ideas out for Thomas and let him choose. The winner? Dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Anita's, which happens to be very close to where we live and then a 9:00 PM showing of Jurassic World.

We got to sit outside for dinner - have I mentioned that I love al fresco dining?!?! - and it was perfect with the breeze and the fans. I told our waitress about it being Thomas's birthday so she brought him a fried ice cream for dessert and the sombrero!!!

Dinner date at Anita's

After dinner, we went to the movie theater and unfortunately, our movie was sold out. I should have bought tickets online but we didn't decide which plan we would do until right before we left. Bummer. Now we both have an itch to go to the movies, so we'll have to plan another date sometime soon. Since we couldn't go to the movies, we just drove around for a little while the talked before coming home to relieve our sitter and calling it a night.

Sunday was Father's Day and I'm not exaggerating when I say that we hit the Daddy jackpot with Thomas! He's such an awesome Da-da! The boys just LOVE him. They babble about "da-da" alllllllllll the time.

I got up early and made him a special Father's Day breakfast with eggs, sausage and biscuits.

Thomas helping the boys go downstairs for breakfast.
How cute are they!?!

I came across this idea about a joint birthday/Father's Day gift for Thomas through social media. I have a friend whose husband makes these cedar patio coolers. It's more than I would typically spend on a gift, but I figured it would work out if I combined the occasions! So Thomas didn't really get a real birthday present on Thursday. I just gave him a "choose your own" 6 pack of craft beers and told him his big present was coming. Picking this bad boy up was one of the errands I had to do on Saturday afternoon. So Sunday morning, I was thrilled to be able to present Thomas with his gift! Isn't it awesome?!?! Thomas will have to seal it, but then it's ready to go and will be able to withstand the elements so it can hang out on our patio. I think it will be so awesome when we have people over and can use it.

Like this patio cooler? Check out the Studio 1810 page on Facebook to get yours (or check out lots of other things he can make!).

The boys thought it was awesome and were excited to check it out!

Stokes was working on lifting the lid and William was checking on the spigot.

What's more awesome than triplets and a patio cooler? Well....funny you should ask...triplets IN a patio cooler. Duh. :)

Ryan and Stokie

 These guys are so funny and I just love these pictures of them. They're so dern cute.

Triplet tested and triplet approved.

We spent a little bit of time just hanging out before we had to do the nap and the always frantic "eat a snack really quickly and then get dressed in a rush and load up and get out the door before church" routine.

Ryan and his Da-da. These really are the sweetest pictures!

Ryan was rubbing Thomas's head and hair. 

He sure does love his Da-da

I insisted on getting an official Father's Day picture with Thomas and the boys before church. As you can see, none of them are "perfect" but they're amazing to us!

After church, we got to meet up with Ashley, Taylor and Anna for lunch! They had been in Charleston to visit and help out when Madison was born and were coming through town on their way home. This wasn't technically right in their flight pattern, but close enough, and we're so glad they took the time to swing through to spend some time with us! Taylor and Anna are the sweetest big cousins and the boys love being around them. These 2 are going to make incredible babysitters in a few years and amazing mamas way down the road!

William, Taylor and Anna

Thomas getting Stokes and Ryan situated

Taylor reading to William

Anna, Taylor and Ryan

Looking up at his cousins... :)

Ashley was sweet to take Stokes outside and let him walk
around a bit so I could try to finish my lunch. Let's just say
that Stokes isn't the most well-behaved toddler at mealtime
and tends to not want to sit down for very long.
Yep - that sums it up.

Anna, William and Taylor - I love how they're holding hands!

So sweet!

After the afternoon nap, Thomas ran a few errands and the boys and I hung out on the deck and ate watermelon until it was time for dinner.

Here they are looking in the windows, searching for Da-da

Dinner!

Boys's dinner - grilled hot dog, sweet potato, a little
bit of asparagus and cauliflower

Yum yum - dinnertime!

Sweet Ryan was ready to eat! He tried some asparagus and some
sweet potato in addition to his usual pureed food.

Our dinner - grilled chicken, asparagus and sweet potato.
Is it bad that Thomas had to grill his own dinner on
Father's day?!?! haha

YES! I love this one. It's brewed right up the road in
Spartanburg, SC. Try this if you haven't yet! ;)
RJ Rocker's Son of a Peach

Dessert was one of Thomas's favorites, warm apple
dumplings, straight from the oven!
These are super low calorie and non fat....just nothing but
healthy stuff in there!
I'm only saying this to make us all feel better. The
apples are the ONLY healthy thing in this treat!

After we got the boys to bed, we did a little of this....

....with these two....

It was a nice and peaceful evening. Happy Father's Day, everyone! It was a great weekend! Shout outs to my dad, Stokes, and Thomas's dad, Ab. Y'all have been terrific fathers to us and great examples. We intend to see both of you in the very near future.