Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Springtime

As I'm typing this, it has been a ridiculously cold day here today. This morning was in the low 30's. It's April 17th, people! Mother Nature needs to figure this out stat. At least it's sunny.

We have had some really, really beautiful weather recently though. It's such a great time of year when we can get home from school and play outside a little before coming in for dinner. We had such gorgeous weather this past Saturday to celebrate our last weekend in this house. The boys spent some time outside while it was so pleasant and we ended up grilling with our neighbors, Brecht, Megan and their boys. We will really miss our neighbors here!

A few pictures of recent outdoor fun!

William playing in the irises

Stokes at his "struction" zone

Ryan wearing Mama's shades

cartwheel....kinda sorta!

Selfie time!
Just look at that sweet little face!

It's fun to be outside!

Blueberries on the porch



Cool guy with his shades on

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Creativity

I love it when the boys make their own fun. Just the other night, Stokes and William pulled out their sleeping bags from their bedroom, brought them downstairs to my office and had a "camp out". This was in the evening before dinnertime and still very light out...not time to go to bed. They even found some fake wood from a logging truck toy and made a fire for their campsite. They pretended to get warm at the fire and roast marshmallows. It was all so sweet! They were having such a good time with their imaginations and no screens were involved. They were laughing and playing and were so excited to show me their camp out. It was just good, old fashioned fun.
*Don't mind how my house looks. We are in the middle of packing and it shows!

At their camp out!

Those 3 logs are their "fire"!

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Springtime with Cousins

It's safe to say that "spring has sprung" at our house. The sun is shining, the azaleas in our yard are gloriously blooming and we have that refreshing springtime feeling going on.

Spring break for school was last week, and while we didn't go anywhere or do any particular spring break-like activities, we DID get to have a visit with the Nanas and cousins! Kaitlyn and Whitney were both on spring break as well so the Nanas, who had Kaitlyn for the week, brought them up for a visit on their way to take Kaitlyn back home to Charleston. Greenville makes a nice little halfway point for them to break up the trip and we get to have visitors that we love!

A few highlights of the 2 days:

  • The kids made homemade Oreo ice cream (Kaitlyn's idea)
  • Thomas and I got to go out while the Nanas babysat
  • Lots of outdoor playtime for all the kids (including a neighbor)
  • Nana Wanda brought chicken salad :)
  • The boys still love, love, love their "best friends", Kaitlyn and Whitney
Pics of the fun visit below. xoxo

Nana Wanda helping Ryan walk


Everyone climbed in the Nanas's bed on Friday morning! ha

Kaitlyn feeding Ryan
Lots of time outside!
Making ice cream with the ice cream ball
Thomas and me out with our small group!

Ryan and Nana Wanda
(she's a Ryan hog when she comes and I love it)

Happy campers?? LOL


Outdoor photo sesh with these amazing azaleas! I'm really going to miss these at our next house. *tear

Silly boys...







And cousins...


Tuesday, April 3, 2018

He Is Risen 2018

He is risen indeed.

What a glorious day it was! Easter Sunday has become one of my favorite days in the entire year and this one did not disappoint. We could not have asked for better weather and our church service was great! And bonus...the Easter bunny came and left the boys's baskets.

Time to open Easter baskets!

They got some clothes, some candy and some pool toys to use this summer.

Checking out the goods

Ryan checking out his Nekdoodle - we're hoping this
will help him stay afloat in the pool!

We had these yellow oxford shirts and ordered lavender seersucker bow ties and khaki colored suspenders. I had a yellow dress and Thomas had a shirt that matched the boys perfectly and an bow tie with purple in it so our family color scheme became yellow and lavender. We don't always (or ever, really) dress alike or have a family color scheme, but it just kind of worked out! The boys got a lot of compliments at church about how cute they looked! And they really did! None of my pictures turned out well at all. It was so sunny and the shadows were intense and I still don't know how to use my camera. Ugh. 




Church...
We are still worshipping in our gym (turned sanctuary) and have broken ground on our new sanctuary that will be built. We're hoping to be in the new sanctuary by next Easter! Anyway, the color coordination here was too cute not to document!

The McCourry's matched with our color scheme
and we ended up sitting together as well. Haha!


After the service, we took our family picture in front of the cross
Once church was over, we came home just briefly to grab our crock pot and head over to MaSha's for lunch. Our neighbors were out and about so we had them take a quick picture for us in front of all the azaleas, which are blooming so beautifully right now. I sure am going to miss these azaleas! 

Stokes was with MaSha so he was missing
from our family picture. :(

Lunch with MaSha...
MaSha hosted Easter lunch this year, which was so nice of her! She had Aunt Lorraine here and invited a few of her neighbors to join us as well. After hanging out and playing outside for a few minutes, we had a delicious spread of all sorts of traditional Easter dinner dishes. Everything was really beautiful and the food was great.

Rainey and the boys

Lorraine and the Peery 5

MaSha with her family

Later...
We had a low key afternoon following church and lunch. After some down time, we got back outside for a few reasons. It was too pretty to not be outside and the boys wanted to get in a little tee ball practice...oh yeah, and we had to pip our eggs that we dyed!

Ryan with the eggs

Practicing catching!


Time to pip!

The boys loved it!

The aftermath

We did not stop pipping until each and every egg was cracked on both ends, and some in the middle, too! Not trying to brag, but I did end up with the overall winner for the game. ;)

Easter was a fantastic day for us this year. We're thankful for significance of Easter weekend and especially for the good news that we get on Easter Sunday!* It's certainly a time to rejoice and we did just that. 

*Side note: each and every time we drive by a church, William will state, "Jesus died on that cross." I always have to press him to finish the story. I'll ask him, "But then what happened on Easter Sunday?" and he will answer that Jesus rose from the dead. Smart boy. One day, I asked him why Jesus died on the cross and he replied, "he died for us." I'm not sure that he really understands what that means, but I'm glad that he at least has the basics committed to memory. <3

Monday, April 2, 2018

Leading up to Easter

I already posted about Aunt Wendy's Annual Easter Egg Hunt that we attended on St. Patrick's Day (read, or re-read more about that here), but we had a few more pre-Easter celebrations to attend before the big day was here.

First up was school Easter parties on Friday. Each of the boys's classes had a party and an Egg Hunt.

Ryan's class party and egg hunt:
Lots of yummy treats for snack

Ryan's in the wagon and refused to look over for my picture!

Egg hunt time

Love my sweet boy


Ryan only got a few eggs (blame it on his slow Mama), but
these sweet friends were sharing eggs with him. Heart melting!

Stokes and William's class party and egg hunt:
Cuties!

Ready to hunt some eggs

Stokes on the move

William on the move

Party time

Yum

That afternoon, after we left school, Layla, the boys's former nanny came by for a visit. She brought some gorgeous orange tulips and some vegan cupcakes (egg-free) for the boys! I got a picture of the cupcakes, but didn't get one of Layla and the boys. Face palm.

She special ordered these from Whole Foods
so that Stokes could have one!

Saturday was our church's annual Eggventure egg hunt with games, food, candy and prizes. We went to Eggventure 2 years ago, but last year, it was too soon after the fire so our church wasn't able to host it. This year was a totally different experience for us and I attribute that to small groups. Over the last 2 years, we've become much more involved at church - between Sunday school, small groups, and being present more now that the boys are a little older and easier to take places - we have gotten to know so many more people. Eggventure was awesome this year because of all the games and fun things that were going on, but I loved how many friends and conversations we had there this year.

Ready to go to Eggventure


That is a race car on his face. LOL

Listening to Ellen read the Easter story

Lollipop tree

Eating lunch with the Browns

Love my family



After Eggventure on Saturday, we dyed our Easter eggs. Stokes and William were VERY involved in the process this year, which tended to get a little stressful. I think all the candy and fun from Eggventure had a negative effect on their "listening ears". Ha!



The "biting each others's fingers game"

Handsome!


Our monogrammed eggs

Finished products