Kayden's Baseball Birthday!

Okay, so catching up has been stressing me out....so I wanted to get this video posted from Kayden's birthday, and then I'm kind of starting from where we are. :)  The thought of catching up on everything we've done over the last 3 months is crazy, so I won't....I'll just post what we've been up to and a few pictures and hopefully that will give me a renewed motivation to keep blogging. :)

So, here goes nothing....Kayden had such a great birthday at the ballpark, and LOVED throwing out the first pitch of the game...



He's already talking about watnting to do it again next year. :)

4....Our baby is 4?!?! How did that happen so fast?

We celebrated a big birthday this weekend....Kayden is officially 4!!  I tried to get him to stay 3 forever, but he wasn't going for it. ;)

Still trying to wrap my head around how this precious 8lb, 8.5oz. baby boy.....

 And sweet, beautiful 6 month baby boy....

Became this curious, active, and awesome 1 year old boy....

 And before we knew it, became this fun loving, cutie pie of a 2 year old...

And then in the blink of an eye, became this ornery ;), funny, goofy 3 year old....

 And here he is today....our amazing 4 year old K-Man....as stubborn as the day as he was born (I won't ever let him forget that he was 2 days late, and refused to open his eyes for his first pictures ;) ).....he is so smart, so handsome, makes us laugh constantly, and is very active, artistic, and athletic.

Kayden is such a little athlete.  He got a basketball hoop, hockey sticks, and a bike for his birthday and has wanted to be outside doing all of those things, or playing baseball every waking moment.  I don't know where he gets all of his energy, but I wish I could bottle it up!

His smile is infectious, and his laugh is contagious.  He is adorable, and he knows it....it's a dangerous combination. :) 

I never knew how I could love another child so much, but my heart could just explode with the amount of love I have for my boys.....Kayden has been such an amazing addition to our family and I love him so much, and I love watching him grow and learn.  Even though I wish I could slow down time and keep him from growing up too fast, I am looking forward to seeing him continue to grow and learn over the next few years.

We'll be celebrating again this weekend at the River Bandits minor league baseball game....Kayden is beyond excited!  Can't wait to share more pictures after this weekend.  Until then.....

How did Carver get to be 6 already?!?!

That's, as we say around here, "CRAZY TALK!" :)  When did my baby....

...get to be such a smart, handsome young man??

The last 6 years have flown by!  I never realized how much my sweet, perfect little baby would change my life and make it fuller and more meaningful everyday. 

We celebrated Carver's birthday at the Quad City Mallards Hockey game last weekend.  He invited some of his friends and they had a great time.  Then we were crazy enough to have a few of them over for a slumber party.  We survived and everyone had a great time! :)

Unfortunately, on Carver's actual birthday he was sick and had to come home from school. :(  He had been looking forward to being the birthday boy at school all year, and he was soooo sad. :(  We felt terrible for him, but we're glad that he's feeling better now and still had a great birthday. :)

At 6 years old, Carver is loving Kindergarten, is learning to read, is great at math, and loves sports, playing the Wii, and watching movies.  He is one special kid, and we feel so blessed everyday to have him in our lives. 

I have a feeling that in the blink of an eye Carver's going to go from being 6, to being 16.  So, I'm enjoying my 6 year old while I've got him, while he still calls me mommy and isn't too big to give me hugs after school and to let me tuck him in and kiss him goodnight. ;)

Love these little faces

I just love these little faces!  My boys are so lucky to have cousins that they love so much, so close by....they always have so much fun together! 

We had a great time at the family museum today! :)

Hello from Bankerland!

Hi All!!  I wanted to give you a quick update on our happenings here in Bankerland! :)

The boys had a fun Valentine's Day....it's been a week now, and I think they're finally coming down from their sugar highs. :)  Chris and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day, we have always made it a point to show each other all throughout the year how much we love one another and how important we are to each other, so Valentine's Day always seemed kind of silly.  Now that we have kids though, we try to do a little something for them, just to make it fun. :)  This year they each got a little dancing animal and a heart pillow and we had heart shaped toast for breakfast. :)

 Now, I mentioned the sugar high....this is just one example of that.  This is what happens when I leave Daddy and the boys to decorate the Valentine's Day cupcakes....needless to say, they had fun!! :)

The boys are so lucky to have such a thoughtful Godmother.  She knows how many presents the boys get at Christmas time, so she usually waits a couple of months to send their gifts and makes February a little more fun for them. ;)  Thanks Aunt Katy, we love our movies!! :)

So, while we were at Disney in December someone who will remain nameless ;) dropped my good camera and broke it.  I was a little upset, until I realized that this was my opportunity to get a new, nicer camera! :)  So, after saving up for a couple of months and getting some birthday money to put towards it, I got my new camera last week!  Sooooo excited about it!  I'm still trying to figure everything out, but I'm getting the hang of it, and I'm loving the quality of pictures I've been able to get with it. 

This is a picture of our beautiful Capper, that I took with my new camera, I just love how it came out! :)

This one just had to be included, I walked into the playroom the other morning to find Kayden laid out on his Spiderman couch, in his Spiderman jammies, and his Spiderman socks.....just too cute not to share! :)

The boys are doing great!  Carver is still loving Kindergarten and has even received 2 awards in the past couple of months, one for being a "Smart Mathematician" and one for "Good Sportsmanship."  He is also really doing well with his reading, and we are so proud of how hard he is working at it. :)  Kayden is loving preschool, but can't wait until next year when he will get to go to preschool everyday....he is getting so big, I can't believe he's going to be 4 soon! :)

Chris is still working hard on his PhD and work is keeping him busy too.  I don't see quite as much of his lately with all of this work, oh and with his new toy!  I got him the Playstation 3 that he has had his eye on for quite some time, so he retreats to the man cave often to play with that. :)

I have had new adventures recently as well.  With both of the boys in school 2 mornings a week, I thought that this was the perfect opportunity for me to get back into the classroom.  So, I've started subbing a day or two a week, and I'm LOVING it!  I didn't realize how much I missed being in the classroom.  It's nice being able to go in and teach, but not feel like I'm missing out on much time with my boys, and pretty much being able to set my own schedule as to when I choose to sub and when I don't. 

Hope you all are doing welll!!  I can't believe we're going to have Carver's 6th birthday to celebrate soon....can't wait to share the celebration with you.  :)

Beep, beep, beep....

That's me backing up, and catching up!  November and December flew by in the blink of an eye, and we had so many exciting things happening, and I just didn't take the time to keep you all up to speed....so hold onto your seats....here's a quick catch up and then I resolve (I don't really make new year's resolutions, but I am resolving to do a better job of updating the blog for all of those that love us near and far). 
We hosted Thanksgiving at our house, which I love, love, love!  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I just love doing all of the cooking, being surrounded by those that we love, and remembering my Grandma Helen on this day.

Then, we celebrated an early Christmas with my brother Alan, sister in law Sara, niece Ava, and nephew Connor at Chuck E Cheese.  These cousins just love each other, and I didn't even realize that the poster behind the kids says "Friends" until I pulled up this picture to post....I love that, because these cousins are the best of friends and just love spending time together. :)

At the beginning of December I also ran (literally) off to Las Vegas with my very dear friend, and the Godmother of my boys, Katy to run the Las Vegas Rock n Roll 1/2 marathon.  It was so much fun running 13.1 miles on the Vegas strip(and I set a PR with a time of 1 hour 55 minutes!), and then living it up in Vegas.  But, that's about all I can say about that, because you know what they say..."What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!" ;) 

Are you exhausted yet?  I'm exhausted just looking back on everything we did! 

About a week after I returned from Vegas, we were off again, this time as a family.  The boys were so excited and had been looking forward to this one for a while....we went to......

                                                      Disney World!!!!

We went with Chris's mom (aka Grandma Kathy) and his stepdad (aka Grandpa Bob) and his sister Heather and her boys Kyle and Justin.  Oh, the boys were in heaven!!  They love Grandma and Grandpa, and they love Aunt Heather and their cousins Kyle and Justin, and as if it weren't enough that they got to spend 4 days with all of these people that they love, they were at DISNEY WORLD!!

We did 3 parks (Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, and Magic Kingdom) over the course of 4 days and the boys met all of their favorite Disney characters and did lots of fun rides. :)  They both loved all of the fast rides, they get that from their dad!  Kayden is still talking about how much he liked Tower of Terror....and I did it for them but I couldn't even look the whole time we were on it! :)

We had soooo much fun!!  I'll tell you how much fun.....the boys have been praying for Disney during our nightly prayers before dinner, "Dear God, thank you for my family and for keeping us safe, and for keeping us safe on our trip to Disney, please send us to Disney again..." :)  I think they had fun. :)

We got back from Disney, and had a wonderful Christmas, spending lots of time with our families and feeling so blessed for all of our adventures and all of the people that love us.

2011 is sure to be another blessed year with many adventure ahead....and we can't wait to share it with all of you!  Happy New Year!! 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night! :)

I have so much catching up to do.... December has been a whirlwind but it's been lots of fun and we have so much to share.  For now, we just want to say.....

MERRY CHRISTMAS!  We hope that you had a great Christmas with those that you love.  We are feeling very blessed to have 2 healthy, happy boys and have so many people who love us.