My Birthday Cake!

The boys looking in awe of my cake.
Up close shot of my birthday cake. If you look close on the left side, you can see where Benjamin swipped through the icing.

Last week out of the blue Benjamin asked, "Mommy, don't you want an Ariel cake for your birthday?" I thought it was adorable, I simply replied, "How did you know." So then the Ariel cake was born. On Saturday, Ryan and the boys went to Marketplace to oder my Ariel cake. Benjamin insisted it had pink icing on it with Ariel in water. Last night when Ryan brought it home, Benjamin could barely sit still under after dinner to have a piece (or maybe that was just to eat the icing). He was so excited about the cake, it was precious.
Why Ariel you ask, several reasons! London (my sister's child) has red curly hair like Ariel, Ariel is London's favorite princess, so it is Benjamin's favorite princess too, and Ariel lives under the sea with all the other fish and that is really cool to Benjamin (plus, we just got back from the beach where Ariel lives in the ocean). We are giong to my mother's tomorrow on my actual birthday, but we celebrated my "family" birthday on Monday night with the boys. I figured I could work a couple of birthday dinners if I started celebrating early! I will not blog for a couple of days due to the fact will be in J-town and my parents still do not have an answering machine so computers are definitely not a priority, so I wanted to tell my mother, "Happy Birthday on Thursday!" You are an awesome example of a loving mother and a Godly woman! I am glad we are spending the day with you, Love you!

Ice Cream Please!

Now this is Ice Cream!
How do you like me now?
This is my Ice Cream face!
Wipe Please!

One thing about my boys, they LOVE ice cream! I thought Carter and I would share an ice cream cone. I think I got 2 bites! And of course, they both wanted chocolate. I am still trying to get it out of Carter's clothes! I love summer because at least once a week, we go for ice cream as a family!

More Beach!

Should I touch this?
Boys holding the catch from the fishing trip!
Carter and Daddy chilling out on the beach!
Vaughn, Carter, Wesley, and Ryan all watching something very closely!
Wesley and Benjamin in the ocean, Harrison surfing!

I wanted everyone to see this picture, that is my SIL (my 6 month prego SIL) helping her sun surf. Rebecca amazes me, she got up most mornings and ran 2-4 miles. Yes, I was sitting back in the house eating and drinking coffee.

Story for the day: I want to vent about how bad my boys slept on the trip! I mean they DIDN'T sleep. My boys usually sleep everywhere and for a very long time. Carter was cutting his molars, and Benjamin just wanted to play with the others. He didn't understand that most NORMAL children were still asleep at 5:30. Oh, yes 1 morning Ben did sleep until 7:30, but he quickly repaid us the next by getting up at 3:30! So at 5:00, we took them down to the beach to play in the sand. So anyone wanting to know what the ocean and sand look like at 5:00 in the morning, it is beautiful! Of course I am NOT a morning person, so I was miserable. Carter is back to his old sleeping self, Benjamin is still somewhat fighting the sleep. Last night we were up from 2:00 on! Crazy little man, I guess he is not like his momma when it comes to sleep!

Beach Bums!

I know it has been several weeks from my last blog, we were on vacations, yea!!! We went with 2 of Ryan's bothers and 1 family friend to Fort Morgan, AL. That is 15 miles west of Gulf Shores. Let me tell ya, white sand, beautiful water! We had a blast. There werew 15 of us, but we never got cramped for space. We stayed in a house with plenty of room. Lots of stories, I will share them throught the week with you.
My story today: Ryan lost his wedding ring on the beach! And yes, he found it the next day! His wedding ring is a little big for him (we have already reduced the size once, we should probably do it again to save this from happening again!) He forgot to leave his ring at the house, so when he got down to the beach, he placed in on the cooler. Our SIL took it and placed it in the cup holder of a chair moving it to higher ground and an area that had walls. Well, at the end of the day Ryan left it in the chair at the beach. I told him 3 times to go back down and get it, his reply, "When we clean up tonight, I will get it." Clean up time and the boys came back, suddenly Ryan realized he didn't get the ring out of the cup holder before they "threw" all the chair into the area under the tent. Several of us went back down to look, a couple with a metal detector helped us for over an hour look, still not luck! We all went up to the house. The next morning, Ryan and his brothers started digging around our area with their hands while we were hanging on the beach, Ryan found it in about 20 minutes, AMAZING!!!! I was thinking instead of that tent he wanted for Father's Day, another ring was first! Anyway, from that day to the end of our trip, Rich (Ryan's brother) was in charge of his ring! Eric (ryan's older brother) lost his wedding ring (and found it) at Doug's (another brother) wedding on the beach.

Crazy Boys!

Benjamin helping me roll out and bake 24 pizza crust for church Wednesday night!
Carter is standing on a toy truck balancing himself!
Carter is our "free spirited" silly boy!

Wow, what a week. Ryan went out of town on Tuesday, this was my first week out of school, plus I cooked dinner at church on Wednesday night. It seems this week has lasted forever! I do have several stories from the boys this week.

Benjamin: He is my little helper, he loves cooking in the kitchen. He pulls the chair to the side of the cabinet and he pretends to cook. On Tuesday, together we rolled out 24 pizza crust and baked them. He thought he was in heaven. He especially like to play with the spatula and act like he is flipping pancake. Today, we were eating lunch on the deck, Benjamin drops a part of his ice cream on the deck. He lays down on the deck and licks the ice cream off the floor. This is before I could do anything! We are starting to potty train or at least acknowledge that there is a potty in the house. He says he wants to go, but then stage fright hits when we step up to the plate. We have a bucket of toys he gets to choose from when he does finally go, and any tips on potty training would definitely help!

Carter: Other than the fact he wants his pacifier in his mouth 24/7, he is growing like crazy. He is starting to say more things. On command from older brother, he will "moo" like a cow. It is pretty funny! He is teething with the bottom molars now, fun times. But I have to say the funniest thing (don't know if it is appropriate for me to think this is funny) happened this week at McDonalds. I took the boys to eat there on Tuesday night when my kitchen was covered in pizza crust and tomato sauce. We had a nice meal and then the boys got down to play. Another family of 4 chidren were there too. The mother went and got ice cream for them, and the kids ate it in the play area. (Side note: okay mom, not the best place when other kids are around to let your kids eat ice cream in the PLAY AREA, at least sit down at the tables) Carter saw it and went following the kids around with his tongue out of his mouth. Finally Benjamin saw it and asked for ice cream, I knew there was no way around not getting ice cream. Plus, ice cream is a great way to end such a delicious meal at Mickey D's! So I put Carter and Ben in the small area to play, checked the counter ( no one there) and took off quickly with my money. I looked back, boys were good and playing. I was gone less then 2 minutes. When I walk back in the room, I find the smallest girl in the ice cream family crying with mom holding her and the ice cream was missing a portion of it. My sweet, precious, innocent little Carter had tackled her, bit her on the arm, and swiped the ice cream! Yes, I said it, my little man went to war for ice cream. This was truly the first time I have ever been embarrased by either of my children. I didn't know what to say. Thank goodness the mother thought it was no big deal. She even made the comment, I don't think he actually bit her, I think he just put his mouth up to her arm. Like I said at the time, I was mortified. On the way home, I started laughing out lous. Leave it to my kid to take another child (smallest girl for that matter) for ice cream!