Birthdays and Farewells

 Dexter turned 4 this year!  He is so tall and is growing up so fast!  He loves sharks, sports, and can spout off anything you may want to know about sharks and then some.  He is very independent and loves to help in the kitchen.  He learned how to top strawberries this year using a butter knife even.  He is very smart and a sweetheart.  For his birthday, he got a shark remote control car.  He's had a lot of fun with it.

His birthday was shark themed.  I finished his shirt.  I think it turned out pretty cute.  If you can't tell, it says "duh dun, duh dun."  Think theme to Jaws.  That's what I tell my kids sharks say if they ask :)

For his birthday celebration, we turned it into a birthday/farewell party.  We invited over the Bourne's, the Nordbys, and the Sweetens.  I'm such a dork and didn't take pictures of anybody.

We had yummy hamburgers/hot dogs and sides.  We also had these awesome shark cupcakes.  I lucked out on finding the frosting.  I went to Hy-Vee to pick up some vanilla to tint blue, and found this blue frosting with fish sprinkles.  How perfect!

They were pretty yummy.  Just ask Jules...

The kids had a lot of fun playing and Grant was so sweet as to oblige them in playing baseball

Here is the last picture of our kids and the Bourne boys.  We've had a lot of fun with these friends the last 4 years! 

It was a bittersweet evening.  I did fairly well holding back the tears until we said goodbye to the Bournes.  I knew we'd see the others one more time, but this was it for them.  Man, we had a good time.

Zoo

The kids and I went to the zoo with Lainey and Serene.  It was pretty fun.  Juliette has only been there a handful of times, so it was great to take her there.  We saw lions and tigers, and made our way to the aquarium and jungle.  It was another hot day so we tried to stay inside.  The zoo has been remodeled some (the entrance and the aquarium) and this was only our 2nd time in the aquarium.

Cheesing it up for the camera

Dex wanted his picture taken with these fish

JJ LOVED these upside down jellyfish

She cried when I pulled her away from them.

She liked these ones as well.

I think it's safe to say they are her favorite animal right now.  When Dex was this age, it was the penguins.

Inside the aquarium, they have this new interactive pad.  It looks like and acts like you running through  a shallow pool, chasing fish.  The fish run and hide, the water ripples, it's kinda cool.  My kids were pretty leary of it though.

Each time I've been to the zoo, I've never seen the octopus they have and always wanted to.  Today was my lucky day.  Look who We saw!

Absolutely amazing isn't it?

We must have hit the zoo at the right time because this anaconda was quite active as well.  Look at how strong he is and how far stretched he is on that glass.  Amazing!

Dex also had to play with the giant globe that they have.  He had fun touching it and trying to get it to move.

It was a fun time had by all.  I can't wait till we go again!

Friends

A week or so ago, I watched Kevin and Karen's boys and Dexter couldn't have been more excited. He loves to play with ALEX! He likes to play with Ethan too, but Alex is "the man" to this little boy. So we had a fun day. After some play time and an attempt at lunch, I thought it would be fun to build a fort with the boys. What else do you do in a fort but get to watch WALL-E? All the boys had fun. Dexter was just ecstatic about the whole thing. He was also a big help at making sure everyone had a blanket and pillow so that they could watch the movie properly.

Happy 4th of July!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

This 4th of July Celebration was a lot of fun. We invited the Castillo family over for shish-kabobs. There was a lot of good food (thanks Ashton)! After which, the guys played a game of Master Mind and then we moseyed over to the future home of ISU's College of Pharmacy in Meridian to watch the fireworks. Ashton and Leigh went for a "campus tour" and are now creating plans for a basketball court in the parking lot for when they both are accepted next year into ISU's Meridian Campus Pharmacy program (fingers crossed).

We watched the Meridian fireworks (yes, even Meridian has fireworks hee, hee ;) ). They were shot off from the Meridian Speedway. It was actually a pretty good show. Ayla was kind of scared but eventually learned to like all of the colors. It was a lot of fun!