Mother and Father’s Day

All wrapped into one.  Here are the cards Sean made for us at school to celebrate Mother and Father’s Day this year.  Doesn’t it just melt your heart??

So True

Our OBX Memorial Day

For the first time in a few years we made it to the beach for Memorial Day and we were so excited!   Not only was it so good to see everyone, but it’s when the traditional Appetizer Cook-off happens and let me tell you – this family takes it seriously.  As always, thank you to Mike, Gale and Katie for letting us crash their beach house and for giving us a bedroom! We felt like royalty.

We started off the weekend with ice cream so you know it was going to be good…

Uncle Mike testing out Sean and Dylan’s bed…

This is how we found them in the morning (Dylan was still asleep in this pic)…

Upon entering the hallway, the boys realized that a pirate came and booby trapped the cottage!…

Morning fun with pillow piling on Grandma…

Fun in the sun!…

Too much fun in the sun?…

The boys found a pirate’s map and treasure chest!
We even made it to a restaurant and serenaded each other at home afterwards :)…

Time for the cook-off challenge to begin…

And the winner was Aunt Michelle!…

Gotta love Happy Meals for the ride home!

What a great weekend!

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…

While we were in Vegas, GG and Pop Pop hung out in Charlotte with the boys.  They had a great time and had no problem finding things to do.

Viva Las Vegas!

We were lucky enough to get to go to Vegas and meet up with John’s parents and his Aunt Debbie and Uncle John.  It was my first time back since I went with my mom and dad for my 21st birthday. We stayed at the Cosmopolitan and it was awesome… the view from our room was spectacular, overlooking the Bellagio fountains. 

We walked the strip and checked out all the hotels and even met up with Optimus Prime and Bumblebee along the way (it sure made the boys jealous!)…

Got dressed up and went to fancy dinners to celebrate our anniversary and Gus’s 60th birthday…

Danced to ELVIS in old town!!…

Hung out in the casinos (John even won some money!)…

Saw BRITNEY!!!…

… and ate way too much.  In this picture you can see my ginormous burger and fries.  Across the way you can see John’s bite-sized girl burgers.  I ate my whole plate.  What can I say? All that walking got me hungry.  Don’t act like you’re not impressed. 

Oh – and this was my dessert ;)

We had a great time.  I know this because we were exhausted when we got home and I even got a cold and had to go to the doctor the morning after we got back.  Haha, now THAT’S when you know you did it right!

Our First Sleepover

We held our first official sleepover in May!  Our friends Chris and Emily had a wedding to attend so we watched Julia and Lucas for the evening.  It was really a lot of fun – they were great.  We ate dinner, watched Frozen and had dessert.  The enthusiasm they all displayed while singing ‘Let It Go’ was off the charts.  By the end of the movie, all the boys (including John) were upstairs singing karoke while Julia and I were planted in front of the TV to watch the end of the movie.  I made her promise that she would let me braid her hair in the morning (these boys and their short hair!) and she was so sweet, the next morning she brought me her brush and hair clips so I could do her hair. I think I got my fix for the next few months :)

John even dusted off the old Goose hand puppet…

Poor Polly was still all doped up on her pain meds, but she tried hard to keep watch over this unruly bunch…

If they could have all fit in Sean’s bed, they would have slept there for sure. But we ended up with Dylan in is own crib, and the other 3 in Sean’s bed…

The morning after – not so bad, they weren’t up until 7!

It’s a pretty far cry from the first picture we have of the 4 of them, when Dylan was only 3 weeks old (but don’t ask me why he was so red?!)…