March Part Four: A Camping We Will Go

We woke up Friday March 30, with an amazing 8 year old in our house. I let him pick out his birthday breakfast the day before. This was the first time I let him go into a store by himself, pick out whatever he wanted and buy it. He was so proud of himself and his powdered donut purchase. Our sweet little guy said he picked them out because there were enough in the package for each of us to have one. You can only imagine the pure delight in his eyes when I let him know they were all his.

We all needed sugar to make it through our first ever slumber party we were about to experience. Rhett invited eight of his friends to camp at Camp Rhett.

We grilled out hot dogs, made s'mores then strapped on our adventure packs and embarked on a nature scavenger hunt. (AKA an excuse to run energy filled boys around the neighborhood before bed time...haha!)

I was actually really proud of all the boys. All of them but one made it outside in the tent all night. Jason may or may not have been the only one to pack it up and call it quits in the middle of the night. Jason, Wyatt and myself were sharing a tent and full size air bed. Around 3:00 in the morning daddy "went to the bathroom" never to be heard from again...haha! I finally rolled off the air bed and ventured inside to check on him, because I just knew he must've been in serious medical distress. I mean come on, the love of my life wouldn't have purposefully left me outside in a tent in charge of two tents full of boys by myself, Right?! Wrong! The big stinker claimed he was giving me more room on the air bed by going inside to sleep in our big comfy king size bed. What a true gentlemen I have huh...haha! He totally redeemed himself when we all woke up to find him in the house bearing Shipley's donuts for breakfast. Donuts cover a multitude of sins! Once we were all full of donuts the boys slipped on their "I Survived Camp Rhett" shirts and thankfully we all actually did SURVIVE CAMP RHETT! Barely! ha! 

Moving on to February

Oops, I finally made it to February and realized that I left out our trip to see the Harlem Globetrotters on Jan. 28.  Wyatt was so cute having such a great time. He was dancing and just laughing so loud at the Globetrotters antics.

Ok now we can officially move on to February. We hosted the neighborhood Super Bowl party and thought we were so fancy with our double television placement in the living room. Ha! We also thought we were pretty TV savvy, but Rhett proved to be the true TV genius. None of the dads could figure out how to get the two televisions perfectly synced until Rhett saved the day with his TV synching solution. Everyone called him the hero of the Super Bowl. 
Our neighbors are just so fun. The weekend after the Super Bowl party Mrs. D put together a Mardi Gras parade and party for the kids. It was so much fun to parade the wagons up and down our streets and feast on yummy Cajun food.

Of course February is not complete without Valentine's. For the boy's friends this year I made rockin' valentines and attached them to pop rocks candy. Rhett and his friends always love it when I magically turn them into Legos.

The problem with getting so far behind blogging is when I come across pictures like the one below I can't remember if this was his first corn dog or if we thought he was just cute eating one...haha!

Regardless if this was a Landon first or not it's still super cute and a perfect way to end February!

Topper Tribute

Topper has been such a fun little family friend this holiday. The boys have absolutely LOVED hunting him down each morning. Once Wyatt got past the "Topper is preaking me out" stage and stopped trying to shoot him with our assortment of toy guns he really LOVED him. Even now that Topper has gone back to the North Pole Wyatt still asks "where's Topper" first thing each morning. It's pretty sad and cute all at the same time. Before Topper flew back to the North Pole with Santa he got into more mischief.
One morning we woke up to discover he dyed our milk red. We caught him red handed...ha!

The boys had a really hard time finding him when he decided to hide in our poinsettias.

I still think the silliest thing our sweet little topper did was trade out our stockings for our undies! The boys thought this was hysterical!
We will really miss topper until next year!

The week of Christmas

Once we were all re-united and it feels so good at home, we enjoyed a 100% family of five week before Christmas. Daddy "worked" from home Thursday and Friday and the boys took full advantage of daddy time. We built gingerbread houses and managed to get most of the candy on the houses this year.

Wyatt's House

Rhett's House

The next morning we woke up to find Topper enjoying some of Rhett's house.

When the boys weren't busy building gingerbread houses, Lego Skyscrapers were on the agenda.

The boys aren't the only ones who enjoyed spending extra time with daddy. He and I were able to escape for a wonderful night out for our 12th anniversary on the 23rd. I was so excited to give him his gift. I purchased concert tickets to three of his favorite artists. I put each in a separate envelope with the particular artists song lyrics  in front of the tickets. He was so happy to open each envelope revealing our upcoming concert/date nights.

Rhett and I also attempted to make a cinnamon roll Christmas tree for a fun holiday breakfast.

This was the goal.

And this was our masterpiece...you can hardly tell the difference right? haha! I would say our tree was an epic fail but luckily its appearance didn't alter the taste.

Our week before Christmas was so special and I can't wait to share our first-ever stay-at-home Christmas. It was magical! Hopefully I'll get it posted in the next couple of days.

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me

December first rolled around with a much anticipated visitor perched up on our mantle. Rhett had been asking non-stop when we thought Topper would return and he finally got his answer. He excitedly woke us up to let us know that Topper was back and he brought them a letter and a gift. Topper was so sweet to get the boys this year's Lego Advent Calendar which happens to be a star wars theme. Christmas Lego Perfection for Rhett!


We woke up to find Topper hiding in the Nativity on the second. R and W thought it was so funny that he borrowed the Shepherds staff and was cuddling a little lamb.

Saturday, December 3, Topper knocked all our socks off with an amazing North Pole Breakfast. R came running in to wake me up to see what all Topper had done for us. So at 5:45 am (yes I said AM), I got out of bed to have a magical pancake making memory with my boys. Topper was so sweet to think of every detail of breakfast for us. The table was set beautifully complete with chef's hats and aprons for the boys.




Topper even brought us a cool new pancake pan.

The boys were ready to cook. They had a great system going. R did the measuring and W did the stirring.



Our new little pancake skillet made the cutest little pancakes. But they weren't nearly as cute as little W running round in his cooking clothes...ha!


We had a breakfast feast complete with hot chocolate. All while Topper sat watching from the light. He may or may not have sneaked a marshmallow during the night. I guess he really worked up an appetite setting everything up for us.


Lman did join us for breakfast later. He's my only child that doesn't feel the need to wake up before 6:00 am. Did I tell ya'll he's my favorite because of it...haha!

After the yummy breakfast the boys wrote their letters to Santa.




With our letters in hand we were off to see the big guy.


Wyatt talked a big talk about how he was going to sit in Santa's lap this year. When the moment of truth came around he proved he was all talk...haha! Maybe next year he'll decide he likes Santa.

R and Lman are pretty cool with Mr. Claus and always have been.



Jason has always gotten along with Santa as well, which is a great thing because he got to be in our official Santa 2011 picture...haha!

We finished our wonderful day off shopping for our adopted Angels. Each year we adopt a couple of boys for Christmas and let our boys shop for them. I love that they are learning how important it is to share with those less-fortunate. Even if our boys can't fully understand why Santa doesn't bring all kids gifts we are hoping that we are laying the foundation for a lifetime of giving for them.