April recap

April began with my parents coming into town for a visit. They stayed for a week which was a lot of fun, and they were a ton of help. Wes had a planned maintenance outage for a week, so we planned for my parents to come and help out that week which was huge. We celebrated Ryan's birthday again, went bowling, ate a TON, went to the kid's baseball games, and just hung out. We all had a lot of fun, and can't wait for their next visit.

Enjoying Icees at the bowling alley

My parents brought Easter baskets for the boys since we wouldn't be with them on Easter. They were pretty excited for all of the candy and goodies.

The Sunday afternoon after my parents had left, we took the boys up to the church Easter carnival.

 I found these adorable shirts for the boys for Easter and had to have a mini photo shoot before school one morning. It started with a bribe of some cherry sours at 7:30 am, but still was hard to crack a smile. Charlie HATES being told to smile for the camera. B on the other hand, adores the camera!

  

 Pretending to act shy....not buying it!

I think I started to say some funny things and no, I'm not proud of myself, but I am sure it involved potty talk. Having 3 boys, it's bound to come out and always seems to make them laugh.

 Now Charlie wanted to ham it up.

   

 Then, I told them to act gangster :)

Charlie has a mind of his own....he wears his sleep sack for a while before taking it off most mornings. They also now all have rain boots, so those have been a huge hit as of late.

Love his new haircut! We get bored while waiting on the baseball games to start, so I usually end up taking pics of him!

Bradley always begs to play pitcher. Well here he is in action trying to field a ground ball and make the throw to first.

Here's one of B's pretty decent hits

Here's a great one of Ryan's as well

Easter weekend, one of my good friends from Katy had come into town with her family for a trip. They are from Alabama, so vacation frequently in the Orange Beach area. We headed down Friday morning to go meet up with them at their condo and played on the beach and in the pool all day. It was so fun to catch up!!

 Have I mentioned how much they love to dig holes?!

We finally got some awesome beach chairs from Costco, and Ryan wanted to break them in. He was hilarious because he kept running back and forth to the tent to grab stuff to put in his chair. Eventually, he had his hat, sunglasses, water, snacks, etc. all in their individual pockets/holsters.

 Too sunny?!?!?

 Found the solution for that!

 Attempting to bury dad

 It was a slow process.....

Preschool buddies. There's another family from our Katy preschool that had moved to Foley about 6 months prior to us (which is only about 30-40 minutes away), so they came to meet up as well!

We booked a last minute hotel for the night once we had our plans because we signed up for a 5k that was in Gulf Shores early the next morning. After we checked into the hotel, we changed clothes and went to dinner. We went to this awesome restaurant with an incredible view of the marina called Fisher's Dockside. I anticipate us frequenting this restaurant many times this summer.

The kids had a blast at the hotel. It had a little nook of a room with bunk beds in it, bean bags, and a TV. I love how the little things are so exciting to them!

Getting ready for bed - they were pretty amped up.

We woke up bright and early which was not too big of a deal considering we were all passed out well before 10 pm the night before! I got a few pics of the guys coming in toward the finish line.

They had a professional photographer taking pics at the finish line, so I grabbed one of each of us coming across!

And here is one of the boys finishing! Wes was kind enough to push the stroller and let me run!

  A sweaty family shot

After the 5k, we hung out with our friends, the Hills for a crawfish boil where the 5k was held. We then all went back to our hotel and let the boys swim for the rest of the day. We finally finished up with an early dinner on the water before heading home. They all crashed on the way home which was no surprise. It was an exhausting, but really fun 30 hours! Charlie was so beat, when we got home we put on a show for the boys in the gameroom and he passed out AGAIN!

 Melts me :)

The next day was Easter, which I will do a separate post for, but B got a neat handwriting dry erase board that he has loved practicing on.

  

We spent A LOT of nights at the ballpark between Ryan and Bradley's games this month. 

The boys were invited to a roller skating birthday party a few weeks ago. Skating is big here. In elementary school, each grade goes 1 Friday a month to the skating rink instead of PE for the day. It's pretty funny, so Ryan was pretty excited. My parents bought him a pair of skates for his birthday, so he brought them to break them in. At first, B was not planning to skate, but once he got there he quickly changed his mind. He was a natural!

It was hilarious to watch. He was very confident, too! Love the extended back leg :)

Look at Ryan cruising by on his new wheels!

These guys were definitely a fan of skating. I'm thinking one of our next birthday parties will most likely be held there.

Bradley got pretty bold at the end and ditched the helper. Now, he was more like shuffling along rather than gliding, but I was pretty impressed. I think he only fell maybe twice.

One of the last Sundays in April was Preschool Sunday at the church. They had the preschool come up and sing a few songs in front of the congregation and a reception that followed afterwards. It was pretty sweet.

my handsome devil

Charlie went up there without any tears which definitely surprised me.

Saying a little prayer before heading off to Children's church.

Bradley totally photobombed a "girls" pic at the reception

It's finally starting to warm up around here, even though we had a major "cold front" just come through again last week. We busted out the bunch-a-ballons one afternoon while Wes was working on the park.

Check out the slo-mo water ballon fight

More junk food at the games....

One of the coolest moments of Ryan's season so far. It was the bottom of the 5th inning and we were down 1-0. The team just hadn't been hitting that night and Ryan was first up to bat. I got so excited, I stopped filming, but it ended up being a double and started a rally of hitting for the team. We ended up with 5 runs that inning to win the game. It was pretty exciting as far a 7 year old baseball game goes!

He along with a few other kids, got the game ball that night which was his second of the season.

 Definitely a proud mom moment :)

Wes went to Seattle for a week for work which, I'll admit, I was a little nervous about. Usually, when he would travel back when we lived in Houston, I would have my mom to come over and help me out and even stay the night with us some. I'm proud to say, we made it the full 5 days without too much fighting or timeouts. We had baseball most nights which actually gives us something to do and takes away the downtime they have at home. One of the nights we were actually home, we ordered pizza and watched Moana. It was fun and relaxing. Here are the kids just being themselves!

The boys started diving off of the blocks at their swim lessons a few weeks ago. They are both really improving. Charlie can take about 3 or 4 strokes underwater and pull himself up on the ledge of the pool.

Bradley has now swam the length of the pool 3-4 times unassisted. He needs some technique work, but I'm just glad he's gaining more confidence in the water.

Ryan had field day at school a few weeks ago. Luckily, it was on a day the boys had school, so I could go alone! Also, it was overcast which made it much more bearable.

They played all sorts of relay races with their class against the other first graders.

Playing Dizzy Izzy with baseball bats

Proud of this guy. He placed 8th in the first grade fun run!

The water sponge relay race. 

Here are their spring school pics as well as their baseball pictures

Not sure how preschools do it, but they always seems to get amazing pics!

Love the vintage look

Two final things for the month, and maybe some of the most exciting, were the man cave and the park. The Little Man Cave is just about completed. GiGi was so sweet to sew our cushion cover, a curtain and some pillows to complete it. I need to take a pic of the whole thing so you can see it all. The boys love going in there to watch iPad or read.

Here was one of the first phases of the park construction. This was actually all achieved in one weekend. Then, Wes had to travel for work, but the kids could at least swing and climb on the fort. It has since been completed, and the boys go out at least once a day to play on it.

It was another fun and busy month. Soon, it will be summer and we will probably be living at the beach!!