Bye Bye Bec Bec!

What a fun year we have had having a little girl three days a week at our house!  We have had so much fun with "Bec Bec" and both boys have grown attached to her, especially Peyton.  He would wake up each morning and say "Bec Bec??" to see if it was a day she was going to come.  With Hunter going to preschool two mornings that she was with us, it gave Peyton a chance to have a friend to play with.  He has not only enjoyed seeing her during the week but also each Sunday at church.  It made things so much better when his Bec Bec was also there with him.  She is such a sweet girl and we are going to miss her!  I am also going to miss Hunter and Peyton every day saying "Wait, Wait, Bye!" as she left to go home.  So for the last couple of days we did a few fun things with Bec Bec by going to the zoo and hanging out and playing and taking pictures of all them all at the Botanical Gardens.  We have had such a great year with you Bec Bec!  Thanks Amanda and Erik for sharing your precious girl with us!

Zoo Trip with Friends

One of the last days of the Spring, we took a trip to the Greenville Zoo with our friends.  We had a great time and we were able to get there before it got too warm. 

 Cai and Hunter pretended they were lions!  RRRrrrroarrr!

 The boys observing Peyton's favorite animals... the Giraffes!  

Pretending to be monkeys by swinging in the tree!

 It was fun to get to take Rebekah, aka "Bec Bec" as Peyton calls her, to the zoo with us.  We are really going to miss her coming to our house a few days a week! 

Thanks to Mimi and Pop we will get to enjoy many more visits to the zoo!  They got us a family membership in which we can go to the zoo any time we want for the next year!  The boys have loved getting to see animals that we read a lot about in books.  Hunter is very excited that he gets to go back to the reptile house, which is definitely his favorite part!

Last Day of Preschool!

I can't believe that our big boy has now completed three year preschool!  He has really opened up this year and actually has really enjoyed getting to go to preschool two days a week.  He had great teachers and I'm sure he will miss both Mrs. Joanna and Mrs. Kelli!  I wasn't expecting him to like it at all and thought it may be a challenge to even get him to stay.  Now he is wants to know why we can't go to school in the summer!  I am thankful that we were able to find Little Lamb's Preschool!  We are looking forward to his 4K school year in the fall! 

Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day pic before church!  I love them and Dada so much!  I am so blessed to have them in my life!  I love being both their Mama and Michael's wife.  They were so sweet to me this day and every day!  Thanks also to my mom, Mimi and to Michael's mom, Nana, who are also blessings to me and my family as well!  I love you all!

A Day on Lake Hartwell

 When the weather warmed up near the beginning of May, Papaw let us borrow his boat and we headed out to Lake Hartwell for a fun Sunday afternoon ride.  We had so much fun!  This was our first time out on the boat by ourselves and a first time on a boat like this for both Hunter and Peyton.  They had so much fun and it was great to see Clemson from the water instead of the road.  Dada even let Hunter try to drive the boat a few times, which was of course Hunter's favorite part of the day.  The boys tried to get in the water since it was such a nice day but the water was still a little too cold to be swimming in.  We can't wait to do this again sometime!  Thanks Papaw!  Hunter still says every time we pass over the bridge going into Clemson, "This is the bridge I drove under with Papaw's boat!"

Strawberry Pickin'

 Near the end of April, we took a trip to "Hunter Farms" to pick strawberries.  This was a first for us as a family but after this experience, we will definitely be doing this for quite a few years to come.  We had a great time, as you can see from both boys and their mouths.  I think there was a little more eating the strawberries than actually picking for them but they had a blast and of course Hunter loved that we went to a farm named after him! :)  It took quite a while before we were able to get the red stains off of their face and hands!  What a fun family outing! 

4 Year Pics

We kept it kind of simple with Hunter's 4 year pictures this year.  We decided that we would take some pictures downtown Clemson at a water fountain area that they have built.  I normally have a problem choosing pictures to print to hang up so I thought if we kept it simple and stayed in one small area then I wouldn't have as hard of a time choosing pictures to print.  As you can see from the pictures here, I did end up liking more than just the three of four I was looking for, but Hunter has such a fun personality that he wanted to change his expression in each one! 

What a big, cute four year old we have now!  We love you!

Birthday Party #2!

 What a beautiful day for a birthday party!  Hunter enjoyed his family over on Sunday after his birthday to celebrate with him.  Since it was a whole different crowd of people we continued with the same theme..."Balls."  I did do a few things differently.  Instead of cupcakes, we had chocolate chip cookie cake and cake pops in the shapes of baseballs, basketballs, and footballs.  I was excited that everyone was actually able to recognize what they were! 

 We had a great time celebrating with most of all of our family getting to come.  It was a little warm but with ice cream, drinks, and our Clemson tent, we managed and it turned out to be a perfect party day! 

 Hunter played a little shy when everyone sang to him and he blew out the candles but he was able to get them out quickly!  At least this year, he let people sing to him.  Last year anytime someone sang Happy Birthday to him, he would say "No No!" 

 He got a lot of great gifts.  I think he was happy to get them too. He just didn't quite understand the "No gifts" party with his friends.  I just knew he would get plenty from family that I really didn't think that he needed even more. 

 After a long party day, he was all ready for bed, and ready to try out one of his new gifts he got...Mario Kart with a steering wheel!  Thanks everyone for coming to Hunter parties and for making him feel so special.  We love you all!

Happy Birthday Hunter!

 Happy Birthday Hunter!!!  4 years old!  I can't believe that our big boy is now four!  He is growing way too fast.  He is smart and such a loving kid!  He always helps with his little brother and will take care of him the minute Peyton lets one little cry out!  He's getting really tall.  He's already over 40 inches tall and almost 40 pounds!  He had no idea what he was getting for his birthday, so we thought it would be cute to surprise him by writing a card to tell him where he could find his birthday gift from Mama and Dada. 

We had him try to guess what his gift was but he didn't have any guesses!

Before heading outside to see his present, he opened his present from Peyton.  Peyton got Hunter a real set of tools.  I know it said for like 8 years old and up but Hunter had been begging for some real tools that weren't plastic and that he could actually help Dada build some things with.  So we caved and let Peyton get him some miniature "real" tools.  Hunter was soo excited that he gave Peyton a huge hug.

Then he headed outside in his pajamas to check out his big gift from us.  You can see his reaction to seeing the basketball goal for the first time.  He had been talking about Caleb and Britt's basketball goal for a while and had been wanting a big goal at our house. 

He couldn't wait...He ran and got a basketball from the garage, ran towards the goal, threw it up and guess what???  It went in!  The first attempt!  I was going to include the video I did of it but when I watched it, I realized I got so excited that he made it in, that I missed the shot!  Way to go super mom! haha.  Honestly after Michael built the goal and I saw the height of it, I really thought that he would not be able to make a basket for a few weeks or months, but he proved me wrong!  He is now enjoying challenging us in games of "horse" and "cat" now and loving his birthday present!

Since Hunter's birthday was in the middle of the week, we couldn't decide what to do for a party.  We wanted to be able to have his friends and our family over, but after adding up how many people that would be, I decided that was a little too many people for one time at our house.  So we decided to do a friend party and a family party.  The friend party was the day of his actual birthday.

The day of his birthday was definitely a day to remember, both good and bad.  Good in celebrating our boy turning four with his friends but bad as in an hour before people were supposed to arrive, we had a water leak in the front yard and couldn't get it stopped and had to call the plumbers out to fix it (which they ended up still being there at the start of the party...fun fun!).  Then of all luck, we had our kitchen sink come unglued from our granite and had to have the builders send someone out to fix that and they just happened to arrive DURING the party!  Even though it was a day to remember, Hunter still had a wonderful birthday and fun party with his friends...

We did a "Ball" theme and just had all kinds of games set up around the yard and drive.  I think the kids had a great time and as one neighbor said, we could do the same next year and call it a circus...haha.  I think I'll take that as a compliment! :)

Happy 4th Birthday Hunter James!