Micah’s Birthday Bash

We had Micah’s birthday party this past Saturday.  We just invited family over.  We had asked Micah what kind of birthday party he wanted, and the answer was always an Optimus Prime birthday party.  So a Transformers party he would have.

Here’s a picture of the cake.  It’s kind of hard on the eyes to look at, but it tasted good.  It was also the only Transformers cake I could get.  All of the stores with bakeries had this same cake.

John grilled burgers and hot dogs for lunch.  We asked Micah what he wanted to do next, open presents or eat cake.  He chose presents, go figure.

Micah even got a birthday card from Optimus Prime, the leader of the Autobots!  He was pretty excited about that.

Then it was time for the cake.  When we were buying the 4 candle, John asked if we could get the magic candles that re-light once you blow them out.  I thought that would be lots of fun to watch the kids trying to blow them out over and over again.  But I guess we must have gotten duds because once he blew out the candles, they never re-lit.

Needless to say, our house has been overrun by Transformers.  They are everywhere!  Micah loves it.  He has played with every Transformer and the GI Joes that he got, and he has done so well sharing with Caleb.  I guess that just means he’s growing up…

Growing up too fast!

Yesterday we celebrated Micah’s 4th birthday.  It is hard for me to believe that he has grown up so quickly.  I still remember…well, mostly remember since I was in a drug-induced haze…holding him for the first time. 

Here’s a picture of my precious little gift on the day he was born.

And here’s a picture of my still precious, rambunctious 4 year old.

Yes, that’s blue frosting around his mouth. 

I don’t know what I did to deserve this wonderful, sweet big boy.  He just makes me smile.  OK, sometimes he makes me want to pull out my hair, but I am thankful for him all the time.

Happy birthday, Micah!

The Rest of Easter Weekend

The Saturday before Easter we had Taylor and Madison over and they helped Micah and Caleb dye Easter eggs.  The kids got pretty creative with the white crayon and making secret messages and pictures on the eggs before they dyed them. It was fun to dye the eggs with them.

This is a picture of Caleb throwing a fit because I was putting the eggs and dye away when we were done.  Not a happy camper!

The next morning the boys got to see what was in their Easter baskets.  Caleb really enjoyed his little Easter bunny.  He kept giving it hugs.

After church, we had John’s family over for lunch.  I had invited my grandma and aunt, but they didn’t take us up on our offer.  While the final touches were being put on lunch, John had the kids hunt for the eggs he had hidden in the back yard.

Picnic at La Purisima Mission

After we finished our Easter egg hunt, we got in the car and began to get ready to meet our friends at the mission.  Rob, Tawni, and Sammy Webster are very good friends who live too far away in Riverside.  They were in town for the holiday, and they asked if we could all hang out together.

We decided to grab sandwiches and then head out to the mission for a picnic lunch.  We ate our lunches and then headed out to feed the horses, donkeys, sheep and goats.

We had a lot of fun even though it was so windy outside.  I can’t believe that I didn’t get a picture of Sammy.  He’s 7 months old now and cute as a button.  If you want to see this photogenic little baby, you can visit their blog here.

I’ll be posting more on our busy day a little later.

A fun Easter weekend

The Stults family had a very busy weekend.  A local church was hosting an Easter Eggstravaganza.  We took the boys there instead of the hunt hosted by the city because we wanted the boys to get the true story behind Easter, and we knew that the church would have many opportunities to tell the boys the story of Easter and Christ’s resurrection.

The program started out with singing a few songs.  Then we were told a story about Easter and the colors of Easter eggs.  We then went to make a craft.

After making our craft, we went on to have cupcakes.  They then separated us up and told us where to go to hunt for eggs.  The boys were so excited to hunt for the eggs.

Can you see the excitement on Micah’s face?

On to the hunt.  I kept up with Caleb and John kept up with Micah, although he already knew the ropes.      

 

Caleb found a whole bunch of eggs that were “hidden” against a wall.  He wouldn’t hold the basket at the same time he had the eggs.  So I just put the basket on the ground and he would drop the eggs in.  And of course, Micah knew what to do, since he’s now a pro at egg hunting.

When we  had found all  the eggs, we went back into the sanctuary.  They  handed the boys tickets when we entered, and they started handing out prizes.  When Micah’s number was called, we sent him up to claim his prize.  We were at the back of the sanctuary, and Micah ran back to us holding the prize way up in the air.  He was so proud that he had won.

We left then, because Caleb was tired.  We had plans to meet some friends and have a picnic at the mission.  I don’t want this post to be too long, so I will post that later.

Winner Winner! TV Dinner!

John is officially walking on air.  Last night he found out he was the big winner in a bracket pool sponsored by a local TV station.  What did he win, you may ask?

                      

He won this Sony 46” HD LCD TV.  And that’s not all.  He also won this:

                     

He also won a tilted wall mount for the TV, the HD wires that are needed, plus custom installation.  It is all valued at $4000.  Can you believe it?  Besides our cars, I don’t think we’ve ever owned anything worth $4000.

How did he win this?  Well, you know what a sports fanatic John is.  So he entered that competition, and he has been neck and neck with the guy in second place for a few days now.  He was so anxious the past few days because he wasn’t quite sure that he had it in the bag.

After the championship game last night, John got a phone call from the TV station.  He was going to be announced on the morning show, and this afternoon he is meeting them at Audio Video City to be interviewed for the news.  He’s pretty excited.

He has been begging to get a big flat screen TV for years.  I kept telling him we needed to do things like pay bills (what a crazy idea!) or buy diapers…or maybe feed our family.  So now he doesn’t have to worry about anything.  I don’t know when we’re getting the TV installed, but you can bet I’ll be posting some pictures when it’s done!

A-hunting we will go

Today we took the boys and our nieces to the Easter egg hunt sponsored by the City of Santa Maria.  We loaded the kids in the car and off we went. 

There was a ton of people at the park when we got there.  We let the kids run up a little grassy hill and it was so cute because when they got to the top they all said, OOH!  They saw the giant bounce houses and the octopus slide and of course wanted to go over right away.  I’m not really sure why Micah has his basket over his head.

                  

When we got down to where the egg hunt was going to be, we ran into the Easter Bunny.  It was great because all of the kids including Caleb wanted to go up and meet him.  

We took them to the line to wait their turns to go hunting.  Here they are saying “Easter Egg!”

                     

The parents weren’t allowed to go inside the enclosure with the kids, so Caleb ended up not wanting to hunt for Easter eggs.  But the big kids had a blast.

                           

There were carnival games like a ring toss and the bean bag toss.  The kids had fun throwing things at the targets and getting prizes for their efforts.

And of course they couldn’t wait to go up and down the big octopus slide.  Caleb was too little to go, so he just ran around while they played on the octopus.

On our way back to the car, we came across a playground, so we let the kids play a bit. 

                   

We enjoyed ourselves today.  John commented on the way home that he didn’t want to jinx anything, but he thought we might be getting the hang of having 4 kids.  We’ll see…we only have them on Saturdays.  Who knows how it would be if we had 4 kids seven days a week!