Jake's 4th Birthday Party

The birthday boy!!

The massive cake.

The party favors and the masks I made thanks to pinterest.

Jake sporting his mask.

Jake LOVES Power rangers, and he thought this was the coolest thing ever.

More fake smiles even though he was having the time of his life.

A little pre-party fun just us.

Walker was mesmerized by the big slide...from afar.

Kaitlyn!

Poor Walker begging me (or anyone) to save him! Ha!

Macy and her little dare-devil self.

We couldn't keep Dr. Huner off the slides.

Sweet sisters, Emma and Ellie.

Coach Bowens and Walker's buddy, Tanner.

Rick Allen

Tyson and the Bowens' big boys.

G-Mama came! Thanks for your help, Mary Ann!

Macy

Hannah Kate

Allie

Braden

Tanner. I could just eat him up.

Jake and Thomas...best buds and the two troublemakers of their class.

Thomas shares Jake's love of superheroes and camo.

Drennon

James Kellen might have an athletic bone or two in his body.

Ella (Thomas' twin)

Bryce

Sara and Mariah

This is when everyone was singing "Happy Birthday" to Jake. He was only slightly embarrassed.

Poor thing...the mask kept getting in his way, so it took him 3 or 4 times to blow out the candle.

Waiting on cake.

Eat cake or look at the camera? Hmm...

I love how Walker looks like a big boy here.

Yes, I gave cake to my child who is allergic to eggs...

...and he enjoyed every lick of it. ;) Love Tanner in the background.

Silly Hannah Kate.

Can you tell that the masks were a hit?...

...except for with "Big Ryan." Ha!

Some of the neighborhood crew.

The neighborhood crew again...with some stragglers.

PRESENTS!!

Besties.

Ashley and Kaitlyn

Sorry for the massive overload of pictures! I just wanted to make sure we got lots of pictures just in case this is our last birthday party in Birmingham. There were like 26 kids there, so not everyone got photographed, but I got pretty close.

I can't believe Jake is already 4 (well, on Wednesday)...time has just flown by! Happy birthday to our little man! We love you!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

On Friday, December 30th, we celebrated 5 years of marriage!!
Jake wanted to get a picture with us before we left for our date. :)

Happy Anniversary, Tyson! I love you!

Later Christmas Day...

First time in his police car!
And first time with his Razor Tailspin.

Busted.

My sweet boy was not excited about having to wear his hood.

They see me rollin'...they hatin'...

They trying to catch me ridin' dirty... :)

Jake and Mr. Mike were having a race. He gave Jake a headstart...

...and as you can tell by Mike's face, he was serious about catching up!

Yep, Jake...you just got beat by an old man in crazy socks!

Kaitlyn and Ryan take the police car for a spin.

Walker thru a royal fit when we put him in the driver's seat and Kaitlyn in the passenger seat, and Kaitlyn did, too. As soon as we switched them, they were just fine. I would call this one "Big Pimpin'."

Christmas Day was a rainy mess in Birmingham. I felt so bad for the boys that they couldn't take their new power wheels for a spin outside that I actually let them drive the cars through the house...for like 2 minutes...until Jake got the police car stuck in the foyer.

Around 2 pm, the rain slacked off and we were able to take the power wheels and razor tail spin outside. By the way, that razor tail spin is awesome. Ryan Madden got one, too, so once the neighbors came out to join us, the 4 adults had a blast on those things. (Luckily, I never got photographed, though) ;) Yes, we exceed the weight limit, but they are so much fun! I would have LOVED to have one of these things when I was younger. Jake and Ryan haven't grasped the concept of the tail spin, but I know they are going to love the razor, too, once they can figure it out.

So so so much fun! I'm especially grateful that we were able to spend Christmas Day with our neighbors and best friends, the Maddens. It definitely helped make up for the fact that our families weren't able to be with us on Christmas.

Ok, check back after this weekend, it should be an exciting one. I don't want to give it away, but a certain little boy is having a birthday party. I wonder who he is? ;)

Christmas Day

Jake's first glance, mid-sprint.
Walker's first glance. He was a little confused at first.

Despite the huge power wheels in the back, all Jake could see at first was this train set. Oh how my boys love some trains!

Walker went straight for the Buzz lightyear power wheels.

Here comes the po po.

I love this picture! I think this is when they first noticed the work bench.

Jake kept saying, "Walker, you are under arrest!"

Umm, this would be right after Jake put the pedal to the metal...in my living room! Note to self: don't connect the battery until you are outside.

Poor little brother. It took Walker about 10 mins to realize Jake had stuck this bow on him.

Santa could have saved a lot of time (and money) and just given this kid a box.

I can't tell you how long we played "band"...all 4 of us. Fun times.

Christmas Day started early at the Summers' house; it was around 1:30 am when Jake came in our room and asked to get see what Santa had brought. Ha! Somehow, Tyson convinced Jake to go back to sleep and wait until morning, and somehow, Jake convinced Tyson to let him sleep with us. :) Jake did indeed go back to sleep, but he sure enough jumped straight out of bed at 6:30 in a dead sprint for the living room. I was able to subdue him until we could get Walker up and ready.

I had envisioned getting this perfect photo of the two boys' reactions at the same time, of course though, it didn't happen that way. Jake must have knocked Walker down in his sprint for the living room...I don't know, it all happened so fast I could barely get my camera ready. All I know is that I left the boys standing by their doors while we got the cameras ready, and next thing I know, Jake was standing next to me. I asked Jake, "what do you think?" He said, "good." Oh, my mellow child. He just stood there taking it all in, so I snapped a picture. Meanwhile, sweet Walker comes lollygagging out of his room just happy to see his Mama, Daddy, and Jake first thing in the morning. :) He did get into it more than I thought he would, though.

I'll tell you what surprised me, Tyson and I definitely made "sides" for the boys' stuff, but we didn't know how to go about differentiating the two sides. We had tried putting the stockings on the boys' respective sides, but neither of us liked the way it looked. Ha! Either way, when both boys came out, they went right to their sides and there was never any question of "whose is this?" And shockingly, they shared their stuff so well together...they played for a solid 3 hours with their stuff before I even heard the word "mine." It was a great Christmas day for sure!

I have more pictures from us outside trying out the new toys later on Christmas day, but I'll post those another time. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas!

Twas the Night Before Christmas...

And it's my birthday!!
Getting ready for bed!

Reading "Twas the Night Before Christmas"

Santa came!!

Ok, so you might notice there are no presents under the tree. I have a good reason for that- I've been so busy that I've wrapped presents right before we needed to open them. I'm usually not a procrastinator, but I just have not had any time to wrap presents and I dare not ask my husband to do it. :) So, yes, our tree has basically sat empty this year with no presents at all underneath it. Well, I actually wrapped our Christmas presents to each other last night and put them under the tree; when Jake woke up and walked through the living room, he came running back to our room shouting, "Mama!! There are presents under our tree!! Santa came!!" Hahaha! He was sooooooo excited, and there were only 4 measly presents there. Tyson and I were dieing laughing at the cuteness when the next thing I know, Jake comes running back to our room with an unwrapped present and said, "Look, Mama, Cars 2! It's just what I always wanted!" That little rascal had figured out which present was his (and they weren't even marked) and opened it!

Fast forward to this evening, we decided to let Walker go ahead and open his present from us since Jake had already opened his present. Walker had a blast opening the present and Jake was a huge help; once Walker got it open, though, I look over and see Jake lying on the floor pouting. I thought Jake was jealous of Walker's present, but actually when I asked Jake what was wrong, he said, "That's all I'm getting for Christmas??? Cars 2???" Ha! It was the most pitiful look I've ever seen on his face; he really thought that all he was getting after all this talk about Santa and lists was 1 DVD. Ha! Bless his heart. He is going to be shocked tomorrow morning!

I hope Santa is good to all of you, too! Merry Christmas! Stay tuned for the kids' reactions to what Santa brought!

Merry Christmas!

Since I didn't get around to sending out a Christmas card this year, I thought I'd post these pictures that I would have used instead. That counts, right? Ha!

These are the boys' school pictures from a few months ago. I gave these pictures to the grandparents as a gift for Christmas, so I held off on posting them for a while for that reason. I LOVE them! I wish I would have gotten a picture of the two boys together, but Walker had an appointment with the allergist that day and we had to miss the sibling pictures. Sweet boys!

Merry Christmas for the Summers family!