Gone Fishin’

Father’s Day was also JonZReaTom’s actual birthday. We had already had the party, but shouldn’t the actual birthday be special too? OF COURSE!! And it was!

PawPaw and NeNe and Aunt Jayne came for a visit that day, and as the grand finale to the giftapalooza, PawPaw pulled out four brand-new fishing poles and said, “Let’s go fishing!” This suggestion was met with shrieks of excitement from the kiddos, so off we went! Of course, mom and dad were expecting this trip, so Jim had already scouted the area for a good (and convenient) spot to fish. We took the kids to Ned McWherter Park downtown on the river.

PawPaw helped Zachary cast his first line and within minutes he had a bite. It was SO FAST! Daddy stepped in quickly and helped Zachary land his first fish!

Daddy and Zachary with the prize fish (I’m told it’s a sun perch) before we let it go.

But wait! We didn’t catch just ONE fish! Minutes later, Zachary caught a second fish! Then Reagan managed to get into Zachary’s honey spot and she caught a fish too!

Thomas got a bite too, but lost it…or so we thought! Zachary wandered over to Thomas’ spot and Thomas, thinking his fish had gotten away, let Zachary have his seat. Zachary picked up the pole and reeled in fish #4!!

Poor Jonathan tried patiently the whole time and never caught a thing. I don’t think he even had a nibble. But he was a trooper and never complained!

After fishing we made our way over to the playground to drain every last bit of remaining energy from the birthday boys and girl.

It’s never occurred to me before, but in THIS picture, Reagan looks A LOT like my sister when she was little!

Jonathan and Reagan both wanted to climb this swirly pole, but then when they got halfway up, they didn’t know what to do and had to be helped back down!

Happy Fourth Birthday to Jonathan, Zachary, Thomas, and Reagan!!

And Happy Father’s Day too!

Our first fishing trip was so much more successful than I expected. I really thought we’d sit around in the sweltering heat for 10, maybe 15, minutes without a single nibble and then pack up four whining children and leave. I didn’t expect us to catch a fish. I certainly didn’t expect us to catch FOUR!! It was still sweltering, but at least it was shady, and the excitement of catching fish kept us from focusing on the heat.

Thank you PawPaw, NeNe, and Aunt Jayne for coming to visit and helping us have a fantastic birthday! We’re ready to go fishing again, so come back anytime!

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s…

…the Superquads!!!

This was the first year that we had a REAL birthday party! By that, I mean we had a party that we invited children to, with actual invitations and party games and goody bags, not just family and MOM and DAD’S friends who happen to also have kids. It was a lot more work, BUT IT WAS SO FUN!!

We had a Superhero party. I found the cutest invitations to download FREE here along with some great ideas. The invitations invited our guests to Superhero Training. We started out by making our own capes. I had them all cut out and ready to decorate. I decided the easiest way for the kids to personalize their capes was to sponge paint some stencils. Unfortunately for me, I had the make the stencils myself. The boys each have their own favorite hero (Batman for Jonathan, Superman for Zachary, and Spiderman for Thomas) and Reagan made her own hero, Princess Reagan (think Princess Presto from SuperWhy). I was able to buy a crown stencil, but the others I cut myself. Luckily, I have a little artistic ability and they turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself! Below are th samples that I made so the kids could choose which one they wanted.

After capes it was time for Superhero training. I had devised a series of games to test the kids’ superpowers: knock down the bad guys (super strength), race (super speed), balance beam (super agility), jumping contest (super…ummm…distance jumping). I think knocking down the bad guys may have been the favorite. It was certainly a fav of my kids who have continued to play the game every day since the party. I found some coloring pages online of some famous super villains, colored them, and taped them to empty plastic jugs. Then kids got to throw bean bags at them and knock them down.

After games it was time for cake and ice cream. I made the birthday kiddos each their own cake with the choice of chocolate cake or Funfetti (because Jonathan doesn’t eat chocolate) and did the leftover batter in cupcakes.

Poor Reagan, her pink crown is really sad. Sorry, Reagan! I’m kind of proud of the others though, especially the spider!

Then it was present time! Thank you again everybody for the really great gifts! The kids LOVE them and fight equally over EVERYTHING!!

As party time drew to a close, I announced that I was going after the goody bags, then returned to inform the kids that THEY HAD BEEN STOLEN by our greatest enemy, Spankin’ Man. (He’s the bad guy at our house, anyway!) Then I sent all the kids to the back yard to find the missing goody bags. I wish I had a picture of the kids’ faces when I said the goody bags were gone! Eyes wide like saucers! They TOOK OFF to go save those goody bags!

Okay, I’m really proud of my bags. Each guest got a a bag with their super initial on it.

Whew, the party was lots of fun, but when it was over, I CRASHED! I was so tired! I curled up in a chair in the living room and would easily have gone to sleep if the kids had left me alone for 30 seconds straight. Instead they kept climbing on me or poking me to LOOK AT THIS! WATCH THIS! HELP ME PUT ON POLLY POCKET’S PANTS! The noise I could have slept through, but not the constant jostling. That’s okay, though, the kids had a blast! I hope all our guests had as much fun as my kids did! Thank you to everyone who came and made this day so apecial for my children, especially those that had to drive all the way across town to get to us!

And the capes, they turned out pretty good too:

Have a Super Day!

We Have Now Entered the Fourth Dimension

That’s right. JonZReaTom has turned four. FOUR!! I just can’t believe it. My little babies are long gone. Sigh. Let’s not even talk about how I started to tear up telling them each good night the night of their birthday. It’s going by so fast! And all I can think about is that we are one short year away from FIVE and KINDERGARTEN. Sniffle, sniffle.

But enough of that! I have all year to cry about my babies growing up. No need to do it now while the blog is so quad-deprived. There is so much to write about. We have been SO BUSY!! But my time is limited, so I’ll just share some pics from their actual birthday, which also happened to be Father’s Day!

Jim made his traditional birthday pancakes. Yum! Pretty good, huh? He’s getting quite talented at writing with pancake batter!

We got the kids their first bikes, and they were SO excited! The boys, especially Zachary, are naturals on them (with the training wheels, of course). Like with the tricycles, Reagan has been a little slower to fall in love with her bike, but she’s catching on much faster than she did with the trike and is doing pretty good herself. Zachary looks like he’s been riding a bike for months! The hardest thing for them all to get used to is the brake system. On the tricycles, they pedaled backwards to GO backwards, now they must pedal backwards to stop, and there is no GOING backwards. But they’re catching on!

Here’s a few pics of the kids riding their bikes for the first time:

It was hard to get good pictures of them because they kept looking down at their feet and the wheels. Jim and I kept yelling, “Watch where you’re going!” I’ll get more pictures soon!

Well, here was a little taste to keep you going! Coming soon: the PARTY, our first fishing trip, garden update, Memphis, and probably so much more that I can’t even think of right now!