A little bit of everything....

Jax turned 8 on April 13th and we had a big party for him. Well actually, the Haley's showed up to our house with an ice cream cake, then we remembered it was Jax's birthday, so we made the kids sing to him and he got to eat some ice cream cake. 

 We have had the World's longest winter/snowiest spring. It has snowed every Tuesday in April so far.

These pictures were taken on the same day, 2 hours apart. Crazy.

My mom and dad came for a visit, and although I took pictures of the sign my boys made for their arrival, I have no other pictures to prove this visit happened. Oops.

 We went to a carnival at Central and the boys loved every single second of it.

 First time with cotton candy!

 I have been running since the beginning of the year, and just did my 2nd 5k with my Longmont running buddies. We are "Team Finn" and are running in our races to celebrate Kate's son as a cancer survivor. Next up, 2 10k's and then a 1/2 marathon. Yikes!

 TPD sponsored "Totally Tennyson" for the 2nd year in a row, which is a fundraiser for local schools. We enjoyed dressing up in ridiculous costumes, going on a pub crawl with friends, and Tim got interviewed by 9 News!

 Our 15 seconds of fame.

Because this is the best and most discreet place to brag about Tim, he got named as one of the best pediatric dentists in Denver by 5280. He will probably never hang up his plaque, so I took a picture of it.

 I took James to the best kid's birthday party I've ever been too. It was a "Mad Scientist" party for his friend Cyrus, and James had a blast. I took notes so I can steal the idea for a future party.

 James and his buddy Cyrus, they have been going to school together for 3 years and I can't believe they are "graduating" in less than a month!

Playing a little golf with Mimi. 

We have had a busy month and are looking forward to the school year winding down and starting our summer soon!

5 1/2 and 2 1/2

What 2 1/2 is like for Mac:

• Mac is GOOD at talking. He carries on complete conversations with us, sings songs, pretends to read books, and has a pretty impressive vocabulary.
• He is even better at yelling.
• Mac is very passionate. He is either 150% loving life and everything about it, or extremely unhappy and is not afraid to let you know about his sorrows.
• Mac calls everyone "Bum Bib" It started as an insult, but has turned into a term of endearment. He often says, "Yi yuv you Bum Bibby!" before he hugs you. Nobody is quite sure how this started, but it is now our family's inside joke and we all use it.
• Mac loves police cars, Lego guys (especially if they have helmets), mini vans, being read to and eating pretzels.
• Mac tells you that anything he likes is very popular. "Police cars very popular Mama."
• He loves to be carried, snuggled and cuddled "like a baby"
• He can throw the longest and loudest tantrums I have ever heard in my life. His record to date is 4 straight hours. I am serious.
• Mac gives the best hugs I have ever had in my life. He wraps both arms all the way around you and squeezes, while laying his head on your shoulder saying, "Yi yuv you." 
• He can not tell you the correct color of anything to save his life. 
• When James is upset/mad/crying he tells him, "It's o-tay Bubba. I make you feel better." 

What 5 1/2 is like for James:

• James loves drawing, coloring and writing. A HUGE change from even just a few months ago.
• He loves to create and build. Mainly with Legos, but he will use any building materials he can get his hands on.
• He loves being read to and is doing a pretty good job of reading on his own too.
• James loves spending time with friends and having play dates.
• James is fascinated with pretty much everything. If I tell him one piece of information about, say Native Americans, he will spend the next hour hounding me for every piece of knowledge that I posess about Native Americans and still wants to know more. If we take him someplace like the museum or zoo, he wants every single sign/display read to him. Preferably multiple times.
• James is still using his own made up words, "amn't" and "yesteryear/yesternight". A new thing he has started doing is he prefaces most things he tells you with, "For instance..." or "Just one thing..."
• When he gets upset his favorite thing to yell at us is, "I am MOVING!" 

These two boys definitely have their moments of fighting and yelling at each other, but they also have a lot of moments of making each other laugh and playing really well together. They are such good brothers and I am so glad that they have each other!

Even More Pictures from Marco Island

So, I thought that by posting a collage of all the pictures from my phone from our trip that I would be able to narrow down a reasonable amount to post from my regular camera. No such luck. Turns out I just take a ridiculous amount of pictures. Florida was, as usual, amazing. We had a fantastic time spending the week with Dave and Katie being completely spoiled by the wonderful warm weather and our amazing surroundings. We spent a lot of time at the beach...

James was particularly proud of this sand castle he built with a monster gaurding it. He wanted me to take a picture so that he could bring it in to school.

Lots of time was spent relaxing by the pool...

 James was a little fish (one wearing multiple flotation devices, but still a fish). If we were at home and James wasn't sleeping, he was in the pool. He loved it.

I think Dave took us out on the boat every afternoon-one of my favorite things to do in Marco. Dave and Katie's new house is in the background. Bee-you-tee-ful.

 The boat is absolutely magical at putting my boys to sleep. I need one at home!

James said he wanted to catch a fish, so Papa made sure that happened. Here he is helping James reel in his first catch-a Spanish Mackeral.

I love this because Dave looks proud beyond words and James just looks freaked out by the dead bloody fish.

A couple family pictures to finish things off.

Now, if this wasn't enough pictures of the Nichols family in Florida for you, do not despair. We had the same photographer who took our family pictures when James was 2 1/2 take some family pictures on this trip on the same beach now that Mac is 2 1/2 (they were actually taken on his half birthday). So in a few weeks, there will be another post with even more beach pictures! Now we are back to reality and the World's coldest spring/longest winter in Colorado. Should be snowing most of next week. Blah.

Florida by iPhone

Easter Weekend

We went to a big Easter Egg Hunt for the first time this year at Roosevelt Park on Saturday morning. James was super pumped to find the "golden egg" and the poor kid got so fixated on looking for that that he didn't grab any of the other 17,000 eggs that he ran right by. Since there were a gazillion kids there, the hunt was over in about 3 minutes and he was pretty devastated when he realized that his basket was empty. Luckily his devastation was short lived because there was also an egg hunt put on in the church parking lot next to the park that we had walked by on the way over where he had managed to snag a basket full of eggs. I reminded him of that and gave him a piece of candy from one of those eggs and he managed to forget his sorrows. Mac picked up one egg and then wanted to be picked up and immediately crammed the candy in his mouth. I don't think these two will be winning any egg hunts anytime soon.

Before James went to bed on Saturday night, he was digging through the fridge and came out with some carrots and wanted to write the Easter bunny a note. (he asked for help sounding out bunny and from)

Officially the cutest note ever:

James came running into our room WAY too early on Sunday and was ecstatic telling us the Easter Bunny had eaten the carrots he left out. We waited until Mac woke up and headed out to find a note telling them to follow a string which zigzagged the boys through the house and ended at their baskets. The boys each got a book, a little Lego easter set, a tiny pull back race car, and perhaps the biggest hit-a wind up chicken that "lays" jelly bean eggs, or if you are 2 or 5-a chicken that poops. Hours of entertainment.

The boys headed outside to look for the eggs that the bunny hid. Mac picked up 3 and wanted to come inside, where he immediately crammed all the candy in his mouth. James had a blast running around and finding the rest. 

 James was beyond excited about all of his eggs. The bust of the Roosevelt egg hunt was clearly forgotten.

We headed up to Ft Collins and went to church with Steve, Amberly, the girls and Amberly's whole family and then had Molly's baptism. After that, we went to brunch at Ptarmigan. The boys looked pretty stylish in their new white sunglasses.

 The 5 Nichols cousins, all looking at the camera and smiling-love it!

With Uncle Thomas

James was all about the creepy Easter bunny this year. He was asking a steady stream of questions-"Did you eat the carrots at my house?" "Did you hide my eggs?" "Did you fill my basket?" "Are you the REAL Easter bunny?" The bunny just kept nodding. I love that he is still little and innocent enough to possibly believe that this is the "Real Easter Bunny".

 We had a great day, it was so much fun to see the kids all play together.

Easter weekend was also the kick off of our spring break. We head to Florida on Wednesday and we can't wait!!