A little dose of Ty

This boy makes me smile so many times a day it is crazy. Here are a few of those times.

I heard Ty making a lot more noise than he normally does at night and when I checked on him when I went to bed this is exactly what I found. He has is favorite Pout Pout Fish book. Not sure how he read it in the dark, but he had it.

Not exactly my idea of a comfy movie spot, but he LOVED it.

New Years Eve

To keep the traveling going we went to the cities for New Years Eve. We started out at T's house. The thing that is fun is that each time we visit the age gap between the boys seems to get less and less and the boys have more and more in common. It was nothing but fun from the moment we got there until we left. There is just something about having friends you know you can totally let your guard down with and be yourself with that does good things for the soul. That is how it is with T.  It was also SUPER nice that she didn't get annoyed with me when I arrived and went to pull the van into her garage and in my excitement of seeing them, I forgot that I had a topper on the minivan and got the thing wedged . Yep....Felt like a Clarke Griswold moment as I am pulling in and smiling like crazy and just here a crunching sound. I am guessing this has been done before and the topper people took this into consideration when they made them because it collapsed pretty well and then popped back into place once I backed out of the stuck position. I was just happy I didn't pull all the way in and have to take the whole thing off in order for me to get out. Pretty sure we never would have left if that were the case. :-)

 After T's house we heading to my Aunt Irene's house. Kim, Stacey, and I are all 9 months apart and grew up very close. I couldn't wait for them to come to Grandma and Grandpa's farm to visit. There was always a joke that I just "happened" to have my overnight bag packed and in the car when they were at Grandma's "just in case" we wanted to have a slumber party. There really was nothing more fun than slumber parties at Grandma's with the Cline girls. Another tradition we had was New Year's Eve at grandma's. One year we decided to trip up newspaper and throw it all around at midnight. Nothing like 5 ice cream buckets of homemade confetti to ring in the new year. It has been years since we gotten to ring in the new year on the farm, but we did decided that getting together was in order. Things have changed a bit since the days of slumber parties on the farm...We have all joined the real world and gotten jobs, marriages, and now kiddos. Kim has Teddy and is due to have a little girl VERY soon and Stacey has Lenny and Noah. To add just a little more fun to the situation, the husbands decided to go ice fishing and leave all the kiddos in our care. Yep...We had 6 kids under the age of 4. It was "intense" with all those little ones running around, but oh man it was fun. We even ventured out to church with the entire crew on Saturday night. The poor people behind us probably got very little out of that service, but I am certain they went home to their quiet little houses and thanked God that that experience was over. 
It really was an absolutely wonderful time with family and I can't thank Irene and Bob enough for letting  us all invade their house. It was kind of funny that Uncle Bob ended up going MIA for quite a few hours each day. :-) I can't say that I blame him. I am really hoping we can do this again next year. I am also hoping that if we do it again next year the guys will catch more than 2 fish. :-)

I really have no idea what he was doing, but he sure was enjoying it!

Teddy is obviously making sure to be safe. You never know what kind of crazies are on the road on New year's Eve.

Noah, Stacey, and Lenny

Look at all those boys!!!

Showing a little MN pride!!

Stacey was doing her best to find a CALM activity for the boys.

Myles LOVED the giant Rudolf.

Teddy and his sweet Teddy jammies.

The boys woke up to snow on New Year's Day. Myles was so excited.

Celebrating his birthday before we hit the road on New Year's Day. Not the most fun way to celebrate the day, but we got to take the cake with so he got to eat it all the way home.

Happy Birthday to my BIG 4 Year old boy!!!

Baptism

Natalie's baptism took place back in Fulda at St. Gabriel's. This is where Nat and I were married and where both of the boys were baptized as well. We were so happy that we could continue the tradition with her as well.

She was obviously so excited about her baptism she fell asleep.

Kind of funny side note....The candle was dripping like crazy and Jordan and Tracy were getting burned by the wax, but being the good Godparents that they are, they just took the pain and kept the candle burning.

Growing...Growing...Growing

What a difference a year can make....

        

Birthday Fun

We had a joint birthday party for the boys when we got home. I again attempted a cake for the boys. This year as a train. I learned A LOT this time around about how to make it easier and kind of wanted to throw this cake out and try again since I just kept learning. I guess it just means next year's cake will be even better.

Two thumbs up makes it all worth it!

This picture makes me smile. No, Myles was not trying to attack Ty. Not sure what he was doing, but no one was injured in the making of this picture.

Myles was struggling getting the next finger up to show he was 4. He has it down now.

Can't help but think about how blessed we are with all three of our little monkeys.

You know you had a good party when the shirts come off.

Wrestle Mania

I was super excited to find out that my nephew Jordan had a wrestling match while we were home visiting for Christmas. This dude is quite possibly the most mature 16 year old I have ever met. I love how he is such an amazing role model for my boys in all he does. I can't say enough good things about him and it is this reason he is Natalie's Godfather.

Uncle Ken was teaching Myles everything he needed to know about wrestling.

Myles thought he was pretty cool getting to go on the wrestling mats with Jordan.

Kade took time to show Myles a few moves.

Myles is sure lucky to have such awesome cousins.