Me and My Boys

We've never thrown Carter a party for his birthday. That was his request this year. He wanted a volcano cake, so we decided on a dinosaur theme.

Baking soda dinosaur eggs for the kids to crack open and spray with vinegar

Matt's the designer of this volcano cake

Dinosaur jello

Bryson

Carter

Scared Carter

(I've never posted about our new basketball court! We put it in at the beginning of March. With 4 boys--5 counting Matt, we knew it would be put to good use. Caleb is out there all. the. time.)

Pizza, jello, and apples

Opening some presents

Dry ice in the cake made it super cool and exciting

Paleontologists cracking open dinosaur eggs

The kids also did a scavenger hunt at the end with dinosaur footprints in order to find their goody bags to take home. 

Carter had an exciting birthday!

My birthday was low-key this year, which I was fine with. The most excitement from my day came from trying to do a nice thing for Carter to eat lunch with him at school on our shared day and bring cookies for him to pass out to his class. They have to be store-bought per school policy, and it turned out there were just enough cookies for his class and not an extra one for Bryson. Things quickly escalated to the hugest meltdown Bryson has ever had in public and one of my most embarrassing moments! It's impossible to pick up a screaming and kicking toddler when you're also trying to hold and manage a baby. :-/

Matt's birthday is today!!  34 looks good on you Sweetie!

Carter's eggs

Bryson won the prize for gathering the most eggs! It was all strictly business to him whereas the other kids his age that got a head start only looked for a certain color or opened and ate while they hunted. Matt had to grab him another bag for his mission. Bryson only cared about winning, however, and was very happy to share once it was over.

Baby Austin was there too!

We survived the night, but it wasn't pleasant. My warm-blooded husband who never gets cold brought ONE blanket for the two of us to share for the night. It got down to 43 and our tent had windows without covers to zip over them. I FROZE all night long! Caleb and Carter had warm sleeping bags and did just fine. I had brought warm bedding for the baby and Bryson. Lesson learned for next time my husband says he has our bedding covered = grab a few extra blankets.

We camped near a railroad track and who would have guessed that 9 trains go by in the night tooting their horns? Between the trains and the cold, I got very little sleep. Why do we go camping again? It's so much work and the lack of sleep hardly makes it worth it, except for the memories for the kids. :)

Breakfast the next morning: Matt made hash browns, eggs, and sausage.

Kara and Clayton also made pancakes

Bryson refusing to give me a smile

We also did some fishing and Ellery caught her first fish!