Cool Grandpa

I'm not sure about your grandpa, but Cindy and Luke's grandpa has a giant bag of little votive candles and giant box of fireplace matches AND the faith that his grandkids will not burn his house down if they sit outside on the patio and play with them.  Needless to say, going to Grandpa's house is always a favorite pastime of my children :)

Leader of the Pack

At the last Cub Scout Pack Meeting, Luke advanced from 'Woof' to Bear AND was able to earn his Religious Knot patch complete with special Bear pin.  

Way to go, Luke!  

Who-lee-uh

Dave and JennyEllen and Addie came down this past weekend.  

Which only meant one thing:  JULIA!

We got to meet our newest little Bingham family member for the first time 

and Cindy was a little obsessed.

I am never going to let go of this baby, muhahahahaa!!

Cousin selfie!

Only a few weeks old and totally nailing this beach thing...

Okay, I was a little obsessed too.  

She is adorable :)

He's Nine, My Fraulein

Luke hit the big 9!  He absolutely could not decide what kind of cake he wanted this year,  and I was about to design the most random, bizarre Reddit-worthy cake in the entire world, but I caved and just ended up making a giant Lego.  Pinterest gets all the credit for how this came together.  And the Florida humidity gets all the credit for how the frosting starting sliding off the cake :) 

The day before on his actual birthday, we went to the beach.  My superior planning skills allowed him to open a present while we were there and, huzzah! It was paddle ball!  Which Luke is actually quite good at!

My planning skills also forced me to bring along a gourmet Publix cupcake for Luke to enjoy at the beach.  Which turned out to be quite a babysitting adventure.  That little cupcake was better supervised than my children.

And totally delicious.

Play Ball!

Luke's latest field trip was to see the Lakeland Flying Tigers baseball team.  I am not sure how many of the kids were totally excited about the game or even watching it for that matter, but the weather was breezy, the bleachers were covered and it was fun just to hang out with Luke.

Why Is This So Funny?

There is not even a cat involved, and yet, this just keeps me so entertained...

Almost There

We are almost at the end of the Spring soccer season, which usually means waning interest from the players and families.  However, Luke played in a 3 v 3 tournament with some friends a few weekends ago and ever since then he seems to play with increased interest, excitement and confidence.  It is completely awesome, yet totally weird, because his little team pretty much got slaughtered for all 10 hours at the tournament and I wasn't exactly sure it was going to help his love for soccer.  However,  since I am not one to look a gift Messi in the mouth,  I will just sit back and enjoy the view.

And here is a nice video of Luke making it look easy...

I Shall Call Him, Houdini

Last weekend the kids and I took a bike ride down to feed our goat friends once again, and as Luke was the first to round the corner, he yelled, "COW!!!"  Sure enough, one of the cows from the Ag department had escaped and was enjoying a lovely afternoon gallivanting around the practice track and beyond.  I didn't really think too much of it, I mean, he really wasn't going anywhere, but I did wonder how long he would be out until someone noticed.  We decided to keep our distance and go on with our normal feeding routine.  Which worked out fine until the cow started to do a little dance and run towards us!  I know it was just a cow and not a charging bull, but any loose animal over about 50 pounds scares the crap out of me, so we all got on our bikes and took off.  Luckily he did not pursue. Eventually he was blocking the exit of how we normally get home so we felt like hostages for a time, and  in the end we decided to take the very long way home.  This experience has completely scarred poor Luke, who was shaking, near tears and losing about two years off his life every time the cow would even start to move in our direction.  Note to self:  Cancel the cow birthday cake you ordered for him...

How to Have a Magical Beach Day

Step 1:  Go to Anna Maria Island with your awesome friend and her family and sit on the gorgeous beach.

Step 2:  Add one dozen handcrafted donuts.

Step 3: Reluctantly share the donuts because either your kids are getting these or the seagulls are, and since seagulls never get me anything for Mother's Day, they lose.

Step 4:  Have a blast digging a hole.

Step 5: Use the perfect breeze to fly a kite, while others play some soccer.

Step 6:  Become your own buried treasure.

Step 7:  Sit in another hole.

 Step 8:  Bust out the brand new snorkeling sets you have been keeping for over a year!

Step 9:  Actually ride waves on a boogie board because the wind and water are just right.  

And finally, Step 10: Lower your expectations for all future beach trips because they probably are never going to measure up in your entire lifetime :)

The Birthday That Refused to Die

Cindy's birthday is actually March 30th, but due to scheduling conflicts we had to have the Studio C party on March 22nd.  Which meant that we then had to have presents and cake with Grandma and Grandpa on Sunday, March 27th.   

And then the ward Young Women's group came and heart attacked our door on the night of March 29th.  

She was actually SUPER happy about this, but her picture
taking face is, you know, sucky.

And then finally, it was her actual birthday, so after the Blue and Gold Cub Scout Carnival we snuck in a quick cake and present moment of our own. 

This just proves that frozen rice crispie treats are amazing and you can make anything out of them.

Hopefully Cindy's dream came true when she opened her present (which was taped to a package of red velvet Oreos, just so we all recognize the mighty work that was done).

SURF LESSONS!

I found a place in Cocoa Beach that will teach you to surf.  So in the next few months she can take a friend over and realize her life-long dream of following in Barbie's footsteps and obviously becoming a surf champion, while barely overcoming a mermaid curse and finding out who her true parents are.  It's gonna be a long day.

And how did Luke react to all of this non-stop celebrating?

Meh.

Okay, really he was just as silly and kind as he always is :)