fun with the boys

I have been trying to have as much intentional fun with the boys as I can before we bring their sister home. There are not many days left with just "the boys". While we are overjoyed to finally be bringing their sister home, the end of an era is about to occur. These are some of the fun things we did with "the boys" this past week.

One thing I want to remember about Judah at this age is that he calls these "wishes". He gets so excited when he sees a "wish" outside, runs to scoop it up and then announces his wish before he blows it. So cute. I love this age.

Judah is very artistic so I enrolled him in a weekly art class at my friend's art studio since he didn't want to play soccer. Here is a unicorn that he painted one day on his own, with some guidance. Am I bragging to think this is really good?!?! I don't think so. He's not even 5 yet.

 He loves playing with play-doh. He created a little man out of play-doh and said, "Mommy, take a picture!" Oh please don't start kindergarten little boy...my heart can't take it.

I had wanted to for some time, take Judah to the zoo before Evie comes home. I took Elijah ALL the time before Kindergarten - in fact, we had yearly passes - but Judah has not been a whole lot. I have such fond memories of my friend Abbie and I taking our oldest two to the zoo quite frequently. This past Weds, we met up with our (current) youngest two and enjoyed the zoo yet again. Judah loved it.

So proud that we got the bird on his stick.

Judah and Brynlee. These two haven't spent a lot of time together because Abbie's family moved further away and when our oldest kids started school we were on different schedules. It was so fun to be with her and Brynlee for the day. Judah and Brynlee had fun together too!

This bird kept trying to peck Judah's hand through the glass. It was quite funny!

I have so many pictures of Elijah & Ellie with these statues. Are these two not adorable?!?! Can you still arrange marriages these days? :-) We could arrange Elijah & Ellie to marry as well while we're at it!

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Have I mentioned that all 3 of my children's birthdays are within 3 weeks of each other and this year we are bringing Evie home right in the middle of it (along with tons of end of the school year stuff)? I haven't? Well, they are. Don't you feel sorry for me? :-) April/May are going to be CRAZY every year! When we first saw Evie's birthday I laughed out loud because it fell RIGHT IN BETWEEN the boys' and they were already close together!

We explained to the boys that with the crazy busy-ness of this year, we were not doing a birthday party for them. Too much for this mama to handle this year. Instead, we took them on a special birthday outing this past weekend and on their actual birthdays will give them a gift and a cake. They were totally cool with it and I'm glad to have done this before sister comes home. Evie will be getting her own very small, at home party a little while after she comes home.

We surprised them with an afternoon at Altitude - a ginormous indoor trampoline park. They had never been but I had heard about it and knew they would love it. They did. It is wall to wall trampolines (some literally on the wall) with dodgeball trampoline courts and basketball goals with trampolines so you can dunk the ball.

Do they look like they had fun? Sweaty and happy...I think so. Side note: Jason and I "jumped" with them the first hour. Jason now has several injuries and we are both sore. Hmmmm, we're not as young as we used to be. But we tried!

Elijah jumping into the huge foam pit!

For their "birthday" dinner, we went to a local Hibachi restaurant. The boys love watching them cook in front of us and love the tricks + fire. It was a great week!