Sunday, July 10, 2011

Brotherly Love

Aidan and Ronan love to hold their little sissy.  Not sure where Jacob was this time, will have to get him next time.


Mini Family Reunion

We had the pleasure to be reunited with some dear family last weekend.  Mike, Kelley, Hanna, Luke and Faith Liljegren included visiting us on their summer trip.  We are SO glad that they did!  It has been 10 years since we last saw them.  I used to babysit for Hanna when she was a wee one and she was one of our flower girls in our wedding.  Our kids loved meeting them and all the kids had a blast playing together.  The Liljegrens were so great about loving on our kiddos.  Sure wished we could see them more often!

Kelley giving my sweet Elsa some love

Luke and Jacob doing the wheel barrow race

Faith was so patient and great about trying to teach Ronan what to do

Jacob, Faith and Ronan enjoying the warm Arizona evening

Elsa enjoying some cousin time with Faith

Hanna and Jacob had fun playing games on her phone

Two slip and sliding dudes, Aidan and Luke

Mikes turn to love on Elsa!

Silly Faith!

3rd cousins!  Ronan, Elsa, Faith, Aidan, Luke, Jacob and Hanna

4th of July cutie!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Defiants Blitz Bash

A few days ago I hosted a Defiants 4x4 Blitz Bash, introducing the boys and some of their friends to  new motorized trucks.  "These 4x4s are mighty, mini and motorized vehicles that have real gears for power, speed and freewheeling action."  The kiddos had a blast playing with the different tracks and the trucks.  The trucks also work great on any terrain, floors, grass, dirt, the slip and slide, etc.  One nice thing about the trucks is that if you don't want to use the batteries, they can be used like any other truck and moved manually.  Below are some pictures of the fun!

My boys checking out the goodies!!  They couldn't wait to get their hands on them!


The Maximum Mayhhem Set
  The trucks drove up the ramp and then sped down the other side, jumping off of a ramp that could be adjusted in height.  We did discover that the trucks must be in low gear in order to make it up the ramp.
Here is one kiddo attempting to put the pieces together.  At 5 years old, with this particular set, he did need help.



The boys enjoyed putting two of the sets together where the truck would jump off the ramp and land on another set.  Didn't work perfect every time, but they didn't seem to mind.



The Brawl and Fall Set
The trucks can stay on the track or drive up and into the teeter totter functioning bridge.



The Collision Rally Set
This set has 31 pieces  including a 4 piece bridge and flex terrain.  This one seemed to be a big hit with all the kiddos.  As you can see, we had it set up outside.  The bridge was a bit complicated to put together and did not stay together.  None of the kids could put it together either.  It didn't work much better inside.  That didn't bother the kids.  It would bother me as a consumer, not having the product work like it was supposed to.  They were able to put these tracks together.





The Terrain Pack 
The set creates a small terrain for the trucks.  They can be added to the other sets to create more terrain for play.  We set them up separately on this day.  All the kids played with them, just decided to put one picture up.  My son put the two tracks facing each other, to create a bigger set.


Fun, fun, fun!
We had kiddos of all ages playing with the trucks.  They are meant for children ages 4+ due to some choking hazards.  There are grills on the trucks that come off easily.  With the parental supervision, all the kids, ranging from 2 on up had a blast playing with the trucks.



The on/off switch is located by the wheel of the truck, directly below the surfer on my son's shirt.  Off is in the center and high is to one side and low the other.  After some practice, the kids could turn the trucks on and off on their own.  Even my 2 year old.

Overall, I was happy with this product.  My kids could not wait to get up the next morning and play with them again.  It is a product that I would suggest to others.  At this point, I believe they are available at Toys R Us stores.

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Little Girl

Elsa is already 10 1/2 weeks old!  At her 2 month appointment she weighed 9 pounds, 10.5 ounces and was 22 3/4 inches long.  Our little Ellie bean is a great baby.  Tolerates all the love from her brothers and sleeps well.  She also loves to flash us her beautiful smiles.  I took these photos of her a few weeks ago.  She did great for her first official photo shoot. :-)







Monday, April 04, 2011

Welcome to the world . . .

Elsa Grace Thomas
March 26, 2011
6 pounds, 13.5 ounces
19 inches long

Thursday, March 03, 2011

What have we been up to . . . .

So sorry for the lack of blogging this year.  I am going to blame it on being pregnant.  Plus, I don't know about the rest of you, but we have had an awful time with illness this winter season.  I am actually looking forward to warmer weather this year.  Anyway, here are a few of the things we have done when we haven't been sick:

Jacob riding his bike Santa brought him

Ronan showing us his mad bike skills

Hiking with Grammie

Ouchies from hiking . . .
It's not good to run as fast as you can down an incline full of rocks.

Celebrating all three boys birthdays.  Jacob is 5, Aidan is 4 and Ronan is 2!!
(Jacob really did have a good time.)

Jacob, Ronan and I found a blimp and the boys thought it was very cool!

We made valentines for Jacob and Aidan's classes.  It was very serious work.

Jacob and Aidan hard at work

But they took time out of all the hard work for some fun!
I had a bunch of glitter to clean up when we were done.

That's it in a nutshell.  I'm guessing I probably won't post again until little miss is born.  I will try to post before, but seeing as it's gone so far, I'm not very good at keeping up right now.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

I'm SO behind!!


It's that time of year again, or it has been that time of year again.  As usual, I am running behind on all things.  One item I usually attempt to cross off of my to do list is Christmas cards.  I love to send pictures of the family out.  I just finished choosing the pictures I am going to use and luckily I can choose from hundreds of cards at Shutterfly.com. To be honest, this will be the first time for me ordering from them.  But so far I am very pleased with the selection of cards they have to offer.  You can look for yourself here http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/christmas-photo-cards and here http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards.  Below are a few examples that I liked.



Not only can you order your Christmas cards through Shutterfly, you can also create many different projects and gifts.  One project I like to do for my husband is create a photo calendar for him to take to work, http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars .  Once again there is a great selection.  You can choose from 20 different designs for wall calendars, which is what we usually do.  There are also desk calendars and poster calendars.
Finally, as most of you know, we will soon be needing birth announcements.  Any guesses as to where we will be ordering from?  That's right, Shutterfly.  For girls alone they have 185 to choose from!  Take a look 
The best part of all is the great prices and promotions Shutterfly runs.  Simply for posting this, I will be receiving 50 free Christmas cards!  Plus, in a prenatal package from Motherhood Maternity, I received a $20 gift card!  Check them out, I think you will be pleasantly surprised.