June adventures

Our Awana program at church ends in June and restarts in September. The twins finished their last year in Puggles. They loved their Puggles class. I cannot believe they will be Cubbies next year. Here is the Puggles cake I made for their end of year party:



Mid month we traveled to Richmond, VA and surprised the boys by taking them to Kings Dominion. I stayed with the twins and Collin in Kiddie land and they had a ball while Daddy and Tristan went on the big coasters and also had a blast. Here are the boys on one of their favorite rides, the bumper cars:





We stayed in a Hamptom Inn on Saturday night and they loved it. We love their hotels as they usually have a pool and a good breakfast. The kids especially love the waffles for breakfast and they enjoyed swimmming in the pool the next morning. We then left to see a historic house and farm. It offered a house tour and you could go around the grounds to see the animals and they didn't charge admission (even better :). Here are some pictures of the house and grounds:

This was one big pig. You may have to click on the picture in order to see him hiding in the corner:






The boys really listened to our tour guide. Here we were in the basement where they had it set up for a camp group that was arriving the next week:


They had a baby sheep there that the boys really loved.


We then went to a lake and aquarium that was in a city park which also offered free admission. The boys absolutely loved the aquarium. I'll include a few pictures here and again on my next post:






There was a small glass enclosed room which had many animals that were preserved (taxidermy). It was an amazing collection, but hard to capture on film with the reflection of the glass. This owl really got the boys attention:

Where did the month go?

I cannot believe May is over. Where does time go? :) Hold on for one very long post ;)

The Month in Review...

My sweet boy Tristan turned 9! I am so proud of him. I love his caring heart and his desire to do his best. I hope he never loses his desire to help others or to look out for the "underdog". My proudest moments as a mom are when he reveals his loving character.

For his birthday, he chose to celebrate at the lake. Everyone had a good time swimming, taking rides in the canoe, and just playing:





He chose "How to train your dragon" as his party "theme". I wasn't sure how to make a cake in the theme as I never had a chance to see the movie with them. I checked online and found a few pictures and came up with a volcanic mountain, water, and a lot of rocks in the picture. In the movie the boy and dragon take turns drawing with a stick so I "drew" Tristan's name on the cake:

We spent the next day at the zoo. We could not have asked for better weather. The kids really enjoyed seeing the animals:


The twins' favorite (and Mom's :)) was the polar bear:


The boys even managed to wake up the lioness and annoy her so badly that she sought refuge next to the lion. I believe she was telling him to go gnaw on the obnoxious children :)

The month ended with Annette's son's graduation party. Here are photos of the cake and cupcakes:




While hers was graduating from high school, mine was graduating from preschool and I think he thought that ranked right up there with Samuel's graduation :) Isn't Collin a little cutie in his graduation cap?


They sang a song about the days of the week, he loves this song and sings it a lot at home:


Jim decided to surprise the boys and take them to a Durham Bulls game over Memorial Day. They loved it. Can you tell?

Do you like my wig?

Nope, I was not trying to eat the entire bag of cotton candy, not me






The boys really enjoyed the fireworks after the game too:




And finally, I made this cake and cupcakes for a wedding shower for a couple at our church:




We've been blessed with some new family memories this month. I'm looking forward to making many more over the next couple of summer months...