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Birthday Boys

Andrew is now a big 7-year old, and Ricky has hopped into the double digits.

Because their birthdays are 3 days apart, they often combine some of their celebrating. This year, we celebrated all weekend and into Monday. Andrew began the celebrating on Friday with his birthday.  Andrew is sweet and easy to please. He wanted to go to the library on his big day. So, after piano lessons I took the birthday boys to the library . . .  Easy!

We have a thing going on here in the Iowa City area called Herky on Parade. The University of Iowa mascot is a hawk named Herky.  Several sponsored artists have made different versions of Herky over the years to be on display at local businesses, parks, and community centers. Currently, there are 83 of these guys around. The boys are excited about counting how many Herkys they can see and if we can stop, they want a picture too.

The Coralville library has "Father Daughter Herky," so that was the first of many Herkys the boys have been photographed with.

After the library, we headed home to have homemade pizza for dinner, open presents, and eat cake and ice cream. 

Wait, go back--the boys also wanted me to visit them at school for lunch. Sean, Broiklyn and I spent an hour at school eating lunch in the lunch room. We first ate with Andrew, then Ricky, and last Makayla. By Makayla's lunch time both Sean and Brooklyn were done seeing new faces and sitting by big kids. And I think cafeterias are disgusting places. We got some cute pics, though.

Ok--back to Andrew's big day.  He liked his presents and cake. Because we had a GI infection run through out family just a few days prior, we didn't invite anyone over for cake and ice cream. 

The next day, Saturday, I took the boys and their friends to the movies. They were each supposed to invite only one friend, but Ricky was too excited to not invite more. I took 5 boys to Rio 2. 
It was a long, dumb movie, but Andrew and his friend liked it. The bigger boys liked being there with friends but would have preferred "less singing."

The bonus was getting their pictures taken with 2 more Herkys at the mall. 

Batman Herky is hard to see because the light coming in the window behind. 

Wrestler Herky was in a better place for pictures, but by that point, the boys were pretty wound up and I was ready to go. 

I took the boys back home and we ate a quick lunch, then headed to see the tulips in Pella, Iowa with another family. 

It's an hour and forty minute drive, and I imagined fields of tulips like good old Washington. There may be fields somewhere, but we didn't see them. There were beds of tulips at a few parks. The flowers were pretty, but not worth the drive for me. The bakeries there are also well-known. They are good, but I won't find myself craving a Dutch letter any time soon.   The best part of the trip was the family we went with. They are great!

It was a long, but fun day. Mothers'Day was the next day. The kids made me some nice cards and Rick helped a lot in the kitchen. 

I loved Makayla's card:
Ricky's birthday was on Monday. His class had an all day field trip. You can probably guess that he was super excited about that. After school, he played with friends and we had his favorite dinner--chicken enchiladas. For Family Home Evening we completed a survey about Ricky's favorites. Andrew got almost all of the answers right (though they deny it, I'm pretty sure Ricky told him the answers). We invited a couple of families over to sing Happy Birthday and have cake and ice cream with us.

Overall, the boys had a great weekend. The month of May is always a busy one for us. Along with the boys' birthdays and Mothers' Day, we celebrate our wedding anniversary. There are also end-of-school year events and performances including graduations. This year, Makayla will be graduating from elementary school to junior high.  This month also marks Rick surviving his first year as bishop of our ward.  So far, we have kept our heads above water.  I'm glad we are busy with celebrating and remembering. We have plenty to be thankful for. 

Comments

Chelsey said…
I wish Kenzie was still in elementary...oh well. Middle school comes too soon sometimes. My kids miss your kids. I've been wanting to post the pictures from thanksgiving. Maybe I will now that I have internet.
May 20, 2014 at 8:11 AM
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