F-O-U-R

I cannot believe our baby is 4.  What an amazingly wonderful blessing he is.  We started out the morning by stopping by Daylight Donuts to order a sprinkled donut and some milk for breakfast.  After that, C celebrated his birthday at school by sharing birthday cookies with his friends, being sung to, and receiving a book from "Ralph the Dog." 

 

 Chad was able to take off a little early from work and go with me to pick up C from school.  We then went and bowled two games and had so much fun!  After that, at C's request, we had Chick-fil-a for dinner, went home to open presents, and shared a gigantic piece of birthday cake.  Here are a few pictures....and more to come after we celebrate this weekend with family and friends.

 

Loves: 

The colors red & blue

Puzzles!  Huge ones...like 100 pieces.  Pure craziness.

Playing games, especially Trouble, Sorry, & Yahtzee

Chocolate Donuts

Cars, trucks, emergency vehicles, tractors, and anything you can think of with wheels.

Being Mommy's Scentsy Buddy

ANY Mighty Machine video, along with Word World, Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, & Super Why

Strawberry breakfast bars from Wal-Mart (all the other ones are "yucky.")

Being a helper

Wait for it.....wait for it....YOGURT DRINKS!

Mazes

Hidden Picture Books

BOOKS!

Being Tickled AND tickling

 T-Ball (but the season hasn't started, yet....)

PLASMA CAR!

Trips to the Zoo

Playing outside (riding his vehicles, bike, and playing in sand table)

Meerkats

BUILDING ZOO PENS!

Playing on his Leapster Explorer

Bowling

Figuring out letter sounds

Stuffed Animals

And you'll never guess.....MOMMY'S HAIR!

A few random facts:

Despises the colors pink & purple.  Refuses to wear them.

Has an excellent memory...almost eery what this kid remembers.

So funny--he gets this from his Daddy

Such a sweet sweet son with the biggest heart ever

Very observant 

I know I'll get in trouble for this someday, but he loves talking about poop.  Yes, poop.  Finds it HILARIOUS.

No longer says "t" sound for "k"...so no more, "tittle" "tat" or "pop sittles"

No longer says, "d" sound for "g"...no more "dods" "dood" or doldfish"

Does say "sh" for "ch" so we have "Shalin" "Shad" and "Shurch" for a little longer

Enjoys eating "beef turkey"

Has inherited the inability to choose what we eat for dinner and now beats us to saying, "I'm not picking what we eat, I CALLED IT!"  Yes, Chad and I do this, and now C has joined us.  We forget we're not in elementary school. 

 

Merry Christmas!

We hope you all had a Merry Christmas!  Here are our "Top 10 Moments of 2011" (idea taken from our Christmas card this year--if I figure out how to post it, I will).  No particular order here, except for #1, of course.

10.  Blizzard 2011 with the Murray's.

(check it out here.) 

9.  Chalin turned 3.
(Check it out here.)

8.  First family fishing trip.

7. Chalin started t-ball. 
(Check it out here and here.)

6. Family vacation to Great Wolf Lodge, LegoLand, & Sea Life. 
(Check it out here.)

5. Celebrated 8 years of marriage.
(Check it out here.)

4. Chad's 10 year HS Reunion.  

3.  Joined a new church.  

2.  Chad celebrated his last year of his 20's--Lindsay is not that old :) 

1.  Began our ADOPTION JOURNEY!
(Check it out here.)

We hope that not only does the good Lord bless you more than you can ever imagine in 2012, but also that you recognize these blessings and give all the glory to Him.

Chalin is 3!

Well, technically Chalin is 3 years, 1 month, 9 days, and some odd hours/minutes/seconds. I have been so extremely busy occupying my time with other things that I have been severely slacking on blogging--sorry--I think I have come to the conclusion that I'm just not the best blogger.

Anyways, Chalin turned 3 on February 7, 2011. Holy Cow. 3 YEARS OLD. What a sweet precious blessing he has been to us over the last 3+ years.

This year, I believe we had 4 parties in all and celebrated Chalin's b-day for about a month straight. I was afraid that he was going to start believing that every weekend was now known as "Chalin's 3rd b-day party!" Luckily, he didn't--although, he very much enjoyed his month long b-day celebration. I wish I could say that my picture taking skills were much much better than my blogger skills, but unfortunately, they are about the same, if not worse. With that said, I have a few pictures from his b-day celebrations, but not much.

Of course, we had a Fire Truck themed b-day party.

Party #1: Unpluggits with friends. What a FUN place!

The snacks

Dalmatian cupcakes made by a friend

Some of Chalin's sweet friends that could attend

"Party" #2: Actual b-day, celebrated at our house
He got to have one present early before MDO on his b-day; he LOVES this author!
He took this book to school and shared it during story time.

"I'm 3 now!" This cute shirt came from Etsy.
My baking skills rate right up there with my blogger and camera skills.
These delicious colorful cakes came from Target.

Party #3: At Mimi & Pops house
Red Candy Bar that Patty created: cake dots, chocolate dipped pretzels,
twizzlers, red hots, Sixlets, cherry slices, and Chalin's favorite...CHEERY BALLS!

Blowing out the #3 candle.
Yummy fruit punch.
Adorable fire truck cake created by same friend who made the cupcakes.

Party #4: My dad, stepmom, and brother Corey came to celebrate.
Lora captured this sweet picture. Her camera skills are MUCH better than mine!

Thank you SO much to all of our family and friends who made Chalin's month long b-day a success!