TWINS TURN 6!!

How have these little guys turned 6 already?!

Richelle gave Jake a lego birthday party for his 7th birthday and was kinda enough to pass down her stuff to me - so we took that theme and ran with it - especially since the boys LOVE legos!

Plates

 the set-up

the birthday lego banner

 the invitations we delivered written on legos...

"guess how many legos" "lego bingo"

 The guests eating their pizza, chips and drinks with colored lego men ice in them...
(Tyler, Anson, Mikey, Dreson, Nash, Payton)

 (Tyson & Chiara)

After we ate we played pin the head on the lego man - the more the kids messed up the harder they laughed - the biggest loser was the biggest winner amongst themselves - funny kids!

 

I kept racking my brain on how I was going to tie in a lego toy with a goodie bag and what else I could do to entertain these guys...one Saturday afternoon Emma and I spent an hour and a half at the Lego store having the worker build a car for us and then we got all the pieces for it to create 9 other cars and try to make them slighty different with different pieces and colors. So glad I did - this was everyone's favorite part! They loved building it and then one of them asked if they got to keep the car and when I told him yes - his reply "this is the best party ever!" 

 After we finished building the cars we raced the cars - they would have done this forever, but we had 10 minutes left when I realized we hadn't done cake or presents yet - yikes!

 

We quickly sang Happy Birthday and gave everyone cake and ice cream - and then as kids got picked up we opened their presents - and they left with bags full of lego candies and their new lego cars - 

Tyson's blue cake - 

 

 Tyler's orange cake - each boy picked the color they wanted -

 

 
 
 They spent the next couple of hours playing with all their new toys and then Payton and Chiara had given them new swim trunks and flip flops so we went over to RJ's house to break them in :)

 After Emma was done with dance, we picked her up and all went out for dinner and dessert. The boys had such a great day! They bring so much happiness to our family and never leave us bored or quiet around the house. As much as they are crazy and rambunctious - they are also very kind, loving to each other and sensitive and even stone cold Tyler will break down into tears if he has hurt someone feelings. They love their sister and are very supportive of her dancing and all the time they have to spend at the studio. In the last 2 weeks I have received random compliments from people about the boys and how sweet, kind and mannerly they are - hopefully that lasts them a lifetime. We love these 2 fart faces to death!
ps - My one regret for you birthday boys - was that I forgot to take in birthday treats for your summer birthdays to school - I remembered to do it in April, but by the time the end of the year came - I spaced it - I truly am sorry you didn't get birthday cupcakes in your kindergarten classroom.

Tyler:
47 pounds
46 inches
50-75% for height and weight

Tyson:
42 pounds
44 inches
25% for height and weight

ROOKIE A SPRING TOURNAMENT WINNERS!

We had a great season of baseball! The 3 boys got to play together, they had an awesome team, awesome coaches (their dad being one of them), and they grew as baseball players so much! Eli spent the season as short stop and made a couple of triple plays - it was pretty awesome! Tyler was quite the hitter and runner and made it on base 90 % of the time! Tyson has the best swing of everyone on the team and some day his little body is going to catch up to his skills and he is going to be crazy good - he also got on base most of the time - it really just depended on how he approached the plate - if he went up their with confidence - he was gonna get on base - if he went up there feeling unsure of himself - he struck out. The twins played outfield most of the season - but the few times they played infield they did a great job and even made some outs!

We went into the championship game having only lost 1 game all season and that's who we were playing - they were undefeated - the parents kinda thought we were gonna lose, but never let the boys know that. It was the bottom of the 3rd inning - we were up by 9 - but they had enough players that if enough of them scored - they could have won the game. About halfway through their batting order 4 of them had struck out - Kaden's brother had done the math for me - sure enough he was right - no matter what happened at that point - we had won the game! We were ecstatic! It was the best game all season! Our little boys had worked their butts off and they earned that win! Final score - 18-14!

WINNERS!

 The team about to get their awards...

Eli in action - 

 Oh ya - he is gonna get him out -

 nailed it!

 Run Tyler!

 Nice stride buddy!

 Tyson about to catch the ball and make an out!

 Tyler playing catcher - one of the two times he did play that position - it's not for him he has decided...

 Jared was so worried about making sure his boys were looking at me taking the picture he didn't even hop in his own team picture! Lame!

GRANDMA'S 90TH BIRTHDAY!

Two weekends ago we celebrated Grandma Joyce's 90th Birthday! It was a formal event, per Grandma's style/request. It was like a miniature family reunion, we got to see so many relatives that I haven't seen in a long time. There was a nice program where each of her kids and a couple of her brothers talked about some memories from their childhood or things she taught them. It was fun to hear some new stories about Grandma and learn more about Grandpa Rodgers, aka "Tuffy" - I always knew he was a marine - but didn't know he was a real American cowboy too! Then of course there was lots of great food to enjoy!

Grandma listening to stories about herself
  


My family (minus Eli and Jared who may have been at the last Heat game for the season)

Great Aunt Katherine, Great Aunt Anne, Grandma, Great Aunt Renae

Great Uncle Jimmy (the man who sealed me and Jared), my great aunts and Great Uncle Sanford

 Jimmy, Katherine, Anne, Grandma, Renae, Mary Jane (Janey), Reed, Kay, Sanford, Doug

 The cousins my age: Jonathon, Kristen, Paul, Randi, Ryan, Neal, Stephanie, Me (we were sadly missing Anthony and Jennifer)

The girls - we decided to be nice and let the in-laws in on our picture...Michelle, Suzie, Stephanie, Sondra, Emily, Randi, Kristen, me

 Mom and Dad and some of the grandkids

Following the formal party, there was an after party at grandma's house for all the relatives, complete with Grandpa Fred's enchiladas and a money dive!
 
 
 
 Mom looking cute - Andrew either posing GQ or bored out of his mind...

 Emily and Emma - 2nd cousins - they are 4 months apart and whenever they get a chance to play - they have the best time together!

 

The party continued on throughout the weekend and ended late Monday night when everyone headed home and Emma finally had to come home because she still had 2 days left of school! I am so glad that Aunt Mary Ellen decided to throw this party so we could all get together - it was such a great time to see everyone! I love my big family - grandma had 8 children, 43 grandchildren, 87 great grandchildren and 1 great great grandchild on the way!

ALL-STAR BASEBALL WEEKEND!

I do not like losing so this weekend left a bitter taste in my mouth - we lost all 3 games - booooo! It's sad - these boys can hit, field, etc, but they were just plain old out sized and out aged. At this age it's hard to go up against 8 yr olds turning 9 when the team is made up of 6 & 7 year olds. When our boys only come up to their shoulders - they are just going to be stronger and faster. They won. We lost. Next year - we should be the top dogs and hopefully they will make it to the All-Stars and win.

 

Friday was the first game against Old Scottsdale - we lost bad - and I felt bad for poor Eli especially after he had to spend 5 hours at the dance recital dress rehearsal so as soon as the game was over I drove him over to Cub Scout Day Camp and dropped him off to play with his friends and get to shoot the BB guns - poor boy needed to end the day on a good note. He finally got home and ate dinner at 11:30pm - the 3 of us just hung out, watched some tv, he ate dinner and we took goofy selfies.

The next morning he had a game at 11am against Queen Creek - lost again - but this time it was more frustrating because of the dumb tournament rules - we were well on our way to our come-back and they wouldn't let us score anymore because we reached our run rule - game over - lame!!

His last game was later that night at 7pm against Casa Grande - sadly, Jared and I couldn't go. Emma had her dance recital and she was in 12 dances so I had to help her do all the quick changes and Jared needed to see 4 of her dances he had never seen before - especially since he missed the 11am and 3pm recital. Eli went with Caleb Ely to his game and I felt so bad not being able to be there to support him so I used Stacia's great advice and sent him with a love note on his hand so he knew I loved him.

 Eli is starting to decide his favorite sport is baseball - we have been waiting for this kiddo to make a decision - he has grown so much and we are so proud of him. We love listening to him call out the plays to his team, reminding them how many outs there are, etc. We love you Eli!