A Tribute

On April 21st of this year my sweet Grammie passed away after a hard fought battle with cancer. She played a significant role all throughout my life & I will always cherish the memories I have of our time together. I'm incredibly thankful to God that I was given the opportunity to know my Grandmother in ways many people do not & also thankful to have been given the chance to say goodbye to her. I've made a small video in honor of her & hope it will be a blessing to all of us who are still here with her life & story written on our hearts. Please enjoy & share it with whomever you'd like in remembrance of our lovely Mary.

Click this link to view the video:    http://youtu.be/CRAbD7bCP88

Birthday Camp Out

Our little Ricky turned 3 years old yesterday! Months ago he'd requested to go camping for his birthday so that's exactly what we did over Memorial Day weekend. We all had a great time. How can you not when there's a camp fire with marshmallows & hot dogs, a four wheeler with a plethora of jeep trails, a baby backpack with lots of ground to walk, a wall tent & a camper with tons of delicious food, friends & family, & an adventurous, energetic, superhero birthday boy?!

Yesterday we spent some lovely time with grandparents, Ricky got to open quite a few birthday presents, & we went to Burger King for dinner so the boys could eat ice cream & play at the playground. It turned out to be a nice day for our boy! So, a BIG thank you goes out to ALL the grandparents for their contributions in making Ricky's birthday quite grand. You are all simply wonderful!

Cedric has grown so much in the last year in many ways. His speech has improved immensely & he is getting quite tall. He loves to do EVERYTHING his brother does to a point where it rather irritates me at times. This next year Ben will be starting preschool & I think it will be really good for Ricky as well to hopefully start developing a bit more of his own interests. Ricky loves to play baseball & catch & has become quite good at riding his balance bike. He is an awesome helper to Brian & I when we do projects around the house & is a hard worker (when he's in the mood). He can be a bit fussy at times but is usually surprisingly good at controlling himself when we ask him to stop & take a deep breath. And more often than not, he's very willing to share his toys (even his new birthday presents!). One of his greatest struggles this past year has been staying seated in his chair while we eat... this boy can NOT sit still!! He's always got to be moving! We are incredibly thankful for our sweet boy. He brings so much joy & spunk into our lives!

Happy Birthday, Cedric! We thank God for you every day.

Now, before you scroll down any further, I'll warn you that there's a good possibility of your drowning in pictures!

Grandma Parker visited yesterday!

So did Grandpa & Grandma G!

The camping trip:

The whole crew.
Some friends of ours from church came, too.

"We love our Grandma!"

"Sooo big!"

Papa & his girl.

Our birthday boy

Dad Schultz was quite the chef with his dutch oven!

The boy's quarters

We were singing "Happy Birthday" to him... he was thrilled!

Ricky requested a train cake... so he got one!
The boys made sure that no details were missed.

The boys enjoyed the cake.

Mmmm... Cake & ice cream for Evie!

Opening gifts

A real super hero!

Evie had a ball crawling around in the dirt.
She didn't care one bit how cold or dirty she got!

Ben resting on the cot. He thought it was quite cozy!

Roasting hot dogs & mesmerized by the fire.

Even Evie got a ride on the four-wheeler!

"Oooh... Not quite long enough for me to pull. "

The boys loved climbing the rocks.

"Here I am!"

This girl was a mess, but boy did she have fun!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

First, let me mention that our boys (especially Ben) love to wear capes. Everywhere. All day. Sometimes they even wear them when we go grocery shopping. To demonstrate how serious they are about them: today as we were in the car & half way to town to watch a parade (yes, horses, marching bands, fire trucks, floats, & the like) Cedric realized that we'd accidentally left his cape at home & he insisted we go back & get it even if it meant completely missing the parade. Mind you, these are simply just blankets that they tie around thier necks. Well, yeterday evening I had asked Ben to get undressed so we could put on jammies & get ready for bed. Since Ben still wears a diaper at night I had gone upstairs to gather all the bedtime hoopla when suddenly I hear a little patter of footsteps running up & down the hallway gleefully yelling,

"Naked superhero to the rescue!"

It made me smile. So stinking cute! There is just something about being naked to a kid. I think all my kids would run stark naked all day if I let them.