April 2011

Greetings!  As many of you know, I celebrated a big birthday this month!  Yes, I turned 30!!  I recently found some pictures of my 20th birthday.  Oh my, 10 years can make a difference.  Although I celebrated both birthday's with a drink in hand., I think that is all that stayed the same but that sure is fine with me!  We celebrated this birthday with a trip to Kobe restaurant.  I love the food; my boys love to watch them cook!

Early in the month, we took a day trip to Baltimore to pick up my Grandmother from a cruise. After picking her up early in the morning, we spent the day walking the Inner Harbor and feeding the birds.  Braden thought the birds were GREAT and couldn't get enough of them!  We finished out the day in Baltimore with a meal at the Cheesecake Factory.  Yum!!

 Our screen door welcomes you.  Happy Easter from Braden (left) and Ryan (right)!

We were sooo excited to have our friends Adam and Beth (from our VT days) visit us with their son, Landen.  Since our Cherry Blossom plans got canceled due to the rain, we headed to Winchester and checked out the Children's Museum.  The boys had fun playing with each other and I had a blast catching up with my friend that lives too far away!!

"Oh, my!  What did the Easter Bunny leave us?!"

Easter Sunday - Family Shot!

The boys participated in an Easter Egg hunt after church.  They were so handsome!!

Happy Easter from Devin!

And when we woke up from our Easter nap, we saw our Maple tree had fallen down.  Look at the boys in comparison to the size of the tree!!

Oh yeah, my van was under it!!  What a mess!  The van was totaled and we are proud Odyssey owners now!  I have to say, I did LOVE my Sienna and was sad to see her go.  :-(

Here is a picture of the boys "working" in the yard.  They LOVE their rain boots and they have come in handy on many occasions - not only for the rain!  They often wear these to the farm and creek, too. 

This is Ryan the medal he received after finishing his first race this morning!  A member of our church organized this race to benefit the Foster/Adoption program in our county.  After hearing about it, Ryan told me he would like to participate.  He ran 3/4 of a mile with a bunch of older kids.  He did a GREAT job and we were so proud of him!!

Devin is growing every day!  He loves to hold toys and hands.  Although he still is not showing much progress with his sight, he is very social when you play, sing songs or touch his hands.  He loves songs with motion (like Up and Down in the Elevator, etc.).  Devin will be sporting some new transition sunglasses soon to help him with his sensitivity to the sunlight.  I think he is going to look very cute in them!  I picked out a steel blue color :-)

Braden has also hit a growth spurt.  I often get his clothes mixed up with Ryan's clothes and he is wearing Ryan's outfits from last year. He is a burst of energy and picks up on all our conversations.  He knows so many of his letters that it surprises me!  Besides his name, I have not really spent time teaching him his letters yet but he will quickly point out letters anywhere - "Hey!  What is that S doing there?  S says sssss....." 

Ryan has been golfing several times now with my dad and LOVES it.  He plays soccer on Saturdays and still enjoys that, too!