Birthday Boy!!!

Riley is 5 years old!!!  I can't believe that it's been 5 years already!  Time has just flown by . . . and a few more months and he'll be in Kindergarten!!  Ugh!  I'm not ready for all this! 

Anyways, I think he had a really fun birthday!  I made Chocolate Chip Muffins for breakfast for him this morning, and then we made his cake.  Of course he picked out the confetti cake with the sprinkled frosting!!  But it was cute and he had fun helping me mix it up and put the sprinkles on.  The rest of the afternoon was pretty laid back (mostly because mommy spent all her energy cooking in the am), he got to play some Wii and watch Ghost Adventures (the new favorite show!!)  He also played outside some while Daddy was grilling up dinner - Hot Dogs and Corn on the Cob!!  YUMMY!!!  I think it was a favorite dish for everyone - not just Riley!!  Even Jayce has a new-found love of Corn-on-the-cob. 

Making a wish

We had some a week or so ago, and Riley left a bunch of corn on his cob, so Jayce went over and finished it for him.  It was so cute, so tonight we gave him his own cob.  And I think he ate more of it that Riley did of his!!

After that it was off to get his birthday present . . . well, the last part of it at least!  We finally decided to get him a fish tank for his birthday, we've been promising to get him one for a couple years now.  So this weekend we went and got all the tank stuff.  We set it all up and let the water balance out, then today we went and picked out a couple fish.  We got Cardinal Tetras, and I think they are really pretty!  We only got three, we want to make sure that the tank and everything is set up ok before we spend a fortune on fish only to have them die a couple days later!!!  Here's some pics of the whole set up process:

filling the tank

Putting in the Pirate Decor

All Ready for Fish

Picking out the fish

Our Cardinal Tetras

We hope they like their new home!!

Riley is so cute about the whole thing!!  The first morning the tank was set up (with no fish) he still got up and went downstairs first thing (without turning on the TV first!!!!!!) to see his tank!  He also wouldn't let us put up the background we bought for it, instead he drew some pictures of himself and taped them to the back of the tank for the fish!  So cute!!  Now that we have fish in there it will be fun to see how he does!  He's already so excited that he's responsible for turning on and off the light and feeding the fish.
Jayce really likes it too.  I think he's going to enjoy staring at them as much as Riley!  He was so cute in the store tonight!  Last time we let him run around and it was exhausting trying to keep up with him, so this time I strapped him into the stroller and parked him in front of a tank with about 10 sucker fish and some betas.  He stared at that tank for nearly 10 minutes without a peep while we picked out the fish!!!

Riley's party is still coming up though.  A couple more weeks before we invite all the friends over for a Big Splash!!!  Now the Countdown begins for that!!!

Some other things we've been up to - this week we went to the splash park with Greg and Jaxon.  The boys had so much fun!!  It was a nice warm day and the cool water felt good, maybe even a little cold!  And this weekend Daddy has another Race!  Good Luck Daddy!!!  Next week Daddy has a business trip, so Mommy has to hold down the fort all by herself!  Ahh, she's a little nervous!!!  Her energy level hasn't been the greatest . . . especially into the evenings, so we'll see how this goes!  Then the week after that is VBS!!!  Wow, how time flies!!!  By then we'll be halfway through June - where has this year gone!!!

Some other notes: there's some things going on with the blog, if anyone is having trouble viewing it let me know.  I've had a few people with issues, but I'm not sure what the problem is. Also, Kodak Gallery is closing.  It will no longer hold pictures, and I won't be able to upload anymore albums.  However, everything is SUPPOSED to transfer automatically to Shutterfly.  I have no issues with this, except that I'm not as familiar with Shutterfly.  This changover is going to happen in the next few days, so I haven't done an album for May yet.  It will be late as I figure out Shutterfly and if I need to re-send all the previous albums to people via Shutterfly, or if they have a public viewing site as well.  We'll see.  I'll let you all know when I get it figured out.  And that's been our time in a nutshell!  Have a good weekend everyone - talk to ya later! 

Suprise!!!!

The Louie Family is Still Growing!!!  Updates to come! 

WOW, I'm behind!!

That is horrible that it's been a month since my last post!!  I can't believe I let it get away from me like that!  It's not even that we've been super busy, we haven't done much worth writing about I think is it.  We've just done the usual, MOPS, play outside on a nice day, help out at the church, watch our ever growing list of Ghost Adventures episodes. . . .

But Now I have something worth Writing about!!!  Unfortunately it's now taken me a week to sit down and tell you all about it!  Ugh!  Anywhooo- Last weekend we went to Rocky Mountain National Park for the first time this year.  We always like to go right after they open Trail Ridge Road and get pictures by the walls of snow left by the gianormous snowplows.  This year with all the warm weather we've had they opened the road super early - May 14th!!!  It's usually around memorial day weekend, last year it was well into June before it opened.  So we decided to take the next weekend and head up.  Unfortunately, Saturday's forecast called for storms and that means snow in the mountains.  So we didn't go Saturday, but thought they might re-open the road in time for Sunday.  We took a gamble and headed up Sunday, and Lost - the road was closed, but we still got to have fun seeing the beautiful park!  It was an overcast day (still snowing up at Rainbow Curve where the road was closed) which hampered the landscape photography some, but made it a great portrait day for taking pics of us!  I got some really good ones of the boys!!  Here's a few of my Favorites!

Eating his banana for Lunch (love those blue eyes!)

Lunch break at Upper Beaver Meadows

Happy to be out of the car and running around!

The boys with Long's Peak

My little Rock Climber!

The view at the "End of the Road!"

Rainbow Curve - passed where we can drive

Mommy there's snow in my hair

In the snow!

Jayce checking out the cold stuff

Daddy building a snowball sized snowman

All the snowmen lined up in the street

Jayce thought they needed some Pine needle-hair

The STI "on top of the world"

Walking around Bear Lake.  This was short-lived, Daddy Carried him most of the way!

Once again, Riley climbing the big Rocks!

As you can see we took Cam's new car, he wanted to see how it handled going up the canyon...boys!!  Thankfully he took it easy on me!  I've been really sick lately, and the drainage from my sinuses was doing a number on my stomach.  I did think ahead and wear my motion sickness wristbands, which did help some, so he was able to play a little bit.  Sorry Cam - You'll have to go with one of your guy friends if you wanna see what the car can really do! 

Other than that we've just been hanging around the house, I haven't even taken any pictures this month until this trip to Rocky!  We have been going on Thursdays to Church.  I'm on the committee to help with decorations for VBS this year.  It has been so much fun!  Jan, the Children's Ministry Director, is our good friend and so just spending the extra time with her has been a blast!  Riley cheers every Thursday when I tell him "we're going to church to help Jan today."  She has a ton of toys in her office that she lets Riley bring upstairs, and the boys sit and play (or sometimes help with painting or gluing!!) while we all work on decorations.  It's been really wonderful.  I can't wait to see everything when it's all put together!!  I'll have to take some pictures to show you all.  The theme this year is SKY: Nothing's Impossible With God, so we've been making everything from clouds, to airplanes, to kites, hot air balloons, you name it!!  Next we're moving on to birds, butterflies, bats, owls, etc, for the main meeting room.  It should look spectacular!! 

Next Week is Riley's Birthday!!!  I can't believe he's going to be 5 years old!!  It's crazy how time flies.  This time of year is getting busy for us so we really struggled with when to do a party for him.  With Memorial Day weekend before his birthday and Cam having a race the weekend after, we decided to push back his party until June 9th.  We're doing a Splash theme party, with a bunch of water activities for the kids (sprinklers, kiddie pool, squirt guns, water balloons, etc.) so we wanted it to be warm enough too.  (keeping my fingers crossed that it's warm!!)  But we are going to do a "family cake" time on his actual birthday next week (partly because the cake for his party will be popsicles!!  Shhhh, don't tell!!!)  This is the first year he's really understanding his birthday and we've had to do a countdown on the calendar to show him how much longer he has!  it's so cute!  He loves telling everyone his birthday is on "May firty-first!!"  Cam and I are still trying to figure out what to get him, we've had so many other things on our minds that we haven't sat down to hash it out yet . . . guess we better get a move on!! 

So that's what we've been up to lately!  I'll try to be better about updating weekly (or even bi-weekly), so that I don't let it get to be a month between posts again!  Sorry!!!  Have a Great Memorial Day Weekend everyone!!!