Easter Morning!!

Our Easter morning picture....

 I had plans of getting beautiful Easter pictures of the boys at Opryland before we left for church Sunday morning. Did you catch the key word there?  "plans"  So...that didn't happen obviously. I did manage to drop our luggage on the way to the car so we could get this picture of the boys. We didn't have time to actually get them to look at the camera or smile or anything, just pose.

Oh well.... if it's a picture of the boys, it's cute right?

And this of Weston....

The boys left their baskets on the tv stand/dresser and the Easter bunny knew just where to find them!

They were SOOO excited to wake up and see their full baskets!! Will jumped out of bed and went straight for his basket.

The Easter bunny left them movies and books and candy... all their favorite things!

Again with the beautiful pictures....hotel room carpet and shoes in the background!

Weston are you excited about your basket? I love his facial expressions!! He really was excited though and had a great time going through his goodies. 

Lads 2 Leaders/Leaderettes

We spent Easter weekend at the national Lads 2 Leaders/Leaderrettes convention at the Opryland Hotel. This  program helps prepare kids for service in the church through year long training and practice in many different areas. At convention, they compete in things like song leading, speech, scrapbook, art, Bible reading, bulletin boards, Bible Bowl and MANY others (37 events in all)! For Will and Wyatt's age, they "practice competing" but don't actually get judged and everyone gets an award for participating. Starting in the 3rd grade, they can compete for trophies. There were about 10,000 people for the Nashville meeting this weekend and they had 5 other conventions going on at the same time in other locations. All total, there were almost 19,000 people! Our church has been participating in this for several years, but this was the first year Trent and I went. We were amazed at the size of this convention! It was so much more than what we were expecting!! 

   

We stayed 2 nights at the hotel and the boys thought it was SOOO cool! When we first walked into the cascade area, both boys were oohhing and awwing and Wyatt said, "Mom, I hope we don't see a giant monkey. Cause monkey's live in the jungle you know!" They were amazed at the glass ceilings, fountains, waterfalls and all the gardens. They were also amazed at the "sky" ceilings in some of the ballrooms. It was beautiful!!

Both boys were registered for 3 events: Know the Books (singing the books of the Bible both old and new testament); Oral Bible Reading (Will "read" Romans 8:28, Wyatt "read" Genesis 1:1); and Song Leading (Will sang "Up from the Grave He Arose", Wyatt sang "Blue Skys and Rainbows") I didn't do too well with the video camera so no video to post.....

But they dressed up in their "suits" and did very well in each event! Here they are getting ready for Bible Reading with some friends from our church.

At the awards ceremony on Saturday night, they invited ALL the preK - 2nd graders that participated to come up on stage for recognition. It was several hundred kids up on the stage and my boys got right in the front row!! I was so proud!

 This was one of the favorites for Will  - and Wyatt was haming it up pretty good!

They had so much fun!! Will wants to add a few events like Good Samaritan and Speech for next year. It makes us so proud that they are developing these skills at such a young age!

It was great to spend quality time with friends from church  and what a fun place to do so!!

From the minute the boys spotted the "boat ride", they were begging to do it. We finally gave in and they were all smiles!

In the above picture, I said, "hug guys". So they did. Then they said, "oh no....too tight!!"

It was beautiful and the boys were in awe again....

taking it all in....

So much to see!

The boys even had fun on the fancy elevators!

And Weston was with us too! He didn't get as much camera time, but he tagged along like a trooper! Doesn't this look like trouble waiting to happen!

We woke up Easter morning and headed back home. It was such a fun weekend and we're excited already for next year!

Choc full of sports

While sitting at Mom and Dad's house waiting out the many tornadoes that are on the way today, I found that I have a few minutes to update. The boys are playing with their cousins and Weston has Papa and Aunt Rachel and Nana to keep him busy. First update: Sports, sports, sports. The boys love to play sports and we have been busy with practices and ballgames on most days lately. Wyatt is playing his first soccer season ever. He LOVES it!

He is on the Green Dragons and loves to say "Go Green Dragons!!" He runs hard and has scored a few goals. The first game was extremely cold and that was the only time I brought by camera. I'll have to take pictures of him during the nice sunny games!

He was so excited for his first game!!

Wyatt's the one with his tongue hanging out! He always sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating really hard :) 

Trent is the assistant coach which means he's the one on the sidelines keeping the dragons contained when they're not playing.

Weston enjoyed snuggling with Nannie during the freezing game!

Will is playing baseball this season too. He's on the White Sox and they are currently undefeated. He has lots of fun and is learning so much about the game.

Will is really good at hitting, getting on base almost every time at bat! He has scored several runs and a couple of RBIs.

This is him at 3rd base waiting to run home.

And this would be him doing a little dance across home plate!

He's still a little "distracted" in the outfield, but is getting better at throwing.

Wyatt loves to go talk to Will and his teammates in the dugout! He says he wants to play baseball when he gets big enough.

This is Wyatt pretending to ride a motorcycle up the big hill between the bleachers and the field. He's good at entertaining himself!

Spring Fling

We had the annual Spring Fling at church a couple of weeks ago and the boys had such a good time hunting eggs, playing games and racing the  bunny hop obstacle course. They had the ages split up so while Wyatt's age group was playing games, Will's age group was hunting eggs and visa versa. This created some good exercise time for mommy running across the parking lot taking pictures of both boys doing their thing! Not to mention it was a sunny 99 degrees that day - gorgeous for a Spring Fling, not so gorgeous when I forgot to pack a change of clothes for us and the kids. Oh...and I forgot the easter baskets too. We made do with the happy meal boxes from lunch!

There was an egg toss...

And of course, egg hunting!

Will was racing the girls to the unhunted section!

Wyatt pretty much stayed in a group and found the more obvious eggs.

Will was happy with his stash! - notice the happy meal box :)

Wyatt, too, was proud of his hunting skills.

The obstacle course was so fun! It had several obstacles to tackle all while bunny hopping with bunny ears!

Catching butterflies was one....

And of course, hurdling to the finish line!

Weston hung out and enjoyed the soft grass at a safe distance from the "racers"!

The egg hunt in our neighborhood last weekend was way too cold and wet to attend - so we didn't. There will be more egg hunting Easter afternoon at Aunt Jane's house!