birthday hike

Before reading, I want to inform you that I took a billion pictures this day, but for your sake, have narrowed it down to just 49 in this post. You're welcome.

After presents, we loaded up the car and drove to Arabia Mountain Nature Preserve. It was fairly close to drive to.  It was the perfect place for our explorer boys. They were in heaven. There was a hike (about a mile) back to a little lake. Matix thought this was a GREAT adventure on his birthday.

Collect rocks, enough to fill your pockets, check. Empty rocks out in a new place, check. Repeat. Oh Hawken.

Along the way we found lots of little critters. 

Lullaby was loving walking everyone around. She is too chicken to take more than a few steps alone, but she will march around everywhere with a HUGE grin as long as she has a tight grip on your fingers.

Splashing in puddles with grandpa. Proof that grandpa is just a really big kid at heart. :)

Love these pictures of the boys. They were having such a wonderful day.

Balancing on the cairns was a must, and of course, having a cool dismount was important too.

Lots of pretty flowers and plants to see too. It's a nature preserve, obviously.

At one point this was a rock quarry. There were still some of the old buildings and rock slabs.  Lullaby totally got that she was in jail and screamed through the bars. Such a silly girl.

Finally we got to the lake. There was a very steep rock leading down to the water, and this is where we ate our lunch. So nice.  We had to watch the boys extra closely though because they kept trying to jump in, but the water was super deep except for a tiny ledge.

Slowly but surely, the boys got naked, which is pretty much their favorite thing to be. :)  So Matix spent his birthday in his birthday suit. Bwah ha ha!

Hawken and grandpa Lee watching hawks circling.  It was so peaceful.

Grandma got some good baby time in.  And Lullaby crashed out on the way back to the car.

We ended Matix's birthday at home. Dinner of mashed potatoes, chicken, peas, and a cake ball. :) He blew out his candle after we sang to him. He was very happy and lucky to have grandma Stacy and grandpa Lee with us on his big day.  (Notice, Matix is still sans clothes)

Matix's birthday morning

Matix woke up, ready for his special day. He ran out of his room, and we were prepared. Paul and I set up his gifts on the couch the night before. All the packages and cards from his grand parents and great grandparents and aunts and uncles had already arrived. It was so fun.

This lucky boy was SO spoiled, thank you everyone!

He tried out his bike right away. 7:15 am doesn't mean anything when you're four. I can't believe I have a 4 year old.  We tried with no training wheels at first, but got too frustrated, so we put them on and and he loved it.

grandpa

Grandpa Lee has all the coolest gadgets. The boys were in love (mostly with grandpa, but partly with his phone too). :)

garden

Our replanted garden sprouted up so fast. And sadly, we had a lot of thinning to do. I hate thinning. It feels bad killing perfectly good plants. :( The plants a tons bigger now, this was from a few weeks ago. FIrst is green beans, then is cucumber.

The tomatoes are still producing too, which is awesome because we have had some really cold days already.

package

Lullaby received one more package after her birthday from grandpa Chuck and auntie Jolie. I love the cards my dad makes. Every year the birthday kid's name is decorated in a different way. He wrote Lulli, but the letter 'i' is a number 1. Clever.

The boys were excited to play with their little book and Cars toys too. Jolie and my dad were so sweet to think about including a giftie for them too. Thanks guys!