SEVEN years old!

I really can't believe my baby is seven years old. For some reason this birthday really seemed like he was a big kid to me. :( He's such an awesome, kind, loving, sweet, thoughtful, smart, amazing, talented boy. I love him so much! Some of his favorite things at seven years old are: pizza, power rangers, apples, his baby brother, his little sister, school, riding his bike, playing Biggest Loser, reading Harry Potter with Daddy, facetiming with Grandma, going to Yerington and shooting with Papa, writing comics, reading comics, Magic Treehouse and Diary of a Wimpy kids books, going to the movies, swimming and just about anything he does he finds joy in. :)

 For his birthday, he requested a Power Rangers cake. I had a hard time with that one because I'm just not 'into' Power Rangers (even though Liam still truly believes I'm the purple ranger in my spare time). Titi and I pulled off a pretty great cake though! He wanted a Morpher for his birthday. Titi and Uncle Shaawn got him that gift and he was thrilled. Grandma and Grandpa got him a power ranger and a bike bell. Nana and Papa surprised him with his very own big kid fishing pole- even in his favorite color. And me and Daddy surprised him with a brand new big kid bike! He was shocked and loves it!

 This year he decided to have his birthday at coconut bowl. We decided we're only going to do big birthday parties every other year and this year he wanted to do it somewhere 'fun'. ;) Uncle Beannie and Grandma and Grandpa were even able to come to town for the event.  The kids had a BLAST though and I have to say it was pretty darn nice to not have to do any setup or clean up. It was definitely a successful seventh birthday! I love you, Mr. Liam.

 

Six Flags/Vallejo Trip

We decided we needed to take a little family vacation and we decided to surprise the kids with a trip to Vallejo to Six Flags and we were lucky enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Stephenson meet us there.


The first day the kids could not wait to go swimming! Even though it was only like 75*, they were so beyond excited and jumped right in. I wasn't sure how Addy would do because she hadn't been in a big pool since last summer and that hadn't gone very well. She would never let go of me and was pretty terrified.  However, this year was a totally different story. She was so excited to get in the water that she put her little puddle jumper on before her swim suit.  The kids had a blast swimming and Addy was a bit of a maniac jumping and kicking and swimming, which made me so happy to see her doing so much better. Finn wasn't sure what to think of it all, but overall we think he had a good time.






















That evening, Grandma and Grandpa baby-sat and we headed to Oakland to have dinner with my host sister Louisa and her boyfriend, Aash. We had a wonderful time chatting the evening away over amazing pizza at Zachary's.  And Louisa even tried (and hated) root beer for the first time. :) I love having her so much closer to us now!




The next day we headed to Six Flags. The kids had a BLAST and so did we. It was nice having additional adults so Wes and I could sneak in a few rides.  We loved the Cirque dolphin show!  Finn especially loved clapping to the music and was smiles the whole time. It was a long day for the kids, but it was well worth it. We had a blast.