Birthdays, graduations, and other announcements

This post is going to be pretty picture-heavy, but we have had a lot to celebrate the last week or so.

Maggie had her 4th birthday on Friday.  She already had her birthday party the weekend before, so it was definitely a low key day.

We decorated her chair for her and she had donut holes for breakfast.

What a goof!

She's clearly tired - it was before 6 am when we celebrated because Brian had to leave for a work meeting and didn't want to miss seeing her.

Probably wishing for a unicorn :)

My twinsies

She brought in treats to school that day - and I got this picture from her teacher, Mrs. Fredde

They were getting ready to sing happy birthday to her!

After school we went to Chuck E Cheese for about an hour - the kids got 20 tokens each and they left with a couple pieces of candy.  I'd say it was a successful trip to CEC!

Maggie continues to love this horse ride.  I think it's funny that she's a blur in this picture because she still doesn't weight much - so she has to REALLY rock back and forth to get the horse to gallop.

A quick picture with Chuck E Cheese himself!

On Saturday morning, we got a baby sitter for the kids and Brian and I spent all day in Lawrence for my doctoral graduation ceremony.

I had a School of Education ceremony in the morning at Allen Fieldhouse and then an afternoon hooding ceremony at the Lied Center.  Both ceremonies took about 2 hours - it was a long day!

My side of the family were able to make it up for the morning and then Brian's parents came in the afternoon. I got some beautiful flowers and felt very special!!

It was about 100 degrees in the gymnasium, and with the robe and hat, plus clothes -  I was sweating!!

The Dudley gals

Chad was there too, but as luck would have it, felt sick and spent most of the time in the bathroom.

He thinks it's because he's a Mizzou fan in Jayhawk territory.  Who knows?!? :)

My proud hubby!

We went to a wonderful lunch (thanks Mom!) and then said goodbye to the Dudley side.

We went straight to the next ceremony.

Here I am with my advisor, Dr. Greene, and a fellow Doc student, Ben Timson, waiting for the procession to start.

This building was air conditioned, thank goodness!

After the final ceremony

Then the Teson's took me out to dinner back in KC (thanks Marvin and Kathy!), and we headed back home.  What a fun and exhausting day, but obviously worth it!

The Thursday before that, Brian and I had our 20 week sonogram done.

The kids were super excited to know whether Baby Teson #3 would be a boy or girl.

It's a..... BOY!

Both of them were jumping up and down in excitement!

(the blue icing got everywhere, just in case you were wondering!)

So it looks like the tiebreaker went to the boys!

Maggie and I will have to stick together - we can handle it!

Thanks for everyone's well wishes and prayers - we have so much to be thankful for!

Maggie's 4th Birthday Party

We celebrated Maggie's 4th birthday last weekend.

Her actual birthday isn't for another 2 days, but that weekend will be filled with graduation ceremonies for me, and we had to do a little compromising! It's hard to be in two places at once :)

We did her party at the park nearby again, but it had been really rainy and stormy leading up to the party, so I told everyone to bring their rain-gear because I didn't have a back-up location.

The weather actually cooperated and we had a great time.

Once again, Meemaw came into town to help out with the decorations, cupcakes, goody bags, and everything else I hadn't thought of yet.  She is always such a great help when it comes to birthday parties, as I usually end up super stressed out and need someone there to help keep me calm!

Meemaw bought some special balloons for the big day

I swear, you give a kid a balloon and they will be entertained for hours

Love this cute one of Maggie

The party was "frozen" theme, which pretty much meant there was an Elsa pinata and some frozen cupcake toppers.  Maggie was tickled pink and loved it all!

Since the party was out at a park, we did a quick scavenger hunt (looking for outdoor items such as grass, flowers, sticks, etc) and then made a snack necklace out of cereal, licorice, life savers, etc.  They had a blast with these activities and did a great job with them.

Even the Texas cousins were in town (Grammie had a special surprise retirement party the day before that they drove up for)

It's always so nice to see them!

The kids hard at work stringing their necklaces

Maggie was such a goober, she wouldn't blow out her candle, so luckily her friends helped her out!

Enjoying some cupcakes and ice cream

Caitlin took this super cute picture of Chris and Daniel

Can't believe how big Gordy is getting these days.  I just love his blonde mullet he is sporting!

Tiff and Chad and Meemaw came back to our house after the party to celebrate Chad's 36th birthday that day.  He didn't want 'frozen' theme, thank goodness.

The older boys there entertained themselves playing some baseball and frisbee.

It ended up being a wonderful day  - but don't even get me started that my little girl is now FOUR years old.  

College friends and girls night

One of Brian's good friends from college came into town for the weekend a couple weeks ago.  He has a son named Logan that is only a couple months younger than Colin.

They had never met before, but about 2 minutes into their meeting for the first time, they were best buds!  They played really well together and had so much fun hanging out. 

The dad's did, too, of course :)

Colin and Logan spent the majority of their time digging in the dirt or playing with legos.

All the boys went to a Royals game on Saturday night and had a blast!

They looked so cute in their Royals gear before the game.

Logan kept doing a thumbs-up in all the pictures...

So of course Colin did, too...

Which meant Brian had to, as well.

My boys in blue!

And all of them together right before they left for the game

Brian sent me some pics of the boys at the game throughout the night

They had their fill of nachos, pretzels, frozen lemonades, etc

Such a cute pic of the guys with their rally caps on.

The Royals didn't win the game, but the little guys lasted almost the entire game before they crashed on the way home.

Meanwhile, Maggie and I had a "girls night", which consisted of going to church, followed by Chipotle, and then ice cream.  We had a blast as well! 

Mags and I are pretty good buddies, I love spending one on one time with her.

She insisted on making a Tortilla face!

Then she wanted to act like a chicken

She also got a free bag of chips from the gal at the register because she found a dime on the floor and turned it in to her.  I think she got the chips because the lady commented on how cute she was.

Whatever works!!!

We hit the little yogurt shop and since the weather was gorgeous, Maggie wanted to run outside and play on the fountains out front.  Luckily, they weren't turned on yet! :)

Maggie refused to eat her ice cream (darn it, I had to eat 2!), but she insisted on getting her picture taken.  

Such a fun weekend, but we ended up with some super tired kids on Sunday.

They need to learn the skill of sleeping in on the weekends! :)