Samuel Jared Ray – Our Sweet & Fun-Loving Boy of the Family

What a fun three years it has been so far, getting to know this happy-as-can-be, all-boy character! Those constant grins and expressions of his have brought nothing but smiles and laughter in our house! It’s so much fun having an easy-going boy in the midst of these dramatic girls! :) We are so thankful for our sweet little Samuel!

Samuel’s 3rd Birthday!

Samuel was our Valentine’s Day baby, so we get to spend Valentine’s Day celebrating his birthday every year now! It was so fun that it got to be on a Saturday this year – so we could have a fun day with Jared as well! We spent the day playing with his new presents (which were opened first thing that morning, of course – he will forever have a car theme to his presents, but he also got a tricycle this year, which he’s excited about – almost as much as Colette was – she seems to think the tricycle belongs to her now…); making his favorite meals – our birthday tradition; decorating his “rocket” cake that he chose from our book – they just LOVE to help decorate those cakes!; and we also took them to a Chuck E. Cheese’s that we were able to locate not too far away – he wanted to go to a pizza place for dinner (Samuel is obsessed with pizza!), so we decided to try and make it a fun pizza place, and this was all of our first times being to a Chuck E. Cheese’s – the kids had an absolute blast!! It ended up being a really fun day for his birthday! Can’t believe he’s already 3…

Little video of him getting his tricycle & blowing out his candles...

Milestone:

Colette turned 18 months old at the beginning of this month – Nursery time!! It’s been three years now since we haven’t had at least one baby with us all through church… I never realized how much I could actually enjoy lessons again! :) And the best part – she is doing awesome!! She gets to go in with Samuel, so that seems to help. The first day she was a little unsure, but now she just loves it – she loves feeling like a big girl! (I never realized I would still be doing the “fretting mother” thing even on the third kid – looking in the window every 10 minutes to make sure she’s okay… :) But she does great, and we have such good nursery leaders!) Church has taken on a whole new level of spirituality these days!! :)

(These are some other cute pictures of the kids from that same Sunday – can’t ever seem to take just one!)

End of our First Family Vacation!

We ended up having such a blast on this trip! So many fun memories... :)

Our Awesome California Trip! - 2nd Day at Disneyland

Our Awesome California Trip! - The "Correctors"

Brielle was so excited to try and meet as many of the "Correctors" (Characters!) as she could! :) She kept a constant count while we were there, and according to her, we got to see 7 "Correctors" altogether! (We all got a kick out of her calling them "Correctors" - took us awhile to finally figure out what she was talking about)... Here's a few pictures of some of the "Correctors" we got to see! :)
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Our Awesome California Trip! - Samuel the Jedi!

Samuel got to be in the Jedi training show that second day at Disneyland. We went to it the first day, and he wanted to be chosen so badly, but wasn't (they choose like 20 kids out of the audience). He was so sad, so we said we'd try again the next day. And excitingly enough, he was chosen that second day!! (The very last kid to be chosen out of the audience!) He was SO cute in the show -- the smallest one up there -- everyone in the audience got quite a kick out of him. And he got to fight Darth Vader too. We thought he'd be so scared, but he just went right up to him and started fighting. It was so fun to watch! He was very proud of himself the rest of that day...

Our Awesome California Trip! - 2nd Day at California Adventure

This was mine and Jared's (and of course the kids') first time seeing California Adventure. Athena and Heidi are the crazy ones as always -- and love all the crazy rides... They actually got Jared to do the Tower of Terror with them, though!

Our Awesome California Trip! - Our Birthday

Athena and I celebrated our 27th birthday while on the trip (one of the reasons we got some good deals on our Disneyland tickets!) Didn't have a cake, of course, so we stuffed 27 jumbo candles into our favorite treats! :) It was fun...

(So I'm attempting to use pictures that I have not re-sized to see if then it will be possible to click on them -- if it works, I'll do that from now on, but sorry, I'm not going to go back and fix all my earlier posts... Didn't realize the size of the picture made a difference in being able to click on them)...

Our Awesome California Trip! - 1st Day at Disneyland

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Brielle got to dance with Alice in Wonderland that first day! It was cute -- she was so excited!