I'm Moving!!

Decided to start fresh after a few months away...
http://matlock4.blogspot.com/
Not too much exciting over there yet... don't worry, it'll come!

Busy

Life's been busy... but i'm hoping to get back to blogger soon.
In the meantime, check out what the boys were up to this year with our shutterfly book!

Photo Book

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Photo Book Tip: Create an adventurous travel photo album at Shutterfly.com.

Photo Book

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Alaska #2

The next couple days was spent enjoying family!  Thomas & Benjamin love their cousins and it is so much fun to see what all they come up with for fun!  Thomas & Aleeyah had fun hiding in the nook next to the fire place.  All loved jumping on the trampoline, even Benjamin braved it by the end of the week.  What a blessing it was to have several days to just be with family!

Eagle River (the city they live in) has it's very own National Park.  It's full of trails, camping spots and a nature center.  When Salmon season is in full swing, it's also full of Bears!!  We decided to take a visit and a short walk, with Bear Spray in hand, and it was so beautiful!

The kids loved checking out the nature center, complete with stuffed animals (the real kind) and furs.

Our hike was short and always on the trail!!  Thankfully no sign of bears.  This spot where we posed for a family picture was amazing.  During Salmon season you can come here to see them.

These two were inseparable!!  They are only a few weeks apart and got along wonderfully.  Not a single fight to break up, which is pretty good when you are together 24 hours a day for 5 days!

The next day, we braved the zoo, in the rain! Yah, that was fun!! The kids did love it though and the animals were amazing.

Later that night, we got to check out Drake's baseball game.  Look how sweet these cousins our watching Drake play!

OUr last full day was Friday, it was also the entire day we got to spend with Grandma and Grandpa in town as well.  The four of us took off just for a few hours to see Palmer and a quick trip to Wasilla to find Sarah Palmer!  WE didn't find her, but we did enjoy the beautiful drive and our visit to a farmers market in Palmer.

We spent the afternoon enjoying time together, husking corn and more trampoline time.  Drake and Aubree were so kind to their Aunt Katharine's insistence that they miss some of their plans with friends so we could all have dinner together!!

Here the kids are hanging out with Grandpa.  They were having fun making faces and playing with his hat.

We made sure to get some family pictures taken before they all went off for some fun with their friends.  This is on their front deck!

We LOVE Alaska!!

Alaska #1

May ended with our trip to Alaska.  Jared's sister moved up there last August, we decided to get up there as soon as they were done with school, just in case she decided one Alaska winter was enough for her!  Thankfully, she didn't!  And thankfully we made it up there for some wonderful family fun and got to see the Lord's beautiful creation that is on display everywhere you look in Alaska!

Our trip started with some family fun!  We got in late Saturday night, at 11:00pm, but the sun was still shining so we were filled with energy and able to chat!  Sunday morning came early and we were off to church then back to the house for some quality cousin fun!!  The kids were entertained most of the day by these balloons!

Here they are about 9pm, bouncing away in their pj's!  Thomas loved this!  Getting to be outside, with his cousins, jumping.

Monday morning we headed down the coast on Highway 1 towards Seward.  Everywhere I looked caused my mouth to drop open at the majesty of creation.  I couldn't get enough pictures along the highway.  Out one window was snow, the other, dry mountains with waterfalls of snow melt running down.  Around every turn was more beauty.

The boys did a great job on the 3 hour drive.  They kept themselves entertained with some fun car activities and keeping their eyes out for a moose.

(these picutres should actually be after the conservation pictures, but just go along with me!)
Monday late afternoon we got into Seward and went straight to the Aquarium where the boys were able to get up close to all sorts of sea life.  This was extra good timing for Thomas because they were right in the middle of studying the ocean at school!

Benjamin was fascinated with everything:

Thomas was excited to tell Grammy Berry that he got to meet some Puffins.  This one was super friendly.  If you waved at him he would wave back, the boys loved it.

They had this awesome touch pool, which was probably Ben's favorite.

Eventually we made our way downstairs to this awesome scene!  A 1700lb Stellar Sea Lion named Woody, was gracefully swimming around.

We ended our tour back at this fun boat play area and got Thomas to take our picture.

Now back to the first part of our day:

This is one of my favorite shots, not amazing quality or anything, just the beauty of the snow, mountains and water.

We came across the Wildlife Conservation Center that my parents had visited and raved about.  It was a great place to see the wild life that Alaska has to offer. We saw Moose, Bears, Bison, an Eagle and so much more!

Thomas saw the snow up in the mountains and desperately wanted to play in it.  He was thrilled when we found this pile of collected and dirty snow and went to town.  Isn't it amazing there, just check out the background.

We stayed in Seward at a holiday inn with a pool.  Imagine swimming in Alaska!  We actually had to go to Walmart to get bathing suits because who brings their bathing suits to Alaska!!!  Well, the hotel was fine, until the electricity went out in the middle of the night and the elevator starting beeping.  Oh well, always an adventure.  Thomas favorite part of the hotel was bed hopping.  Every boys favorite part of a hotel!

We had a chance on Tuesday to take a boat tour and see some wildlife in their natural habitat.  It was amazing!!  We saw birds, an otter mama floating on her back with her pup on her belly, goats climbing the mountain side, porpoises, someone saw a bear on the mountain side, a bald eagle in its nest and just the beauty of the landscape.

The best part was when we saw the stellar sea lions lounging and barking and then saw 4 killer whales (orcas) swimming on down ready for a hunt.  It was amazing to see them, real life national geographic's played out in front of our eyes!

While on board, Thomas got pinned as a Jr. Ranger.  He had a book he had to complete and then had a whole ceremony and everything.  It was cute to see him take it so seriously.

Part of the cruise was a salmon and prime rib lunch, which was fabulous, on a little island.  We got to explore and skip some rocks.

On our way back to Anchorage we made a little detour to a glacier.  Well the road was closed up to it, but we got a great view and had a fun snowball fight.  Off the overpass looking down into a river we saw some HUGE moose tracks!  They had to be the size of my head!!  The view was breath taking and the camera was dead!!  I got a bunch of pictures of the snowball fight, the view, Nope... Oh well

IT was amazing to have a couple days to just take in the beauty of God's Earth.  We spent the rest of the time enjoying family and checking out their area.

This How We Celebrate 5!!

5's a big deal around here! (just in case you couldn't tell by the trip to Disneyland!)  It feels like it's the jumping point into boyhood.  He's no longer a toddler, not a pre-schooler, not a little boy - He's a boy! (and boy-oh-boy is he all boy!)  I'm so proud (and humbled by) of this sweet, shy, goofy, precious blessing from God, I'm bursting at the seams.  What a gift he his.  I'm amazed that God entrusted this sweet life into my hands.  His life is one to celebrate, so we did it up big!

After the Disneyland trip, we celebrated his birthday on Mother's Day with all the family.

Here he is with Auntie and the awesome superhero cake she made:

I missed the blow out the candle picture, so here he is being silly and trying to "fake it" for me:

Here's the bday boy posing with his two favorite guys!

Opening presents with the help of his favorite cousin! (these 2 love each other!!)

Enjoying his strawberry birthday cake, his choice, don't know where that idea came from!

He got to celebrate his actual birth-day at pre-school with all of his little friends.  He loved getting to wear the birthday crown!

Getting sung to.  He's so funny, he's so shy, yet you could see him beaming at the attention.

I "made" ice cream cups with super hero suckers popping out the top.  He wanted ice cream to take to school and I was more than happy not to bake!

Then, later that afternoon, we had three friends over to celebrate with a few games and more ice cream.
Here's our superhero tower that was knocked down (in the backyard) by the marshmallow shooters below. (thank you pinterest!)

Another pinterest find, water balloon pinatas!  These guys were harder to pop then we thought they would be!

 The birthday guests!

 The "cake" is a box of vanilla ice cream with re-used decorations from the cake my sister made and it's surrounded by all of Thomas' favorite ice cream toppings.

Uh-oh!!!  Here's Thomas with two of his friends from church (they are also in mom's group with him and our weekly home group).  If you ask him if he has a girlfriend, he will shyly answer that it's the sweet one on the right!! (just had to note that for the future!)

And here's his best buddy!  These two crack me up!  They have so much fun running around together.  Can't wait to see them grow up together.

Oh my sweet Thomas, what a love you are!!  I praise Jesus for you everyday!!