Riser's birthday

Our little man turned two last week. The day before his birthday, we had a little party for him before small group with pizza and cupcakes. We are so thankful for all the love and community around this kid!

Last picture with our one year old baby boy.

The next morning on his actual birthday he woke up to lots of decorations and balloons (none of which I remembered to take a picture of). While Eric was at work I took the kids to the bounce house. 

It's pulling teeth to get this kid to pose for a photo. Despite the look of apprehension, he loved it. 

That afternoon after Eric got home Riser opened gifts and played with some new toys.

Bonnie was so excited to give him the homemade popsicle stick puzzle and card she made (and wrapped) for him. It was very sweet.

And the birthday wouldn't be complete without cake. It was a wonderful day celebrating an incredible kid. I can't imagine life without him. Happy 2nd birthday sonny!

Massanutten

One of my goals this year was to take one or two family trips. We have taken plenty of trips to visit extended family, but haven't really gone anywhere just the four of us. As I've mentioned before, Bonnie had been asking about snow for 2 years so we decided it would be fun to take her to Massanutten (a ski resort a couple hours away) to go snow tubing. 

The kids were SO excited to be staying in a hotel all together (some of my favorite memories as a kid too). We actually got a hotel in Harrisonburg (where I went to college) about 15 minutes outside the ski resort. It was so fun to visit my old stomping grounds - I realized I hadn't been back in over 10 years!

Once we checked in, we grabbed the snow gear and went to drop off Bonnie and Benny tubing. Riser and I watched for a little bit and then I took him back to the car so he could nap.

A very tired boy.

Bonnie was living her best life!

After tubing, we went to get burgers at one of the local spots I frequented often during my college days. Their burgers are the best! The kids particularly loved the fried oreos.

It felt like a very full circle moment now bringing my kids here.

We got back to the hotel room and changed into swim suits so we could go check out the indoor pool.

Bonnie was pumped (as was the rest of us) about this whole trip, if you can't tell. 

The pool was heated and we had it all to ourselves!

Finally we all got back to the room, showered up, got into cozy jammies and cuddled in bed together to watch a little bit of a movie before going to sleep. This was probably one of my favorite parts.

The next morning I got to show the kids where I lived for 3 years, and where I used to walk almost every day to campus.

Then we went downtown to the children's museum, which was so fun! I have no idea if this was around when I was in school, obviously it wasn't on my radar at the time.

We might have some future mechanics in the family.

After the museum, we went to get lunch and then started our road trip back home. I think we wore them out!

Truly, it was such an amazing trip all around. It was short, but the perfect length to experiment and see how they would do. I honestly can't wait to do another trip like this. And we also all agreed we want to go back to Harrisonburg! It was so fun to see it from a different lens now as a parent rather than a student.