I scream, you scream!

We all scream for ice cream! Today Gavin had a field trip with his preschool to Cold Stone Creamery. The kids learned all about how ice cream was made, watched them decorate an ice cream cake, stood in the giant freezer, and the cherry on top was that they each got to make their own creation on the giant marble slabs. What a kids dream! They were sampling ice cream left and right and the manager really went above and beyond in making us a real part of the experience. We are still coming down from the sugar high, what a healthy lunch today!

Little Scrapper

Spring hasn't officially sprung in our house until it's baseball season. This year, Cameron is on the Scrappers coach pitch team and we have been spending many weeknights and Saturday days cheering his little team on. I am so thankful for great parents that step up to coach their kids teams. His coach is so phemomenal with these kids and he has more patience in his little pinky than I have in my whole body. He makes Cameron feel like he is the greatest player on the team, and all the other kids as well- what a gift. I am slowly learning more and more about boys- they just want to get outside and run around and get dirty- that is the pure joy that little boys are made of.

I didn't want to do it...

When Cameron and Gavin were babies, Jeremy had to hide the clippers from me so I wouldn't cut their hair. They both had the famous bald spot on the backs of their heads from sleeping on their backs and it drove me nuts! I constantly wanted to even out their hair and was always buzzing it. Well, Mason never was a back sleeper, so his hair came in nice and even and curly! When I added a bit of mousse it would curl right up and look adorable. Jeremy couldn't believe Mason went a whole year without me taking the clippers to him. If it were up to me, I would have let it keep growing, especailly since everyone knows when you cut off a babies curls, they never grow back. Well this time it was Jeremy hounding me to chop Mason's hair, telling me he was starting to look like a girl. I didn't believe it until yesterday the neighbor made a comment about his femininity, and then last night the worker at Chick-fil-a called him a "her." Defeated, I pulled out the snippers and buzzed away those baby fine locks. I wanted to cry, but held back the tears. He still is dang cute, even without his hair-oh wait, now I'm talking about Jeremy...

Before:

The carnage on the floor:
After...

Summer cuts for all! Cameron got buzzed too:

And Gavin:

And something I've been meaning to mention- Notice anything missing from this sweet smile?

Mason's First Year

Nashville

We headed to Nashville for Easter this year. My sister Lisa and her family have lived there for 9 years now and I have only visited once, so it was long overdue. An eleven hour car ride was one of the reasons we have put the trip off for so long, and it was a LONG drive, but worth it once we go there and were greeted by Lisa, Jimmy and their six children. We set out on the 9th, Mason's birthday, so Lisa had prepared a cake for Mason. I'm not sure if he was more excited to eat the cake or just to be out of his carseat, but he was a happy camper when we got there and thoroughly enjoyed his sugary treat.

On Friday we went to the Opryland hotel, a place I've only heard about. It was magnificent, waterfalls and trees were everywhere, you could even ride a boat through parts of the hotel. I couldn't imagine staying there, it is so huge it would be easy to get lost. Thank goodness Jimmy knew his way around and could guide us through.

Later that day we experienced something that only the natives are usually lucky enough to experience- a tornado siren which means tornados are likely and you need to take cover. In the Allen household that usually means getting in a central closet, but since we were there there wasn't room enough for all of us, so we headed down to a room underneath the house and the kids all put on bike helmets. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty scary and Cameron especially picked up on the fear aspect of it all. The poor kid was shook up until it stopped raining that afternoon.

Easter morning the kids woke up and found their baskets, then we headed to church and had our Easter meal. After that we had an egg hunt and now our kids have enough candy to last until Halloween.

Other fun things we did on the trip were to go to Franklin, a sweet little town with lots of little shops to browse, a date night just Jeremy and I, a trip to a super fun playground, Krispy Kreme, gourmet cupcakes with mountains of frosting, and a bike ride on Sunday afternoon. We had a great time and the kids are already asking when we will go back. Mason always had someone to hold him, feed him or change him and it wasn't me! All the kids had an absolute ball with their cousins and played hard the entire time. Now that we know how much fun Nashville is, I'm sure another visit isn't too far away. Thank you Allen's for a memorable Easter visit!

One :(

Tonight we celebrated Mason's first birthday... His actual birthday is Thursday, but we will be travelling to Nashville that day so we had an impromptu party at my mom's tonight. I am trying not to think about it too much, it makes me sad. We had a crocodile cake, opened presents and just spent time together, we are fortunate that Jeremy's brother extended his visit and will be here and drive part of the way to Tennesse with us, so he was able to join in our celebration. Mason was all smiles as always and despite our attempts to practice blowing, the choked when it came to be showtime. Not to worry, he had two older brothers that knew just what to do. I know I've said it a million times, but I honestly don't know what Jeremy and I did right to have been blessed with such a sweet little baby. We sure do think he's somethin' special.

A visit with Uncle Chris

Jeremy's older brother Chris came out to visit us this weekend. He has never been to Virginia, so we were especially excited to have him come. The kids fought over him the whole time and were constantly asking where he was. He entertained them with his juggling and harmonica skills (and us too!). Chris is a big history buff, so Jeremy took him to the nearby Manassas battlefields, and today they are headed for DC, for a Tourmobile tour and most likely a stop off at the renovated American History Museum. Yesterday we dyed some eggs and roasted marshmallows. We always enjoy having visitors, come see us!