Celebrating with my Mama (February 22)

After an extremely busy January and February (so far), we were glad to finally get the opportunity to spend the day in Humboldt celebrating my Mama's 68th birthday with her.

Granted, "celebrating" seems to be the code word for "unsuccessfully spending all afternoon trying to get two cranky toddlers down for a nap", but we had a good time anyway :)

I think that in the course of the 6 hours we were in Humboldt, I managed to take something like 250 pictures, but I thought I'd share some of my favorites :)

I'm not entirely sure if I've mentioned before or not, but my sister Amanda makes THE BEST cupcakes.

We learned that while Cashel still only eats the frosting, Kendrick actually will eat the cake too.

All of the kids have a love/hate relationship with Uncle JJ. They adore him when they're babies, and hate him once he can start picking on them haha :) I suppose that's the curse of being the baby in a family of six kids: You never have a younger sibling to pick on, so you take it out on your nieces and nephews haha He definitely loves his little nieces and nephews, though :)


I absolutely am over the moon about my Mom's new apartment that they added on where half of the garage used to be. It's a perfect little haven for her, and I'm SO happy for her :) It's a tinge messy as she's still just getting moved in.


She has a perfect little cozy nook to read now :)

She has the most beautiful hands :)

These boys love to visit Grandma Ruth at the farm. It was nice being able to visit with her in her apartment, although the boys didn't get to stay in there long because no naps==too wild for Grandma's.


I love this woman more than words can express. It has been so difficult to watch her struggle over the past few years, but it was such a breath of fresh air to see her change in demeanor this last visit, and how peaceful she seemed in her new surroundings :)

These two just crack me right up :) We had to physically remove them from Grandma's after a while because they were just too rambunctious. Kendrick has such a telling smile lol When he's laughing and smiling this big, there's usually a tornado in his wake.


These five (and the other TEN Ropte cousins) are a force to be reckoned with. We sure missed the other cousins this trip :(

This picture perfectly captures miss Kaleigh Mae's personality haha :) My sister and her little girls :)

I'm not going to lie: We were weary by the time we got home. Somehow, Kendrick completely recharged after something like a 20 minute nap and was awake the entire 2 hour drive home. Cashel was out cold after not too long, but woke up a total crabby pants about an hour into the trip. They were both just DONE with the carseats and traveling. We made it home and gave them some snacks, and they still wanted to party for an hour. I'm sure it'll be an interesting week getting them back on track.

Even so, we had a nice visit, and the boys had a great time playing with their cousins (and eating cupcakes). We were glad that we were able to make it down, and we are looking forward to seeing everyone at the end of March together again! We missed our far-away family in 2014, and I think we've got some baby-crazy Aunts all lined up to meet Mr. Andrew. Mama Sarah may very well not see that little man very much, so I'm hoping she will be able to get some sweet snuggles in before they come :)

For now, a special Happy Birthday to my Mommy :) I hope you have had a wonderful day!