Hayden's 4th Birthday and Gatlinburg

It's been a while since I've posted anything so I have a lot of pictures for you. Hayden had his 4th birthday and we went to Gatlinburg for Labor Day Weekend. The kids are doing well. School has started and the chaos begins. During the first week of school we found out we are moving to a new house. Our housing is going to be rezoned to be enlisted housing. We are moving to a housing neighborhood about 9 miles from post. It's still military housing but the drive will stink. The good part is the house is brand new and beautiful-over 2200 sq. feet! I'll post pictures once we get settled. We are moving toward the end of September. So we have already switched Arabella to a class at her current school that will be moving to the new school when it opens in January. The new school is across the street from our house, also a good thing. Things have been a whirlwind for a while for us. Hopefully in another month or so we'll be settled in and things will get back to normal. Until then, here are some pictures to enjoy. The first ones are of Tate with good ol' red kool-aid. Our neighbor set it out for all of the kids and Tate made sure to enjoy some.

Hayden had his 4th birthday on August 27th. Here are some pictures of him opening his presents. He was so excited to get his new Wii game. Tate enjoyed the gifts as well, although he doesn't understand why he can't open the gifts. It turned out to be a great day. We took him to McDonald's playland for dinner. What more does a 4 year old want?

After school we had all of the kids in our cul de sac come over for birthday cake. Just with our 5 families we had 14 kids!

While we were doing cake for Hayden's birthday is was pouring rain outside. So after we were done and the kids went outside to play they found this water hole out by the basketball goal. They all had so much fun playing in the water together.

Just a cute picture of Arabella and Tate. He lays in her lap like this every morning for her to hold him. It's way too sweet.

So on Friday morning I have a ton of things to get done. We are leaving around lunch to go to the mountains, I have to take Hayden to school and go to Arabella's school to change her to a new class. As I am rushing to get myself ready I walk down the stairs to find this...Tate has gotten a box of blueberry pancake mix out of the pantry and dumped the whole thing into the living room floor. Of course he also had to spread it around everywhere. As soon as he saw me he knew he was in trouble and hid his face, hence the pictures. It was just one of those mom moments that had to be shared.
Here's Hayden and his best buddy Cannon on their first day of preschool.

For Labor Day Weekend we drove to the Smokey Mountains in Gatlinburg, TN to meet my parents and my grandmother. Gatlinburg is always a great place to vacation-lots of good food, tons of shopping and even a little hiking for Curtis. The weekend didn't start off so great though. As we were loading the kids in the van to leave Tate kept telling me his teeth hurt. As I got to looking in his mouth I notice red spots inside of his lip. This was to go along with the rash I had noticed the day before on his bottom. So we spent the drive with a crying toddler trying to figure what to do with him. Thank goodness Katie is a nurse and our neighbor Aaron is a doctor. It turns out he had hand, foot and mouth disease. He spent the whole weekend with blisters all over his mouth, inside and out, drooling and not being able to eat anything. He did good just to drink a little here and there. Isn't that how things always happen with kids. The rest of the vacation turned out to be great. We loved seeing our family and spending time in the mountains. Now we just need to sleep for a few days to recover from our "vacation." Here are some pictures from our trip and the first one is of Tate being sick.

Here's Hayden lounging at the hotel. I guess after a day of shopping and swimming he needs to relax a little. The kids favorite things about going on vacation is staying in a hotel and swimming in the pool. They had so much fun swimming with my parents in the pool. Arabella and Hayden had a lot of fun doing "tricks" with my dad and Curtis. Some of these pictures they're flying in the air. They're both quite brave when it comes to the water. One of the days we even managed to get Tate into the water. With him being so sick he didn't want to do anything most of the time. He was finally starting to feel better on Sunday.

These are pictures from our hiking in Gatlinburg. We of course had to get in at least one trail while we were in the mountains. We hiked up to Grotto Falls, which the kids loved standing behind the waterfall. The cool air in the mountains felt so nice that we're ready for fall to arrive now. Curtis could have spent every day hiking in the mountains but of course my mom and I had to get in our shopping time as well.