Knights and Animals!!!

 Last Saturday, we went and had ourselves a rather impromptu adventure.  We just needed to do something exciting and fun and this is what we came up with.  We got on the road early, and headed to he National Zoo in DC!!  It was a great zoo and a fairly nice day :) I loved seeing the cute, not so little panda bear!!

 The kids both said their favorite animal was the sea lion!!  The tank was pretty amazing and huge with a giant under water observation area.

 The lions were beautiful, too!!

 We had a great morning at the zoo, despite the NO parking AT ALL issue and the large crowds... However, the main event was when we had dinner at Medieval Times!!  I know...nerdy...but we had such a blast!!  Naturally, Jane had to dress up like a princess and we managed to convince Beckham to wear his knight costume the whole time!! 

 Our darling kids were a huge hit!!:) Here they are with the main knight and announcer- he was great :)

 We had great seats!! We were routing for the yellow and red knight-hehe!!

 The show was pretty amazing and kept our kids entertained the ENTIRE time!! They loved seeing the amazing horses do wonderful tricks...they were beautiful.

 The dinner was yummy, even though you had to eat it with your hands- which our kids certainly didn't mind!! We had roasted chicken, BBQ ribs, Potatoes, garlic bread, and tomato soup!!

 Jane was absolutely thrilled to have our knight throw a beautiful flower to her- hehe :)

 Here are some pictures of the knights competing in "the games".

 jousting...

 sword fighting...

This day turned out to be a lot of fun even though our night lost miserably :)!!  I love impromptu adventures :)

Jane's Art Show!!

 Jane had an art show this past Monday!!  It was based on the "Winnie the Witch" book series that they have been reading in her Pre-K class!!  My personal favorite piece was the life sized "witch" version of Jane!!  It was oh so cute :)

 Jane's beaded butterfly was a close second!!!

 This whole wall, which had the kids' butterflies on it, was Winnie's house!! They kids did the flowers at the bottom as well!

 These were amazingly cute, too! Jane sculpted and bejeweled her own pair of Winnie's glasses:)

 This was Jane's favorite piece of art- her rainbow witch cat!!

 I loved the "stained glass" butterflies.  All the art projects were so diverse and creative. I love Jane's school!!

 Here is Jane with a few of the darling books her art show was based of off!!

We are so proud of our little artist!!

I have alot of catching up to do....

 I know it has been awhile since I posted...and I have been so anxious to update my blog- cause so much has been going on.  But, I lost our camera cord to upload pictures, so I couldn't.  We had to order one from Amazon and it finally came!!  So here is a little catch-up:)

In February, I was in charge of the "Great to be 8" program for the second year in a row.  Well, I put a lot of effort into these little programs so I took some pictures of my work this time so I can always remember it!! I had 12 kids who needed to be invited.  Here are some of the cute little invitations I made.

 As a gift to the kids, I made these binders for each child with lots of fun pages on baptism inside to read and fill out so they can always remember their special day :) It took forever, but they turned out so cute.

 

 I had a tree and growth theme going here, so as a display I made this big tree which hung up at the front of the room.  Each leaf had a a goofy and a smiley picture of each child.  It was pretty cute!!

 I am in my seventh month of preschool with Beckham and his little friends.  It is crazy...but so much fun!!

 Here is my darling little class...

 My brother Bryan, his sweet wife Wendy and their cute son Jack who have lived in Brooklyn for the past year or so just moved... and I am sooooooo sad about it. So we went to visit them in February while my mom was it town.  It was such a fun trip and we had a blast together.  I am really going to miss them :(  Here we are eating at the famous restaurant, Serendipity!! Yum!!

 Here's the whole gang.  I miss this already!!

 We went to the Central Park Zoo!!  It was a lovely day and so much fun.

 The zoo had a kids portion that was a lot of fun. 

 Beckham loved pretending to be a spider on the spider web.

 Later, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe...a long time tradition of the Harper family!!  It was the BEST!!

 Of course we made a trip to the Disney store and Toys R Us!!  I am really going to miss these quick trips to NY and spending time with my brother and his family.  It was a very special time for me to spend so much time with my wonderful brother.  I haven't been able to do that for a very long time and he is the BEST and I have been really grateful for this time with him and his fam!!

 My good friend, Christa came back to Dover for a day or so to meet her hubby who came back from deployment!!!  It was so fabulous to see her again!!

 I have met and become friends with some amazing ladies here is Dover!!

 Jane got a book from the library called Fancy Nancy, Tea Party!!  This book inspired Jane to really want to have a tea party- a  fancy one!!!

 So we made fancy plates and place mats together and i planned a family tea party for dinner!! The kids helped me a lot to make this party, extra fancy!!!

 The kids dressed up as a knight and a princess and we had a fabulous tea party!! We had finger foods, goodies and even a yummy fizzy drink with sherbet in it!!!  We all had a blast!!

So that is the update on us-sorry it took so long!! 

1 year older and wiser too...

 Ryan is officially living his LAST year in his 20's-hehe!!  Unfortunately, that means I am doing the same thing-boo!! However, because this was such a special birthday I wanted to do something fun and unique for Ryan's birthday!!  So, I made a "birthday game" with a scavenger hunt, clues to guess what his presents were and each present represented a reason why we love him!! I also had a very special "memories" present for him that he really loved!!  I think we all had a lot of fun playing Ry's birthday game! :)

 During the scavenger hunt, Ryan found his amazing new pillow!!  He loves it :)

 Of course we had a HUGE, DELICIOUS chocolate cake!!!

 I just really love this guy!!  He is the BEST husband and daddy ever and I am lucky to have him in my life!!  Now that the birthday was a hit- I hope we can make the rest of this year just as fabulous :)

I skipped over something BIG!!

 In all the holiday craziness, I forgot to blog about a very special day in November.  On November 23rd of 2012, Ryan and I were married SEVEN YEARS!! The pictures above were some of our engagement pictures from 2005!!!  We looked pretty good in those days :)!!

I wrote Ryan while on his mission and though I dated and tried to live my life while he was away, there was no other guy that I dated who could top him.  So, I was super excited to get to know him again when he returned.  And I was even more excited when we got engaged!!  Here is a picture from our reception and one of my bridals!!

 

 Two sweet babies...

 ...five years at Crestline...

 ...and one move across the country later and I am still super grateful to be married to Ryan. He is a wonderful father and and a sweet husband!!! 

Here's to many more happy years together!!

Playing Catch-Up!!

 In December, the Dick family was signed up to clean the church.  This was a cute picture we took right before we went into the church to get started :) Golly, I have cute kids!!

 As you can imagine, the kids were a lot of help...

 I had my 29th birthday in December and it was wonderful!!  The family and I decided to go to DC and see the Christmas lights and Nativity collection they have there.  And of course make a much needed trip to Cafe Rio...oh how I miss living close to one!!

 Aaaaaaahhhhhhhh Cafe Rio....... heaven in a burrito!!

 Jane wanted her picture taken in front of the pink tree :) What a cutie!

 The DC temple is truly beautiful!!

 Here are Ryan and Beckham looking at the many unique and beautiful nativities from all over the world.

 More at the visitors center...

 I absolutely love going to the temple.  It was the perfect activity for my Bday.  Whether it is to go to the temple or to the visitor's center, I always get the same wonderful feeling of peace when I am there.  I am so grateful that the gospel is a part of my and my family's life!!

 These are the amazing flowers, Ryan surprised me with on the morning of my birthday.  What a sweet hubby I have!!

 

 I had so much fun going to the outlets to get some much needed clothes for church with my birthday money!!  Ryan was as usual extra sweet and took the kids for a treat so I could look in peace for a bit.  I think they had a good time...:)

Now on to the good stuff. Christmas Eve was so fun, filled with our usual traditions!! Beckham loved his super hero jammies he got from our Elf on the Shelf as a goodbye present.

It wouldn't be Christmas Eve without our wonderful shepherd's dinner!!

This is the perfect time to remember the Savior's birth and the true meaning of Christmas amongst all the talk of presents and Santa Claus!!

Jane and Beckham of course scattered our reindeer food all around our yard to help attract Santa's reindeer to our house.

Christmas Day was so fun and exciting.  Our kids came rumbling into our room at 6:15 am.  We figured we might as well just get the party started right then.  Stockings were first!!

Jane got a lot of Merida items for Christmas, including a Merida blanket.  She loves Merida, so she was a happy camper!!

I made the kids these pictures of the temple to have in each of their rooms :)

Beckham's Grandma Jean made him an awesome spider man blanket which he thought was super cool!!

Grammy made Jane a beautiful bedskirt!!  She thinks she has the most amazing princess bed in the world now!

Santa brought our kids new bikes this year and they were thrilled and couldn't wait to go for a ride.  Luckily it wasn't too cold :)

We were all tuckered out after all of this excitement, but it was another wonderful Holiday season for the books!!

Happy New Year!!! 2013 is going to be great!!