Melissa and Brandon are on their way...

In less than an hour these two will be at our house!! We can't wait for a fun filled weekend with them!! And at this point we're practically pro's at hosting visitors, so the rest of you can feel free to book your flights now! ;)

Mom, Dad and Kevin's Visit Day 1

WARNING: Longest post EVER!! But don't worry, I think it's worth reading!

Mom(Grandma), Dad(Grandpa), and (Uncle)Kevin got here last Friday evening. We picked them up from the airport and brought them home for a yummy dinner of Steak Salad. They were pooped from flying all day so we mostly just crashed that night. But man did we get the party started the next day. It started off with our traditional Easter Egg Hunt and Easter Baskets from the Easter Bunny...

Landon's first Easter and his very first Easter Egg!

Tanner found an egg too!

Landon checking out his Easter Basket.

The Easter Bunny even remembered Mom and Dad and Kevin!

Tanner was SO excited about what the Easter Bunny brought him!

Grandpa and Tanner

Dean and Kevin got marshmallow guns that proved to be LOTS of fun!

Our little family...we had to take advantage of the few extra hands to take a picture of all of us!

Then we ate breakfast and headed into Pittsburgh for some fun. We had reservations to ride the "Gateway Clipper" for a Three River's site seeing cruise. But first we headed up the Monongahela Incline for the scenic overlook of the city...

Landon got to ride in style!

This boy got some serious spoiling and won his way into everyone's hearts with his cuddles and kisses!

At the Incline.

Going up!

Kev, Landon and Andrea riding the incline.

Mom and Dad on the incline.

Dad and Tanner checking out the city.

All of us at the top.

This was our awesome view! Thanks for the panoramic Kev!

Then we headed over to jump on our river boat for our one hour site-seeing tour of Pittsburgh...

In front of the boat...Tanner refused to look at the camera. At this point we were WAY past nap time!

Mom and Dad on the boat enjoying the breeze.

Andrea, Dean and Landon on the boat...notice the bridge behind us!? We went under LOTS of bridges!

Kevy and Tanner sporting his shades.

Landon had to borrow Tanner's sunglasses to get his cool on too!

Mom and Landon

My Mom actually took this shot. I have to give her credit cause it's amazing! Most the time we just make fun of her cause she struggles taking pictures, but man not this time!

The weather cooperated and we learned a few things...like that Pittsburgh has more bridges and more rivers than ANY OTHER CITY in the WORLD! Impressive huh!? Venice is second. Then we headed to the "Almost Famous" Primanti Brothers' Restaurant for an early dinner. This is a must when visiting Pittsburgh. My parents have been before but it was a first for Kevin!

They're known for putting the fries on their sandwiches and it's very tasty!

On the way home we stopped at the local park to show Kevin our stomping grounds...

Our fun at the park came to an abrupt halt when my Mom tripped and scraped up her knee really bad. It was a pretty big bummer actually because it hurt her for the rest of the trip!

This somehow happened through her pants and didn't even tear them! Crazy! Tanner was so cute and very worried about Grandma for the rest of the trip.

And if you think that sounds like a full day just wait! (That's if you're still reading of course!) We headed home to celebrate Landon's 1st Birthday! It's technically not his birthday till May 4th but since it's so close we decided to celebrate early while more people were here to party! We opened presents and had cake and ice cream. Landon's always had a very "croaky" voice so he's fondly known as our little froggy. So in honor of our "little Frog" we had a frog themed birthday...

The frog cake. A bit of a combined effort on Dean and I's part. Mostly me, but he wrote the words and helped sculpt the frog out of rice crispy treats. I was pleased with how it turned out.

And of course I had to appease my current obsession and we had frog cake pops too!

Landon with his frog birthday shirt and his stuffed, singing froggy.

Opening presents. He got a lot of great stuff from a lot of people who love him! Thanks everyone!

Blowin' out the candles. We've been practicing but he just couldn't quite blow hard enough to make it go out. So he got a little help from Mom.

Landon loved the cake and ice cream so much he even licked his plate and finished off with a big, "YUM!" I'd say it was a success!

And what's a birthday without the birthday door!? LOVE this boy! He definitely has us all wrapped around his little finger. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUD!

And that's it! We had a great day and you'll have to wait to hear about Day 2...

Counting down the hours...

until these guys get here tomorrow!

We have some fun things planned, but mostly we're just excited to spend some time with them before Kevin takes off on his mission next month! Yikes! Can he really be that old!?

The Boys Room

Well when we moved in I posted a million "before" pictures of our house with a promise to someday post some "after" pictures, but it's a LOT harder to come by "after" pictures! Ha! The boys room was already painted a color that I like so I decided to finish up a little decorating and call it done for now. So here is the first set of "after" pictures...

These pictures pan the whole room. (click to enlarge them!)

And then some close ups of my favorite things about their room...

I can't even remember where I saw this quote but I knew at once it HAD to go in the boys room somewhere. I LOVE it because it's not been over done, but it says it perfectly! Also you might notice the boys blacked out window. It's actually vinyl in an attempt to keep it dark enough that they actually sleep past sunrise in the mornings. Some days it doesn't seem to matter whether it's dark or not. Grrr!

Here's a couple close ups of the collages above their beds. Their birth announcements, names (I love that they see their middle names everyday to remind them of whom they were named after!), a magnetic board, stars (I'm a sucker for stars and I already had them so they just had to go up!), their initial and the recent pictures we just took.

I'm in LOVE with this yellow truck I got from Ross a while back. And I absolutely adore these pictures of Christ. They are actually drawn by a woman from my hometown and my Mom and Dad gave them to the boys when they were born and they are perfect reminders of His love for them.

Tanner's side of the room if you couldn't tell! I may be a little obsessed with putting their names on EVERYTHING!

And we hung Tanner's chore chart next to his bed.

And we can't forget Kojo...

And Kifa...

They are like part of the family!

So there you have it. This is how the boys room will stay until they upgrade to bunk-beds down the road. But first we have to convince Tanner that he can sleep on the top bunk without being eaten by birds. No idea where he got that idea! Crazy kid!