Our oldest Turns 13!

Well, Colten is almost and officially 13! It's seriously hard to believe that my first born is a teenager!

We decided (for this milestone birthday) to ask Colten what HE wanted to do for his birthday this year. He gladly dreamed up his very own birthday.

His requests:

Burdette Park

Sleepover

Invite all of his friends

North Huskies Cake
Oh and he wanted me to smash it in his face

So we did just that! Here are some pics of our time out at Burdette :)

I mean you could definitely caption this!!

He LOVES his sister!

Those black circles...welcome to your teenage years son! Staying up late! Not enough Sleep! Welcome to 13!

Me right before walking out to smash colten (as per his request by the way) with cake!

I don't seriously think he THOUGHT I would DO IT!

I mean you see him leaning into the cake right!!

It was definitely a fun filled day (even though the weather didn't cooperate) with birthday fun, cake and we finished up the day with a game of baseball :)


Happy #13 Colten!!!

Ryker Wayne | 6 months

Ryker Wayne | 6 Months

How big is Ryker?

age: 6 months

clothing: 6-9 months



Milestones:

Ryker, you are scooting! It's not quite a crawl but more like a flat on your belly get where you need to go. We love it! It's adorable how quickly you picked up on pushing yourself around with your big toe! You can move from one side of the family room to the other within a matter of seconds.

Foods you love to eat:

Rice cereal
Sweet Potatoes
Prunes

You are still on a kick with not wanting to eat a whole lot besides rice cereal. We have wasted so many baby foods. But we now know that you favorites are rice cereal, sweet potatoes and prunes. So we will stick with those until you are a little older. 

Teething. It is terrible. But you are taking this very well. No fevers or anything like that, but you are working really hard just trying to pop two little teeth out. We can see them under your skin. We can't wait to see your smile with two little teeth.

You are scooting. Just little scoots here and there but you are definitely scooting. We are looking forward to needing to keep the floors super clean, picked up and baby safe!

  

A Day in the Life:

Babbling! You babble all day every day. The first babble out of you mouth was "Buaaa" Just "Buaaa" It sounded almost like you were trying to say baba. Like bottle. We love it. 

You hold your own bottles. You let us know when you are tired by whining. You are getting so big!

You are still on the same sleep schedule. Nothing has changed in that department.
 

Your family loves you:

Tyler has all of a sudden become very interested in you. He really wants to hold you all the time now. I think it's because you are bigger and can look at him, smile at him and almost communicate with him in a way. I think Tyler is less scared of hurting you now that you are bigger.

Morgan still loves to get down on the floor and play with you. It's like she's just your size when she does so.

Colten continues to be your protector. Anywhere you are I can find Colten right beside you.

Note from Mom:

Your growing into such a handsome little guy. You consume most of my time. Daddy has a little sparkle in his eye everyday that he comes home from work. You aren't just a little baby anymore. You smile HUGE when daddy comes through the door from work now. It's adorable. You are a doll! We love you so much! I have seriously failed to jot down or keep records here lately regarding your weight etc. because you are seriously on the move. gogogogo. I LOVE it.

Watch Me Grow:

Road Trip + Cousin's Birthday Fun

My brother and his family just recently moved (temporarily) to Bowling Green, Ky. That is around 2 hours from where we live in Evansville. We were excited to hear that they would be so close. Not long after they moved, we were invited to celebrate Max's birthday at Chuck- E- Cheese! The kids were ecstatic! So we got to road trip along with Nana and Paw Paw Weycker to Chuck - E - Cheese in Bowling Green.

Some pics from the party! We seriously were too busy having fun we only got these:

Aunt Jessica

 

 

 

Aunt Stefanie

Uncle Cj, Max and Morgan catching tickets in the ticket machine

Happy Birthday Max!

~ Our Shank Family

Easter Basket Hunting : A Family Tradition

Here's a little back-story and a how-to for Easter Basket Hunting passed down from my Dad and Step-mom to us kids:

When I was growing up we didn't just get Easter baskets. My parents didn't like it to be that easy. So what they did is made us find them. The older we got, the harder the hunt was. The more we had to use our brains to put together the pieces to find our baskets.

The How To:

There is always a starting location for each kid. Let's use Tyler's for example. Tyler's first label started in his room. So you take a sticky note and write a (go here message). His first message was stuck to the mirror on his dresser:

Not my images - I totally forgot to take photos of the easter basket hunt. I found this on creative ramblings and along with it - a christ centered easter basket hunt that I will start implementing when the kids get to a certain age to be able to follow it. Next year - Colten will end up following this one. Find link to Creative Ramblings at bottom :)

This is where you get nice and clean. ---> next label would be stuck inside the shower.

The next label will say:

This is where you say 3 prayers each day ---> next label would be stuck to the dining room table.

The next label will say:

This is where mom washes all your stinky socks ---> next label will be inside the washing machine lid.

And we would do about 20 labels per child. The goal is to tire them. Wear them out. So we would put label upstairs that would be connected to a basement label that would be connected to second story then upstairs again and so forth. They ran around like crazy kids for around 5 minutes each to find their baskets!!

It's always so fun to keep a family tradition alive :)

We love this tradition and hope one day our kids will continue to pass it along :)

Here is the link to "Creative Ramblings" the "Christ" centered way for an Easter Basket Hunt.

~ Our Shank Family

Our Shank Family {2015 Family Portraits}

 Our Shank Family 2015


Our 2015 Family Portraits are here! We are excited about adding new photos to a blank wall {we've purposely kept blank for this photo shoot} and I can't wait to get these images up!!

Sharin (32) Kale (28) Colten (12) Tyler (9) Morgan (3) Ryker (5 mo's)

We will be printing and sending pics to family :)

~ Our Shank Family