Days with the Dorans

So my dad's birthday happens to fall the day after Goosie's which is fun because my dad's nickname for Goose is "Best Buddy" and Zach also has my dad's middle name (Robert).  My dad comes and gets the kids on the bus Wednesday through Friday and Friday was his birthday so I made him a birthday sign too (it's his second 35th birthday) and it was also special because he was taking the kids out of school for a Tiger game!  For whatever reason (we think it was because Joe couldn't find a Tiger shirt and we were trying to tell him just to wear Ali's jersey- but he didn't want to because it was a 'girls' even though it didn't matter) Joe opted not to go to the game... So my dad took the Middles and they had a BLAST!  Al kept score through 8 innings, they got free (nice) hats and backpacks and things AND they took in a GREAT game that ended with a walk-off single!  After school (for the rest of us), we met them at CJs for a bir...

 I still can't believe my Zachy is 8!!!  I remember him being born like it was yesterday!  I was so shocked he was a boy- because if he wasn't, Jeff said there was no way we'd have any more kids (after Ali's baby days- there was no way he'd roll the dice and maybe get three girls)!  Poor Z was born in April though which always feels like our busiest time of year- dance, soccer, piano recital coming soon and crazy busy for school! His birthday fell on a Thursday and so I made a poster for him and decorated with some balloons.  He also mentioned wanting a nerf gun. I found a little cheap one at Kroger so picked it up and wrapped it for the morning.  He opted for Papa's famous eggs for breakfast and we all sang to him (I was the first to wish him a happy birthday of course because Jeff was gone to work before he woke). Z let Jeff know that he wanted Papa John's Pizza for dinner which was great because it was easy! I got home and we all ate pizza...

He'll probably kill me for this one day but I was working on report cards and Sean fell asleep next to me... like THIS! It was so funny to me that I snapped a picture.  Later he rolled over and I noticed he had his pants on backwards.  Gosh I love this kiddo!  I don't want him to grow up!

So rather than make a lot of posts for each day of our vacay, I've decided to record it in one long post.  We took many more pics that I put in a video (at the end of this blog) but these will be enough for our book.  As I mentioned, we got in town late after visiting friends and when we woke up Easter Sunday there were eggs hidden and baskets out! The kids were excited that the bunny found them and were left some candy, some of those cool pens that write with all the colors, a vacation journal and glasses in "their" color (as in the color Santa wraps their present in... Well Ali's weren't pink but red~ close enough).  Later that morning, we went to church at Barefoot Church, a Progressive Christian Church (I've read about these and do wish we had one closer as I think I would really like it!). The overall service was great (Jeff was taking notes through the whole thing- mostly ideas to take back to our church). The sermon was good but really lo...