Explorium

Last Saturday we met up with our friends Sarah, Chris and their daughter Zoe and went to the exploreum. It was kinda for Tanner's birthday since it was the day after. Zoe kept asking all day when we were going to have Tanner's cake!

The new exhibit they have at the exploreum is Dinosaurs Alive. It's life size dinosaurs that move and one actually spits water. We thought it would be a lot cooler than it actually was. Tanner is the only kid out of the 3 who actually enjoyed it.

He always has his hands in his pockets all the time!

Tanner and Zoe, they are so cute together! Maybe when they get older they'll get married!

(It'll be funny to look back at this in 20 years and them either still be friends or actually be married!)

From smallest to largest!
Ry and me playing with the camera waiting on them to come back inside. She was over the dinosaurs and the cold really quick!
This was a dinosaur dig exhibit. They really liked doing this until the big kids came in and started throwing sand everywhere.
Trying to turn the little wheel to make the big wheel behind them turn. Just an FYI: you would have to turn the little wheel 1,000 times to make the big wheel go around once. We gave up after like 10 turns!
My precious 3 year old!
Where's Ryleigh??
After the Exploreum we walked and had lunch at Hop Jacks downtown. It's a little pizza place. Once we left there we couldn't decide on walking to the chili cook off or the boat show. Mobile had a lot going on this weekend downtown and it was such a pretty day to just walk around and enjoy it.
This is at the boat show. The Dauphin Island Sea Lab was there and these were real animals that were now dead. You could touch them and they still felt real. It was actually kinda gross, especially the octopus!

This is the way we carted them around downtown all day.
Playing with the sting rays.

By the time we left the boat show it was almost 5:00. Zoe wanted to come to our house. We didn't think she would really come but we put her carseat in Ryan's truck and she got in without even looking back at Sarah and Chris. They ended up coming over to and we cooked dinner and played with the kids until around 9. We were all so tired from walking and being outside all day! Zoe wanted so badly to spend the night but it was already so late and they had plans the next day so she couldn't. I don't know who was more upset about it, Ryleigh, Tanner or Zoe!

You can come stay soon Zoe!

Kelly, at Kelly's Korner does a blog hop every Friday called Show Us Your Life. I've never participated but this week it is "Show us your Schedule." I thought it would be fun to see a day in the life of the Stokley Family!

Our schedule literally varies depending on the day of the week. Mondays are now going to be spent at Tball practice, Tuesday is our low key day, Wednesday we have church and Thursday nights we have dance and Tball practice.

I'm going to do 2 days since ours vary wildly between the two.

So here is our Wednesday:

4:30 First alarm of the morning goes off for Ryan to get up. He is up and headed to the gym by 4:45. He works out and is back home by 6:30
6:15-my alarm goes off and I get up by 6:30
6:30-7:00 I go running
7:00-I shower/get dressed ect. Ryan gets Ryleigh up and gets her dressed for school and packs her lunch. He also cooks an insanely huge breakfast for the 3 of them.
7:45-Ryleigh and I are out the door.
8:00-I drop her off at Curves to Aunt Cheryl or Mrs. Kim. Who then walk her to school at 8:30. Thank you to you guys for doing that for us everyday!!

Ryan does different things during the day. Sometimes he goes and cuts grass for people, sometimes he stays home all day, sometimes he runs errands. If he goes anywhere he gets his mom to keep Tanner and pick up Ryleigh from school. As most of you know she used to do this everyday for us when he wasn't working weekends but now she kind of gets a break.

8:30-Get to work. Check email, get on conference call ect.

12:00-Ryan or his mom pick up Miss Priss from school

5:00-Leave work and head straight to church.

5:30-meeting at church

6:00-Ryan and the kids get to church. They get to hang out in the youth building with us until around 6:30 and then go to their class.

7:00-8:15-We are in service with the youth.

8:30-I leave church with the kids, head home, give them baths and put them to bed.

9:30-Ryan usually gets home from church by then. We usually hang out and talk since we haven't seen each other all day until around 10:30 then it's bedtime!

Thursday's mornings are mostly the same except Ryleigh doesn't have school. So when Ryan gets home from the gym he goes back to sleep. Those are the hardest days for me to get up and get motivated because when I leave at 7:45 they are all usually still sleeping. I secretly love it when Tanner (our early bird) gets up before I leave because that means Ryan has to get up!

Thursday night:

5:00-Tanner has Tball practice. I leave work around 5:15 and make it in time to see the last few minutes of his practice.

5:45-Ryleigh has dance.

6:15-We leave Tball and have about 30 minutes to kill before Ryleigh has to be picked up from dance. So Ryan, Tan and I go eat somewhere close by.

6:45-Ryan leaves from eating to go get Ryleigh and Tan and I head home.

7:00-Ryleigh is out of dance and on our way home Tanner sees the library and wants to stop. So we do.

7:30-We all make it home! We give them baths and put them to bed.

I usually do laundry on Thursday nights. Ryan washes and dries it all day then I fold it while watching my two favorite shows. I leave it in the living room and he puts it all up the next morning.

Once I read back through all of that I need to give a big thanks to Ryan! He does a lot especially compared to a lot of husbands. I would be lost without him and I'm so thankful for all his help!!

And while I'm dishing out thanks I also need to say a huge thanks to Dawn who does more for us than I think we realize! Thank you so much Dawn for all your help all the time!

Tanner's Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Tanner,

Happy Birthday to you!

Tanner's birthday was Friday and instead of giving him his present Friday night when Ryan got home we decided to give it to him Thursday night so he could play with it all day on Friday. He was so excited to get what he had been asking for...a 4wheeler!

To say that he loves it would be an understatement! It was kind of late Thursday night when we gave it to him but he still wanted to ride it. He rode to Dawn's house and then to Aunt Lisa's.
This thing actually goes pretty fast! When Ryleigh got on the back of it Tanner took off before she was holding on and she almost flew off the back of it! She was not happy about it!
After they went to sleep that night Ryan and I blew up balloons and put them all in Ryleigh's room. The next morning when they woke up they thought it was hilarious. They loved it! It's funny how such small things can make them so happy!
For breakfast he wanted pancakes so we made chocolate chip heart shaped pancakes. (I should mention that I took off work on Friday.)
He loved these to. He really likes pancakes but thought it was the coolest thing that we put chocolate chips in them and made them into hearts. I made them go sit down while I assembled the pancakes. I stacked them up and put 3 candles in them. When I turned and started walking toward him Ryleigh and I started singing happy birthday! It was so fun. Everyday since then he has asked for candles in his breakfast!
After breakfast Aunt Tammy came over and brought him his present. She got him an 18 wheeler truck that had like 10 motorcycles on the back. He really liked it!
After that he got dressed and rode his 4wheeler until the battery died. And when that happened it was not pretty! He was so mad.


I told him we would go to lunch wherever he wanted. He picked chick-fil-a so we met my friend Lindsay there and ate. The kids played for a long time on the play stuff and then we got ice cream.
OK, so now for the story of the cake. All he would say he wanted for his birthday (besides the 4wheeler) was a "Wonder Pets FlyBoat." I had no idea what that was but apparently it is from a TV show that we don't get. He watches it at mom and Dawn's houses. He also wanted a Wonder Pets Flyboat cake. (The show is actually just called Wonder Pets the Flyboat is their transportation they use to save the other animals. Amazingly it is a boat that flys...go figure!) I wish you could hear him say Wonder Pats Flyboat. He says it so fast that it all runs together. It's so funny.

Anyway, I ordered him a Wonder Pets flyboat cake from Wal Mart but when I went to pick it up the spelled his name wrong. And may I also mention the cake was $20. I told them just not to worry about it I didn't want it. The figurines and the flyboat were crap cheap plastic anyway that would be broken in 5 minutes. So What did I do??

I found a cake on the clearance cart in the bakery for $5 that had a nearing expiration date. Well we were eating it that night so no problem. Well then I needed a Wonder Pets Flyboat. I went to the toy dept and they had one left!!!

When I got home the actual toy was way to big for the cake so this is what I ended up with after a few minutes or rearranging things.

(There was a picture of the cake here and somehow it got deleted and the picture is on my laptop and I'm at work. So just imagine. You can see it from the back in the next picture.)

And this is the response we got when he saw it for the first time! It was priceless!!

And this is how much Ryleigh liked the cake!

Their actual party isn't until next Friday night. I just wanted to do something small for him on the day of his birthday!

Happy Birthday Tan Man! We love you!

Vote!

I need help deciding on which picture I like best. I found a website that gives you a free 8x10 canvas or $40 off another size. I think I'm going to get one of these made into a big canvas for our living room. I can't decide which one I like the most though. Look to the side for the poll and vote for the one you like the most!

#1
#2

#3

#4

#5

#6 (without the border and writing)

#7 (without the writing)

Thanks for your help!

Family Pictures

Here are some of the family pictures we had taken the other day. The photographer who took them is really good. I love the way they turned out! There are a few more family shots that I'll post on Wednesday because I want to see which one everyone likes the most. I think I'm going to get it blown up and printed on canvas. There are a lot of pictures! Sorry!