Early birthday gift



Joshua received his one and only birthday present the afternoon before the birthday party due to the fact that almost everything he was going to get at the party went with his gift from us.  He happily obliged to opening his gift early!  He was so excited to find a Nintendo DSlite under the gift wrap and boxes he could hardly stand it!  Happy birthday a tad bit early Joshua!





 Surprise, it's double wrapped!!

 So excited about his new DSlite!



Happy 3rd Birthday Matthew!!

Running through the streamers in bedroom doorway.

A little gift to start his birthday.

Birthday breakfast

Our big 3 year old!!  In some ways it is hard to believe Matthew is already 3, but in other ways it isn't.  He is such a nutty, funny, clumsy, smart, curios little boy who brightens most of our days.  He still makes us laugh daily with his antics.  His language has exploded and he catches everything.  He definitely has a stubborn side and he isn't afraid to show it.  We love our little man and are so glad God blessed us with him!

Rock Star!

Check out the rock star that went to school back in April!  He loved his spikey red hair!  By the way, this pose was all him; I told him I wanted a picture before he got on the bus and this is how he posed. 

A visit to Great Wolf

It just happened that on the nicest weekend in March we had reservations at Great Wolf Lodge.  Odd that it was pretty much the same temperature inside the waterpark as it was outside, but it was kind of nice too (no hauling luggage through snow or cold weather).  We all had a fabulous time!  Matthew is at an age where he can finally enjoy a few more things on his own making it nicer for everyone.  We wore ourselves out with tons of time in the waterpark, played a little MagiQuest and of course visited all the fun shops in the lodge too.  Great little family getaway!

They actually do get along sometimes!

Matthew loved jumping of the ledge of the pool to someone.

Crazy Joshua LOVED jumping in the water over and over!

Daddy is soaking them!

All three boys under the dumper.  Daddy held Matthew to protect him a bit.

Joshua emerges from the treehouse slide.

Here comes Matthew backwards!

Hanging out in the hot tub.

Dual slidding!

Matthew discoverd the joy of swimming on his own!

One of Joshua's favorite things....being thrown in the water.

Matthew and Mom in the pool

We just had to get ice cream at Bear Paws!

Enjoying ice cream and watching the lifeguards clean up the closed water park.

Turning on the water in the waterpark on Monday morning!

Posing with Wiley in the waterpark.

80 degrees in March!

Couldn't haul the baby pools out in March so we did the next best thing....water painted the deck and played in the water table!  More of this kind of weather is very welcome!

"Ooh Ooh NO diapies!!"

Matthew reached a major milestone one month (March) before his 3rd birthday.....he is potty-trained (during the day at least)!!!  It took all of a few hours and he had it figured out!  Way to go Matthew!!!  Below is his celebration dance! 

Welcome Gracyn!

On March 1 Gracyn Gayle made her way into the world!  We went down to meet her that night!  Matthew enjoyed holding her while Joshua really could have carried less (perhaps because Matthew hasn't really been around too many babies, while Joshua has).  I enjoyed cuddling with the little sweetie and checking out which of her features she gets from Shawn and which are from Erin.  So happy for this new little blessing added to Shawn, Erin, Owen and Aiden's family.



Little artist hard at work

Thanks to Pinterest I've found a few new "recipes" for creative activities to do with the boys, but Matthew especially since he is the one home all the time.  The first new recipe we tried was sawdust dough.  Since Cory has been working very slowly on finishing off the basement we actually had a container of sawdust that the boys had collected so we figured why not try the new sawdust dough recipe.  Matthew enjoyed measuring the ingredients and mixing, but beyond this had no desire to have anything to do with the sawdust dough.  Even Joshua said he wouldn't touch it.  Can't blame them a whole lot since it turned out very mushy and not very dough like at all.  So,this was the first and the last time we will attempt this concoction!  Next we did some sand painting.  I had done this previously when teaching preschool, but had since forgotten about this activity.  Matthew again liked measuring and mixing the ingredients, but surprisingly he absolutely loved painting with it too (rare for my little boy who doesn't like to get messy or artsy)!  More sand painting is in our future I believe.

Sifting the sawdust so we only get the finer sawdust in the dough..

Mixing up the sawdust dough.

Sanding painting.

Dripping glue all over paper in preparation for an art project a different day.

More sand painting for the child who generally doesn't like this sort of activity.

Priceless!

This came home from school a few weeks ago with Joshua after they celebrated their 101st day of 1st grade.  In case you can't read it.....

I would love to eat 101 spoonfuls of cookie dough.

I would not like to eat 101 peanuts.

My parents tell me 101 times to be nice to my brother.

I tell my parents 101 times to put my kitten in my bed.

When I am 101 years old I will be lazy.

Ha, so accurate it's funny!!

Celebrating Valentine's Day in 1st Grade

Joshua had his last class party of the year a few days before Valentine's Day.  This was the one and only party I had actually planned helping organize and run at the beginning of the year, but little did I know this would be the third party I helped with when I signed up way back then.  We kept it pretty low key, with a few simple games and some festive and yummy food.  The kids had a great time and that is what is was all about! 

Class picture

 Passing the tissue paper heart with straws.





Joshua works on his Valentine owl craft.

He can do it!

We are constantly reading to both boys, but Matthew in particular as Joshua can now read on his own.  Matthew enjoys books of most any kind.  We've read several board books about colors, shapes, numbers, but Matthew isn't forth-giving in letting us know is he is comprehending this info - generally when we ask him what something is he says, "you say it".  So, one morning he was just sitting in the chair in our bedroom and he is counting from 1 to 9!  I couldn't believe it so I asked him to do it several times just to be sure.  Funny thing is he also is understanding one to one correspondence up to 5 already too, which surprised me.  Little stinker!!  Check out the video of him counting that morning in late January.

Celebrating Sam's Birthday at Craigs Cruisers

Thanks to a bunch of gift cards among family that were won at a church "Downhill Derby Race" along with Toni and Paul's willingness to have Sam's birthday party at a venue we were able to celebrate Sam's birthday with family at Craigs Cruisers.  The cousins had a great time together and I am pretty sure Sam had an unforgettable birthday party!  We rode the go-carts and the kids played lots of games for those stupid silly prizes.  What a fun night together as family! 

 Most of the cousins wanted to ride the frog hopper ride.  Matthew was excited when he got on, but once it went up high and started to bounce he started to scream and cry.  We rescued him and let the other kids enjoy there ride void of the screaming and crying. 

 Shooting water at the target with daddy was way more fun for Matthew.

Lots of the cousins, along with Uncle Shawn and Uncle Paul tried out the bumper cars.  Joshua opted out of this activity though saving his activity ticket for the go carts.



Joshua and Gabrielle had a great time playing games together.

First snow day of 2012!

Joshua was thrilled to finally have enough snow to have a snow day on January 13.  We had to celebrate the snow day by playing in the snow of course!!  We spent quite a bit of time outside playing, having a snowball fight and building a snow fort.  With rosy cheeks we headed back inside for hot cocoa and lunch.  Thanks to Pinterest we tried to make our own snowflakes using pipe cleaners and borax dissolved in hot water.  The kids really enjoyed the project, but they snowflakes didn't turn out as cool as the ones shown on Pinterest.  Besides the throwing around of a little attitude from a certain 6 1/2 year old, who received consequences for his attitude,  we had a nice day relaxing and playing together.

Snowball fight!!

Hanging out in the snow fort we built together.

Chillin'

Making Borax snowflakes.