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great day yesterday

Ended up having an amazingly beautiful day with a high of 81 degrees yesterday for Alex's birthday.  He went to school with chocolate cupcakes and orange sprinkles and came home with a happy birthday crown with orange glitter (sense the orange theme here!!).  We met our playgroup friends at our favorite park with more cookies and happy birthday songs to Alex.  All the kids played so great together for almost 2 hours - Ben was so hot, thirsty and tired toward the end.  Daddy came home early for dinner and a frosting-less cake (at Alex's request).  When he went to bed he said it was his best birthday ever....awww....

      

Alex Turns 5!!

So hard to believe this little guy could be five years old!!

and here is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th birthday boy pictures as well!! 

Happy birthday Alex....    

jacob and birthday party

On Friday, the boys and I drove up to Gburg to get cousin Jacob.  He was coming for a sleepover for the weekend.  Alex was ecstatic.  On Saturday we had a kid party planned for Alex's 5th birthday and he was so excited to show all his preschool friends his cousin Jacob.  In fact, he had brought a picture of Jacob into class on Friday for Show and Tell so they would all know who he was when they arrived (and funny enough they all did!!).

As per usual when the cousins get together, the first night was mass excitement.  They finally fell asleep (all in the same room with Jacob in a sleeping bag) at 10pm and were up at 5 am (yes FIVE)....

Alex had invited 5 boys from his preschool class (and one girl..my good friend Rachael's daughter).  Most of these boys also go to our church as well, so Alex pretty much sees them every day except Saturday!!  The day was gorgeous and so all my careful planning of craft projects and games was thwarted and they pretty much played outside.  Gary was the Master of Ceremonies (led them all many rounds of Motorcycle, Motorcyle, Truck as opposed to duck, duck, goose) and they all went home after lunch and cupcakes looking happy and exhausted.  Alex was a great host and thanked everybody many times for presents and for coming to play.  Jacob was a hit and fit right in with all the kids.

Jacob and Alex played great together and had such fun.  They really are so cute and very loving to each other.  It is fun to watch.  Ben kept up well with them and clearly loved trying to hang with the big boys.

On Saturday night they went right to bed and I went in to check on them at about 10pm and I found that Ben had gotten out of bed and went to curl up at the end of Jacob's sleeping bag....so sweet.

On Sunday we went to church and the boys went to Alex's Sunday School class.  Gary then made some sandwiches and took Jacob and Alex to the Zoo for a picnic and a couple hours.  Later that afternoon, I met David about 30 minutes north to drop off Jacob.  A fun and tiring weekend!!  We look forward to having Jacob again soon and maybe can come next time.

....the bed has arrived

We got a call last week that the bunk beds were in.  I was totally not at all prepared to get them TWO months early...they had said the end of April and I was fine with that.  I knew once we got them delivered there was no way the boys would just leave them alone and continue sleeping in their old beds!!   Gary and I had many discussions about whether to move the boys back into the middle bedroom (had been the nursery)...which was painted yellow.  The loft bed/bunk bed fit much better in that room and for other various reasons (mainly the ridiculous amount of noise the treadmill - directly underneath the blue bedroom - makes when Gary is jogging on it at 6:30am) we decided to make the yellow bedroom their new room.  I had a brief brilliant idea to paint the room orange...but that idea was discussed at length and put on hold indefinitely!!  I still need to get curtains (and I'm taking those wood shutters out).  I plan on getting some denim room darkening ones that I can just pull back and forth - but first I have to find some that I like.

I really like the way it turned out and so far the boys are loving these beds.  I'm particular to Ben's bed - it's like a little cave in there.  Absolutely perfect for Ben.  It's also where Gary does his evening storytime (which explains why my picture is so dark and grainy).