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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).

unexpected joy......snow!!

We got some totally unexpected snow yesterday (supposed to be sleet and freezing rain).  It was really WET snow with HUGE flakes and around 2pm when it stopped we had about 6 inches.  It did start to melt quite quickly when around 4pm it started drizzling.  It was a ton of fun while it lasted though.  We had gone to church and driving home after sunday school around 11:20am the roads were HORRIBLE.  Alex and Gary went sledding down various hills and discovered that the snow wasn't so great for sleds or saucers, so they came back and made a big snowman, which the snow was PERFECT for.  Ben "helped" me shovel.  He went down on the saucer with Alex once and he did seem to enjoy himself, but didn't want to go down again.  Alex, Mr. Snow, could've stayed outside forever just playing in the snow, making snow angels, sliding down the hills on his bottom, forming snowballs and throwing them at anything and everything. 

We had quite the busy weekend.  On Saturday, Gary went skiing with Alex again (this is the 2nd trip they've taken since we got back from our week in Utah skiing).  Gary said Alex was amazing.  He's totally comfortable getting on and off the chairlift and goes down the trails with ease.  At the top of one trail, Alex told Gary to go down one trail and Alex would go down another and they would then meet at the bottom!!  Gary, thankfully, said he didn't think so.  Then Alex wanted to enlist Gary into making a "pattern" while they ski - they both would crisscross the mountain on opposite sides and then meet in the middle (like making figure 8's on the slopes).....Gary said that worked quite well.  Alex came home happy and excited of his accomplishments.  Alex will crisscross the mountain when the terrain is steep and knows to go straight to pick up speed on the flatter surfaces.  He stops great and when he does fall (which isn't often), he picks himself right back up with no complaining and just keeps going down.  I just love that this is something he and Gary can do together...

luck...

Sitting here watching the snow come down again....what crazy weather it is.

Here is our before-church picture....the only picture I took and it turned out perfect!!

   

cabin fever....

No preschool again today as the county was on a 2 hour delay for the public schools.  So seeing as Monday is President's Day, we essentially had our first Spring Break holiday.  In order to fight off the major cabin fever we were having (since we haven't left our home since we arrived home early from school on Tuesday), we braved the cold and ice to meet our playgroup friends at our church (and preschool) gym.  The Preschool director was there and was nice enough to unlock the preschool toys (including the heavy-duty bikes) and all was well!!  The boys had a blast playing with their friends.  We brought a picnic and played for a couple hours - kicking the soccer ball, playing basketball (as the hoops were down) and then riding the bikes.  Ben rode with Alex pretty much the whole time and the smile on his face was huge.  Here are some pictures!!

happy valentine's day...

The boys and I had a blast playing in the snow making a snowman (which was sort of like making a snowman out of ice cubes with the consistency of the little snow that we had).  Anyway, this picture of the boys and I (hard to get everybody in the frame when you are trying to hold the camera at arm's length) is especially for my dad!!

Here are some picture of the snowman we made.  Alex spent most of the time gathering snow from around the yard in the shopping cart as it was hard to make a somewhat substantial snowman with 2 inches of snow (or rather ice pellets) on the ground.  So he would gather the snow and bring it to me.  Ben was cold so spent most of the morning watching us through the window.

Freezing...

Yes, I know it is about time that I am updating this.  Frankly, I am so busy.  Absolutely loving being home with the boys daily and not quite sure why I didn't do this sooner.  It helps that I have a wonderful group of friends that I see and do things with daily.  I really do love these ladies and cannot imagine how I lived here so long (before kids) and did not know them - especially since they have all lived here just as long as we have.

Gary is out of town, so it is just me and boys and LOTS of ice outside. Ben is still up talking, clapping and singing in his bed.  Alex is fast asleep. 

Sunday after church and Sunday school we went to the zoo for our little Sunday adventure. We brought a picnic to eat with our gloves on in the 34 degree weather.  Gary and Alex have gone to the zoo a couple times this winter, even brought Ben along once, so from the moment we entered Alex was Mr. Tour Guide.  He guided us first to the Sloth Bears.  I learned from him that they don't eat people and have long claws as they dig for roots and bugs to eat and that lots of time they have brown stuff hanging from their bottom.  The eating people comment was very amusing to Ben, who from that point on questioned loudly at every animal: "bah eat people?".  I believe that "bah" is Ben's way of saying "that."  He is talking more (and we have a speech therapist evaluation next week), but Bah is still a favorite word.

We moved on down to these otters...which didn't seem to be swimming around on this cold day (much to their dismay)....

Then the red pandas (very cool) and the fishing cat (looked like a normal house cat to me...but Alex knows all about them and claims it is his 3rd favorite animal after the sloth bear and the flamingos).

This is it and then my camera battery died.....ugh....Love my new camera, but the battery life is SO much less than my old one.  I could go weeks without recharging my old one and this one needs it every 3 or 4 days.  Oh well, we visited the flamingos who were thankfully awake this time.  And boy were they fighting amongst themselves.  Ben actually looked a bit frightened as he quietly said to himself several times "bah eat people, bah eat people". 

We got as far as the camels (which had been replaced with wild australian horses...which alex said "basically they look just like a donkey."  The elephants seem to be on vacation at Disney World while they await a new and bigger home.  Other than that, we had a great time despite the cold and we had all the animals practically to ourselves. The zoo is SO much improved in the last year and i think we might be making this a regular stop on the Sunday Adventure express.  Next week we promised Alex that we can go back to the Painting musuem as he calls it....