Josiah turns 4!! Part two

For Josiah's birthday party day, we spent the afternoon at Cantigny Park, which has all these real tanks parked around the park and kids can climb them. They had a GREAT time. 

We also went inside the war museum, which was an amazing place (and totally unexpected! We had not really heard about it).

Here's Josiah inside the museum, listening to the soldier talking as part of a display. He was mesmerized. 

Josiah turns 4!! Part one

Here's Josiah on the morning he turned 4!! Isn't he precious! He is holding his new little birthday badge, which was Batman and it said "Birthday Hero."

His day-of-birthday mini-cake with our little family. This was after we ate dinner at his fav restaurant: CiCi's Pizza, which features mac and cheese pizza (gross :) ). He had a GREAT time. I also let him and Avery play a few driving video games and that was a big highlight of the evening, too.

Sunshine and Tiger Lilly come visit

Josiah's preschool has two guinea pigs, Sunshine and Tiger Lilly, and every weekend one of the kids gets to take them home. One weekend it was our turn!! They had a great time feeding them carrot sticks and cucumbers (a great way to use up the curly weird-shaped ones off my vines). They were sweet little animals and the boys really loved it.

Avery in Awanas

Here's Avery in his new Awana's vest. He is SOOOOO proud of it. He wanted to sleep in it the first night!

He loves the program and is doing very, very well. 

"How to make apple pizza" by Josiah

Avery singing songs he learned in school

Here's Avery singing some of his kindergarten songs!!

The other morning, the boys were looking at me out the kitchen window as I was pulling out for work. We sometimes blow kisses to each other and the receiver is supposed to pretend to catch the kisses. It's very sweet. Well, Avery started putting his hands over his chest and then flinging out his arms again and again. I asked him what he was doing.

"I'm throwing my heart to you, mom." 

Could you just die at how tender and sweet my Avery is?!

Josiah starts preschool!

Here's our little man!! All ready for his first day of preschool! He loved going to school. He told me at least 6 times that they sang songs. There are only 5 kids in his class - and all boys. It should be a really fun year!!

It rained on his first day. Aren't their new little umbrellas adorable?

Avery's first soccer experience

Here are some pictures from Avery's first soccer practice. He had SO much fun!!!! It has been a great first team experience so far.

Look at that face!!!!

Sadly I have really no photos from his first game, which was a few days after that - because Mark was asked to help out and coach the second of the two games going on simultaneously and I couldn't (wo)man both the video camera and digital camera.

But we were so proud of Avery's first game!! He did great!! He was aggressive just enough - stayed right on the ball without being pushy. Got a goal his very first time in the game!! And he also had a great defensive move, kicking the other team's ball out of the way just as it was going into the goal! It was a great day.

Avery's first day of school

Here he is!! Our first kindergartener!! He was so excited about going! And happily, I did better than I thought I would. Tears the week before for me but none on the big day!

He was slightly more nervous about the whole thing when it actually came time to go in!

Josiah's so proud of his big brother! Not too many more days from now and we'll be packing up Josiah for his own first school experience - preschool!!! 

August events - boys in the backyard

I spent some time one afternoon playing with my camera to start learning more about what it can do. Here are some of those photos.

August - a second afternoon at the zoo

For Mark's birthday, we bought a membership at the Brookfield Zoo so that we wouldn't feel pressure about trying to see all of the giant zoo in one trip. So I took the boys back again a few weeks ago and that time we went in the butterfly exhibit. Over 300 butterflies loose in net-enclosed room. It was really fun and one landed on Avery's head for a little while!

Look how close Josiah got to the butterflies! They were beautiful.

Josiah checking out the dolphins from the windows near the bottom of their tank.

 Checking out their height compared to the dolphins.

Added in August...but happened in July

As part of my attempt to upload all these photos from the last month or so, I'm adding these, too. They were taken in late July, I think.

August events - playing in the yard

These are just some really fun photos from one Sunday afternoon.

I love how satisfied Avery looks right here. He had just finished sliding all the way to the end of the slip-n-slide.

So thoughtful. I think he was checking out a bug.

August events - dad's birthday

Man I am so behind right now. Sorry, folks! 

I am going to take this in bite size pieces to get caught up. First, back in the beginning of August, we took a family trip to the Brookfield Zoo to celebrate Mark's birthday. It was awesome! 

We got to pet stingrays and see sharks up close at the Stingray exhibit. That was very, very cool. 

This second picture is the boys in the monkey house.

Father's Day and good news

We had a great Father's Day this year, despite Mark's having to work most of Sunday.  The best part: ice cream cake from Dairy Queen!! 

Great news for me from the neurologist. The MRI confirmed no masses and the facial pain I've had since college is indeed trigeminal neuralgia, caused by "vascular loops" that are pushing against the trigeminal nerve. It's great to finally have a cause pinpointed. There's no reason to think the pain will worsen and this kind of situation can be surgically fixed if the pain got unbearable (well, unbearable for longer periods of time anyway, rather than the short periodic bursts). Medication can help control the pain. More information at www.fpa-support.org

Fruits of our labor

Check it out, dad!! Here are the zinnias and cosmos that we planted not even a week ago!

Here are my lettuce and broccoli rows...dad, we just planted this broccoli not two weeks ago!! Wow!! And I tasted some of the sprouts today (I read somewhere they have MAJOR antioxidants) and they tasted just like real broccoli. Imagine that!

Here is a shot of my summer squash and another of the last of our peonies. Don't you just love it!

Update part 3

And the last update for today (I promise to do better next time and not let it go so long...this has taken me ALL NIGHT to do).

Granny and Papa just left on Sunday. The boys have certainly had a GRAND time (wink, wink) in the past couple weeks. Right now they're with Nana and Grandpa and totally lovin' it. Swimming like fish and playing with their beloved "Nan" (remember when Avery used to call Nana that?) and Grandpa.

Granny and Papa were here for almost two weeks and it was a wonderful time. Lots of grandparently things to do: parks, bike rides, baking cookies and then letting the boys wash the cookie sheet in the sink afterward (man, they thought that was AWESOME! Josiah was so excited about it that he wanted to make sure he was *actually* doing it when Dad came home. So he watched the cartoon until Dad's car pulled up and then ran into the kitchen to finish scrubbing, just so he would be on task when Dad walked in the door.). They colored and colored some more. And went to the Cosley Zoo. It was a wonderful trip for everyone.

Here they are just as they were leaving Wheaton to meet Nana and Grandpa at Bloomington to trade the boys over. There was a storm brewing here. Isn't their hair a riot??!! And check out Josiah's eyes in the 2nd pic.

Update part 2

Here is Josiah discovering drinking out of a can and V8! He liked it!

And here's Josiah snoozing in the patio chair after a hard day's play....

And here he is napping on Papa's lap last week....

This is typical for Josiah: run and play 150 miles per hour until you just crash from sheer exhaustion. 

You have to love it about him.