New Pirate Ship

5/31/08 We got to choose a VERY special Christmas gift this year from Aunt Barb, Uncle Hugo, Katie and Fabian. It arrived and the boys couldn't wait for Daddy to build it, although Nick did patiently wait with his construction hat on for about 2 minutes.
The boxes were great fun!
And the boys did some "chores" while trying to pass the time. Alex loves to water the apple tree.
Finally, they started trying to help. Here they are dragging the stairs over to Daddy.

They couldn't wait for it to be totally together before trying it out a little.

That is true happiness!

Alex really likes the telescope.

"Dis is a fun slide, Mommy"

Finally all together!

Haircuts . . .finally

5/23/2008 Leaving Cookie Cutters. Alex looks so different without his curls!
Nicholas likes his balloon.
5/24/2008 At their favorite restaurant -- The FIRE restaurant (aka The House of Japan)
The fire restaurant has a nice little garden that the boys like to run around in.
And there are benches to climb on!

The Rest of a Week Off

5/22/2008 Planting the Garden

Teamwork rules!

5/22/2008 COSI. Building house 1 of 2.

Knocking house 1 of 2.

Building house 2 of 2.

Knocking house 2 of 2.

Nick having a blast at COSI

Alex having a blast at COSI

5/21/2008 At home playing with all our new birthday toys.

5/20/2008 They wanted to ride the carousel at the Zoo, but weren't quite ready to ride a horse. Here we are on one of the benches going around and around.

Actual Birthday

5/19/2008 My boys are 3 years old! We went outside early to play with one of their new toys.We're inflating the Bounce House.
Alex and Nick love to jump, run and dance in the Bounce House
Their fourth and final birthday cake for their 3rd birthday (not counting all the practice cakes in the months leading up to their birthday).

Chuck E Cheese Birthday Party

5/18/2008 - Alex and Nicholas at their Chuck E Cheese Party. They really liked the balloons.
Nick playing the popcorn game
Alex trying to wait patiently - and trying to see past his ridiculously long hair
Nana won a few tickets for them. Their favorite "game" is the one where you feed all the tickets to the machine that chomps them up and prints a receipt. I had a bunch of ticket receipts for 4 tickets - Nicholas especially loves to feed the machine the moment he gets new tickets.

Alex looking very stressed because Nick was in the process of sticking his hand in Alex's pirate cake. Nick had a sand castle cake (Thank you, Family Fun Magazine for the cake ideas).

The boys with Chuck E. Alex gave him 5, Nick ignored him. Nicholas is terrified of the Chick- Fil-A cow, so I was pretty relieved that he didn't freak out when he met Chuck E.

The boys got their pirate ships.

Is it May Already?

5/16/2008 "Is it really too late to go outside??" Yes, it is too late to go outside once you have already had a bath.
5/11/2008 At Nana's and Pop-pop's on Mother's Day. Alex, Cassie and Nicholas watching a train going down the tracks.
Alex holding Belle.
Nick playing with Pop-pop's camera.

5/4/2008. This is the sad face we get from Alex when we can't give him what he asks for.

The Rest of April

4/27/2008 - When you see a picture like this, you may think that my children have no toys. Don't be fooled. Sometimes, they'd just rather play with laundry baskets to make a train than play with their toy trains. This laundry basket train was eventually connected to their walk-in Thomas train.


4/25/2008 An unseasonably hot day in April made for some fun with water.
Alex looking a little afraid of the mist
Nick doing what he does best - running!

4/6/2008 Alex with the giant, life-sized monster he made at school

Nicholas with his monster

Michael's Birthday

4/13/2008 - Michael's Birthday. He had a great party and got lots of Star Wars stuff - including 5 or 6 light sabors.
It is amazing to me how a child who really doesn't actually eat any cake still can look this messy.
Alex enjoyed a bite of ice cream
Cassie really liked the cupcakes.

Arghhh, me maties

The Boys are really into pirates lately. If everything could be about pirates, dinosaurs and trains, they would be continuously happy. 4/12/2008 - Here they are dressed like pirates
5/19/2008 Here are the pirate ships they got for their birthday.
Here's Alex dressed up in a different pirate costume -- not sure how I feel about the sword, but luckily, so far, he's not caused too many problems with it.

The boys arre really comfortable with pirate jargon. After they got the pirate ships for their birthday, we heard nothing but the typical pirate 3-word- phrases. I tried to make up a few new ones like - "Clean yer toys!" and "Swab da Kitchen!" and "Eat yer peas" but they just didn't catch on.

I'll try to add a video soon.