Schooled

As hard as it is for us to believe, another year of Aiden's preschool adventure has come to an end- and what a year it was.  For Aiden, going to school every week, hanging with his friends and hanging on every word from his teachers has become second nature- and it has been a pleasure to watch.  Despite the fact that prying information out of him about his school activities can be trickier then breaking into a bank vault, the joy that is apparent on his face every time he comes home is hard to miss.  

The end of the school year was commemorated (as so many things are) by singing- a Spring Sing to be exact.  The singing was every bit as enthusiastic and entertaining as you might imagine, and the reception afterwards had cake and picture-taking aplenty to do justice to such a momentous occasion.

Boys in the House

After about seven months of living in a house with two boys we've come to the (probably forgone) conclusion that yes, it's crazy and no, we haven't seen anything yet.  You wouldn't think that a four year old and a seven month old could cause too much of a ruckus, but somehow they manage.  They also have a lot of fun together, which is certainly great to see.  We haven't been the best about taking pictures of the two of them together over the last few months, but we're hoping to get back on track.  Here's a bunch:

April Update

Unlike in February and March there was not one "big" event that defined the month of April.  Sure we did stuff in April, but we sure didn't take a lot of pictures. So we'll have to make do with what we've got.  Also, these pictures are not the best.  Most were taken with a camera phone.  Like I said, bear with me.  And so, April:

Brady continues to become more and more mobile.  First he was rolling over. Then he was rolling over and over.  Now if you turn your head for a few seconds he'll roll himself under the ottoman and find a dog toy to put in his mouth.  Seriously, this one is going to be trouble.

April was warm, definitely warmer then usual, so lots of time was spent out in the yard and garden.  Aiden has gotten to the age now where when he "helps" in the garden the ratio of "destruction caused" versus "actual help given" comes out more on the positive end, so that's nice.  Also, there were Easter eggs in April, lots and lots of Easter eggs.  Every time we went somewhere someone was hiding Easter eggs for Aiden.  Lots of Easter eggs = lots of Easter candy, which was a-ok with Aiden.

I ran a race.  Actually the race was in the last weekend of March, but you don't know that so we'll pretend it was in April.  It was a 10k distance race, all on dirt trails.  It was super hard, but also pretty fun.

Jen continued her on-going mission to make our house look more and more amazing (she made those new curtains.)  Plus, it was her birthday!  We got to have a couple of get together birthday parties in April, and more recently we pulled out all the stops for an overnight in the city ballet birthday extravaganza.  Just Jen and I for that one.  We ate some really good food, walked around the city and saw Peter Pan at the Academy of Music.  A top notch birthday for sure.

Well that's April.  Now I can officially say were all "caught up" right? Right.  See you in May.

March Update

What'd we do in March?  We went to Florida.  That's what we did in March.  Sure, we only spent 5 days out of the whole month actually in Florida, but it was a big deal and a fun trip- so when we think of March, we'll think of Florida.  It was a great trip, short of course, but totally worth it.  We went to the gulf coast town of Fort Meyers beach, mostly because we'd been there before and really liked it.  In fact we stayed in the same hotel (even the same room) as we had before, so everything was literally just as we'd remembered it.  A+ views, beaches & pool- what could be better?  Take a look.

Aiden spent most of his time doing this:

Brady loved doing a lot of this:

And all four of us spent a good portion of every day doing more or less this:

On the last night of our stay we ventured out onto the beach at sunset to attempt to get some decent family portrait shots.  There were some false starts to be sure, but we did get some good ones in the end.  Thanks, by the way, to beach-walking lady who took pity on us, stopped, and took most these pictures. Lady, we couldn't have done it without you.  Thanks.

Mere seconds after this picture was taken both children plunged face first into the sand.  It seemed like a good idea.  Crying baby with a mouth full of sand = photo shoot over.

Florida, you were good to us.  I wouldn't be surprised if we all saw a lot more of you in the years to come.  Until then.

February Update

February was all about the birthdays.  Well, really one person's birthday, celebrated multiple times.  In fact, this individual's birthday was celebrated so much and so often it was hard to tell when one party stopped and the next one started.  Who's birthday could be cause for this type of month long non-stop cake & ice cream binge fest?

Obviously.

It did kind of seem like every time we turned around it was time for another party, but Aiden's big "friend" birthday party took place at the nearby Phoenixville YMCA.  This ended up being a great situation as all the kids got to burn some of their endless energy in the gymnastics room before sitting down to recharge with cake and snacks.  Super simple and super fun.

Not wanting to be left out in the cold as the birthday train chugged on, the whole family also came over to the house for the second wave of birthday celebrations.  Party #2 featured fewer trampolines, but at least as many sugary treats. This should not come as a surprise given the party's particular theme: gumballs.  And yes there were gumballs- many, many gumballs.  There were also lots of aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, tons 'o gifts, a great cake (homemade by mom) and one very cool Spiderman costume.  Talk about a packed house.

I also found this picture.  When did this little celebratory moment happen?  Where did that cupcake come from? Is that even our child?  Honestly I don't remember. But there it is.

 Like I said:  February = birthdays.