The Birthday Boy

Today was Joshua's party! It was crazy, great fun! We were blessed to have many of our friends there, along with my parents. We are so thankful for the friends that we have made while here. I was so impacted by that during his party, and was even a bit emotional afterwards. It was so much fun...I'll share more details later, but wanted to post this fun picture of the Birthday Boy!

Stickers and Cozy Boys

Joshua received some very cool Hotwheels stickers for Valentine's Day. He's showing them off and then concentrating to peel them off so he could stick them on his shirt. When it was all said and done, Joshua had all of his new stickers on the front of his shirt...and he wore them that way the rest of the day.
As for Micah, he has been very cozy the past couple of days. All I have to do is sit down on the floor with him, and within a matter of minutes he is coming to sit with me, book in hand. Lately, he wants anything to do with Thomas, which is funny to me. He loves the books and will carry them around all day looking at the pictures of Thomas and "talking" about them. :)

Chalk play

Micah loves to draw with chalk. I know I've posted about this before, but thought I would share these pictures of Micah. The lighting isn't great...it was a very sunny but cool day. I enjoyed how intent he was on drawing his pictures. He took the same piece of chalk and made marks all over the porch, the driveway, and the metal railing. Fun times.

As for Joshua, today we made a countdown calender for his birthday party, which is in 5 days, and for his actual birthday, which is in 9 days. We put magnets on the back and posted it in the fridge. He's looking forward to tearing off a page each day until the big days!

Popcorn

My boys love to eat popcorn, especially Micah. I'm fairly certain that Micah would eat it until he popped ! (no pun intended)!

Note to Grammy and Papa: Can you see the Thomas stickers on the front of Micah's outfit? :)

Car seats...

...are apparently much more fun when they're not in the car. :) I had pulled them out to clean the 4Runner and to clean the car seats, and within a matter of minutes both boys had found their seat and settled in! :) How funny!

Excuse Me...

We've been teaching Joshua since he was little to ask to be excused from the table when he is finished eating dinner. And as Micah is getting older, and a bit more verbal, we are working with him on the same thing. For a couple of months now, I've been asking him if he is finished with his meal, and then asking him to say "Excuse me, please", which is just a shortened version of "May I be excused, please". Today, after lunch, Micah successfully said "Excuse, please" and I am so proud of him!

Our Newest Pet

Meet our latest pet, an Argentine Horned Frog, more commonly known as a Pac Man Frog! He is a little round blob with a big mouth and small legs! With NO prompting from his Daddy, Joshua specifically requested a Pac Man Frog (though Neil was happy to oblige). This is Joshua's first official pet! :)

I want to be like Joshua...

These days, everything that Joshua does Micah also wants to do. The other day, Joshua was sitting at the table eating his snack. Micah walked over, pulled out this chair, climbed up and gestured that he also wanted to eat his snack - just like Joshua! This brings cute moments as well as frustrating moments, as I'm sure you can imagine!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I meant to post these yesterday, as I've been saving them for V-day. What wonderful boys! It was amazing to get them both smiling in the SAME picture! :) I hope everyone had a good day yesterday with the ones you love. We had a great day! Many thanks to Mimi and Grandpa for coming over to spend the afternoon with the boys!

Playing Trains

Micah has really gotten into playing trains lately. This is good, considering we have lots of trains! :) He enjoys playing with Thomas and Friends and even likes to watch a video occasionally, though he rarely sits still long enough to finish one. That's fine with me, since we don't watch much television anyway. We try to stay in the habit of watching one short video (30 min. or less) right before dinner. The boys look forward to it all day and I get a bit of a break while I'm trying to prepare dinner! With Micah sick this past week, though, he watched a bit more than usual. It's time to get back into the groove. The less TV they watch, the happier and more well behaved they are - seriously!

What I did all weekend...

This is the finished product, after working on it all weekend. The bookcase was a gift to the boys from their Grammy and Papa. It came to us unfinished, so I decided to stain it. Now, it has been several years since I have stained/finished a piece of furniture. It isn't perfect, but all in all, I think it turned out well. I'm even pleased with the color! It's still in the garage because it needed to air out a bit. I tried to bring it in once, but it was still too smelly. Maybe tomorrow we'll bring it in and load it up with books. :)

Distracted

I apologize for the lack of postings this week. It has been a crazy week and on top of that, Micah has been sick. He seems to finally be on the mend. Tonight at dinner he ate like he normally does...which is everything in sight! I ended up taking him to the doctor on Tuesday because he had suddenly started running a high fever over the weekend. I think he's okay now, and I'm glad that I took him to see the doc, as they were able to rule out some more serious stuff. Today was spent catching up on laundry, dishes, and many other household duties that tend to go by the wayside when one's kid is sick. Yeah! Hope you have had a good week.

New Music

I was informed the other night that I needed some new music. I agreed. I kept a couple of the old ones, but have some new ones as well. I'm on the hunt...any favorite songs out there?

New Videos...Finally!

In case you haven't noticed, I finally posted some new videos on YouTube. You can see them on the side bar! Yeah! Three of them are from last week when we were playing in the snow. We attempted to sled down the hill by our house, even though we didn't really have a sled. We all had a blast! In one, you can see it snowing! The last one is actually the most recent one, taken this past Sunday. The boys were having a great time splashing in some puddles. Enjoy!

Teddy Bear Bread

Joshua and I made Teddy Bear Bread using regular bread dough and a recipe from his Highlights High Five magazine (thank you Grammy and Papa!). We had fun making them and they sure were tasty, especially with honey on it! YUMMY!

The Extra Funny Face

This picture cracks me up! It doesn't even really look like Micah to me. But there is something hilarious about the way he was scrunching his nose at the time. Micah is finally starting to feel better and act more like himself. We were even able to go to the park and play with friends today. It was windy, but by the time we left, it had warmed up and was nice outside. The boys had a blast playing on the equipment, swinging, and playing in the sand.

Early One Morning

I never know what the boys are going to do when I break out the camera. It never fails, though, that one will give me a great smile and the other will make a funny face! You can see the results of a couple of days ago. To be fair to Micah, he has not been feeling well. At least he was smiling! :)

Our Itty Bitty Snowman!

Well, here is our snowman from last week. I know that there isn't anything to compare it with, but it wasn't much more than a foot tall. Joshua helped me, but it was definitely more of my doing. Maybe I was trying to relive my childhood! :) Joshua was more interested in demolishing, come to find out! I had gone inside to put my camera up and when I came back outside, he had completely destroyed the snowman. How funny!