Spring Break Adventure

Andy was in heaven. A fireman's hat and a giant slide shaped like a fire truck. Perfect!

Luke had a great time pretending to answer the fire calls. I can't believe he posed for a pic.

I was feeling especially energetic and decided to haul the boys to the childrens' museum in Everett. Approximately 150 of our peers had the exact same idea. Ah, the joys of a rainy spring break. It was very crowded, but I thought the boys did an excellent job of waiting their turn or else choosing another activity when their first choice wasn't available. (Luke was dying to sit in the driver's seat on the bus and also the pilot's seat on the airplane. Of course!)

We had the best time in the fire station area; the whole fire truck is for climbing and sliding. Every kid gets to wear their own fire hat. Andy was soaking wet in about 5 seconds when we went to the water play area. He was thrilled and kept going back for more. Luke was fastidious about his shirt sleeves and managed to leave without a drop of water anywhere on him. Could these two be any different?

I was exhausted after about two hours and declared it was time to go home. Andy was stumbling around, he was so tired. Luke did not want to go until he sat in the airplane or the bus. At last, the crowds parted and he was able to be the pilot for a few minutes. Hooray!

I think Andy's favorite options were the fire truck slide and the water play area. It was dry enough to go upstairs on the roof. That was our first time ever. So awesome! The play structure totally rocked, you could play lots of musical instruments, dig for dinosaur bones, see a full-size dinosaur skeleton...the list goes on.

Legos, Legos, Everywhere

I don't usually post on the blog twice in one day, but this was just too fun. If I wait until tomorrow, I might forget. Luke decided he wanted to spend his birthday fundage on more Legos. What a surprise. He selected the Lego city fire station. We spent several hours this afternoon assembling the vehicles and the garage. It was a lot of work, but worth the effort. I had second thoughts when Andy arrived on the scene and insisted the whole thing was his. He's so good at being two. We spent several minutes extracting pieces from his hands and watching him run screaming through the house when we wouldn't let him touch anything else. He was finally content to hold on to one fire engine and drive it in and out of the garage...only the nice people at Lego would think to design a fire station with actual working garage doors. Amazing.
Thank you, Great Grammie and Grandparents for contributing to our Lego mania. What a treat!

The Celebration Continues

We invited a few of Luke's preschool friends (and their parents) over to celebrate his birthday on Saturday. Because one party just isn't enough for us, I suppose. Luke seemed a little concerned about the onslaught of guests, but he handled it all very well. Everyone was very well behaved and surprisingly calm. They came right in and started playing with all of the toys. Kids are funny about playing with each other's stuff. It's like they have never seen it before and everything must be carefully examined and evaluated. We pulled them away from the toy room to play "pin the Lego on the poster". This involved a blindfold, which caused much anxiety for the birthday boy. The youngest children got a kick out of it and wanted to play again and again. Luke's friends were very generous and gave him lots of wonderful gifts. Steve and I spent the rest of the afternoon helping him assemble his new Lego creations. All in all, I'd say the party was a success.

Five Years Old

I think he blew them out all by himself this year!
A new digger for our new sandbox. Andy was eyeing this one.

Posing with the poster

How did that happen? It feels like we just brought him home last week. We celebrated his birthday with cousins, auntie, uncle, grandparents and great grammie this afternoon. He wanted a desert racer cake, like Andy had last year. Grandma complied and delivered a yummy cake, complete with hot wheels cars on top. That child has a memory like an elephant. I could not figure out what he was talking about. What's a desert racer cake? Apparently one of the hot wheels cars on Andy's cake last September was called a desert racer. Who can recall such detail? Luke can.

It continues to pour buckets of rain around here, so we had to entertain the cherubs indoors. This involved much weeping and gnashing of teeth on Andy's part. He decided to skip his nap in favor of celebrating his brother's birthday. Luke was kind enough to share his new Wii Nascar game with the cousins. A good time was had by all.

Hooray for Hand Me Downs!

Our cousins, with the assistance of Papa, passed along a sandbox. Even though we had snow on the ground when we awoke today, we decided it was a great day to get the project going. The snow melted/rained away and we were able to get to work right after church. Steve purchased twenty 50 pound bags of play sand yesterday. I couldn't believe we needed 1,000 pounds of sand to fill that box. Thanks to our radio flyer wagon (great idea, grandma!) and the help of a neighbor and his wagon, we were able to shuttle the sandbags down the hill and empty them out into the box. The boys were very excited. Luke likes to be a helper and he was thrilled to be involved in a 'family project', as he calls it. They started playing right away, digging and scooping, fighting over who could use the biggest dump truck. It warmed up before dinner and actually started to feel like spring outside. They went back out for another round of digging and scooping. I think this might be a keeper.

He's Up! He's Down! He's Making Me Crazy!

Andy continues to amaze us with the frequency of his mood swings. When he's up, he's really up and when he is down...take cover! He went for his 2 year check up this week (now that he's almost 2 and 1/2, I thought we should check that off the to-do list). He cried as soon as we drove in the parking lot because it wasn't Papa's house. He was convinced that was our destination. Now, he might have cried because his brother was taunting him with warnings about getting lots of shots. Leave it to the older sibling to scare the younger one to death, before we even get out of the car. Andy made a grand entrance in the totally packed waiting room, racing in circles and attempting to jump off the couch, insisting that he sit wherever his brother sat. Let's not forget, I have a mountain of paperwork to fill out, even though not one single detail of our contact info has changed. But I still I have to fill it out, just to appease the paperwork goddess behind the counter. I'm attempting to write while trying to sit on Andy and chastize Luke for yelling, "You are a very bad brother! I don't love you anymore!"
Splendid. This is going so well.
I had to drag Andy back to the exam room, praying the whole time I wasn't leaving fingerprints on his little arm. He didn't want to be weighed, he resisted being measured, he refused to take his clothes off. Ugh. Thankfully, the nurse didn't bat an eye. Our pediatrician is a wonderful man with about 6 kids of his own. He let me hold Andy the entire time. Despite his diet of oatmeal, yogurt, milk and applesauce, he appears to be growing and thriving. The best news of all, no shots were needed. Hurrah!
I don't believe in karma, but I'm beginning to wonder if this is payback for my own misbehavior as a toddler. Couldn't be. Could it?

Our VIP

It's the week we've all been waiting for...Luke gets to be the VIP this week. Which begs the question, when isn't he the VIP around here? His preschool acknowledges each student's birthday by celebrating for a whole week. Hence the title, Very Important Person. Luke's actual birthday isn't for a couple of weeks, but his teacher chose to celebrate this week. Perhaps it conflicts with Easter and spring break. At any rate, the grand event is upon us and we are prepared to celebrate. The first highlight is bringing the class puppet home for the weekend. Her name is Jelly and she sleeps in a basket. I'm so glad it's a puppet and not a guinea pig. We had to rescue her from Jake numerous times, apparently she smelled quite tasty. Luke instantly showed her his favorite game: the tank game on the Wii. She was very impressed. (Please excuse the random date on the photo, not quite sure how that happened. I really took the picture on Friday afternoon).