The Sleepover Plan

 

Meredith's best friend Kendall moved away 2 years ago.  She is coming to visit this weekend and staying with us Friday night.  Mer is so excited and has been anticipating this day for weeks.  She has spent the week planning and she handed me this list this morning.  Too cute not to share.  She has been pouring over the How to Be the Best at Everything Girls Book all week long for sleepover ideas. It looks like it's going to be FUN!

Jack is 5!!

I can't believe it.  He was so excited, his birthday was Friday.  He started off the day with morning presents.  By the time we gathered all the presents from various family members it seemed more like Christmas that a Birthday. 

He had a birthday breakfast of Strawberry Crepes.


And then the big kids went to school and at lunch time Jack's friend Lily came to play.

 









 After school we met up with a few friends for an Ice cream at Ben & Jerry's "Birthday Party".

 Later that night it was pizza and a movie followed by a little cake.  Jack is really into drawing pictures these days so his cake was decorated with "Jack-style" Oreo people fighting with Light Sabers. (Mer's idea)

  I decorated Light saber cupcakes for Jack to share with his preschool class the day before.

We love you Jack.  Thank you for being so sweet and silly. You make us laugh and can melt anyone's heart with your gratitude and smile.

Doug's birthday weekend

I'm finally back to a little blogging.  Life couldn't be busier these days. I'm recovering from an early detected Pneumonia today so in order to force myself to lay low (the prednisone in me is making me wired) I'm catching up on the blog as Loo Loo plays trains next to me. This is my third post today so scroll down if you want to catch up on us too.

Sunday was Doug's birthday and it couldn't go undocumented. Of course there was church in the morning and that evening happened to be when I was feeling the worst, but we tried to make the best of it.  So here are the pictures to prove it.

Doug is never happier than when he's with his kids.  Here he is unwrapping one of Mer's specially wrapped presents.

Luke, who thinks it's his birthday every day had to help open one too. I think that one was gum.

Meredith made the most beautiful cake for him.  She has had a picture of this cake on her bulletin board for months now and has been dying to make it for something.

This is what it looks like on the inside.. It even had lemon flavored frosting. yum!

And here's a rare shot of us two.

Happy Birthday Doug,  Sorry I wasn't feeling better and that you had to cook most of your own dinner and do the dishes and get the kids to bed, on your birthday.

A weekend in the life of a Boy

Max had a bit of a rough weekend last week (still catching up weekend of the 12th).   Max was at a birthday party where he got to play on a huge inflated waterslide. There was a netting on it somewhere and as he coming down off it his braces got caught in the netting and one of them was ripped off. Yeah OUCH! 

Monday morning was a day off from school and we decided to go on a bike ride in the morning. Somehow he hit a rock and crashed his bike and got a seriously deep scrape on his knee.

 Which prevented him from participating in any water activities for the day, which is why he's looking so forlorn in that shot.

His spirits were brightened a little later on that day when we took him to the dentist and the decision was made to take off his other bracket. Now he has two smooth big teeth.  His incisors have moved down and one of them is about to bust through, so he doesn't need those braces anymore.

 Meredith says he should be a bunny for Halloween.

On another note Doug installed a beautiful new fan for us that weekend and we are loving it.

Best friends

I'm catching up. his post was started almost 2 weeks ago

Luke was fighting taking his nap today, which is a common occurrence these days.  When I went into change his diaper and tell him to go to sleep this was our conversation:

All said with a scowl on his face.
Luke:  Awake now.


Me:     If you stay awake now, you have to take a nap after we get home with Jack. 


Luke:   No night night with Jack.  Miss Jack.


Me:    You're going to miss Jack if you go night night?
 
Luke:  Yes, Jack... me... best friend.

  

And he really is.  They do everything together.

Luke is always just one step behind Jack.

I love it!

More Luke swimming pictures

On our last day of swim lessons this week the teacher took pictures of us. Check them out.

UNDERWATER!

Blowing kisses!

We signed up for another session we liked it so much!

Oh one more thing.  I have been craving peach cobbler all summer. It was a frequent family favorite growing up.  I got my hands on some GA peaches yesterday and even though there were only 3 big ones left today I couldn't resist whipping up a cobbler tonight.  Meredith helped me make it.  We make a good team when we cook.  I showed her how to blanch the peaches so the skin would fall off, something I learned helping can countless bottles of peaches growing up in CA. She thought that was pretty cool and suggested we buy a bunch tomorrow and can them :)

Here's the fruit of our labor. You can find the recipe HERE.

Still swimming and loving every minute.

 Luke and I go to swimming lessons every Tuesday and Thursday right now. He is loving being in the water.

He is seriously the easiest kid. On swimming days we leave the house at 8:00 to take Jack to school, walk him in, drive Mer and Max to school, drop them off, drive the extra 20 minutes to the swimming pool, get out the Jogging stroller and go for a 30 min run, before finally jumping in the swimming pool at 10 :20. Luke amazingly tolerates it all without protest.

I gush with gratitude during my whole run (feeling a little guilty that I'm making him sit just that much more).  I'm so grateful that he is as mild mannered as he is. I really needed him to be that way.

Jack is sad that he has to go to school instead of going swimming with us, so Friday when he had no school we took him to the pool with some friends. He and Luke loved every minute.

Luke's favorite is the slide!

We had a nice long weekend... browsing at Ikea on Saturday... pausing for an ice cream treat before we loaded our finds into the van.  Doug has a hard time passing up a soft serve.

We bought a new dresser and and some floating shelves for the boys room.  We spent today deep cleaning and reorganizing the kids rooms.  I'll post a picture of the sweet dresser and shelves when we get them up.. We realized today that we bought the wrong installation kit to hang the shelving. I guess I'll be heading back to Ikea which I'm not too bummed about because I love that store!

Now my living room in littered with rejects from the bedroom purge and I'm realizing that we have a busy Tuesday morning ahead of us.  Rest doesn't last too long over here.

Good night!