Sleepy Little Boy

photo by PS
Here is Little Guy pretending to be asleep on the stairs.



Here he is about 20 minutes later... really asleep.

Girls Night Out

Princess Sparkley is always a bit (read: very) annoyed that there isn't a Father/Daughter Campout. B tried to make it up to her the first year he took Buddy (2005) by camping out on our lawn with her. It lasted about an hour. As long as B was reading her books, she was happy. But the loud loud crickets terrified her, and so they came in for the night. She was almost three.

So we're really tried to make girl time fun during the Father/Son Campout. Two years ago a friend had a bunch of moms and daughters (and baby brothers) over. This year, PS planned a huge night for us. She made signs. She made me a shopping list. She planned out our entire evening. Sorry there are no pictures, I thought B had the camera (but he'd forgotten it and it was in the desk drawer all along). Here's how it went:

pizza and lemonade

As soon as the boys had walked out the door she was hounding me to put the pizza in the oven.

paint each other's nails

I opted for a pale, pale pink polish on my toes.

walk to our nearest ice cream shop for ice cream

She didn't stop talking all night. The girl had so much to tell me. One conversation included: when we puffed up our cheeks and held our breath, why couldn't we just breath the air in our cheeks?

watch Tinkerbell

Not to ruin this movie for anyone, but I fell asleep soon after Tinkerbell was "born" as a fairy, and woke up to find out she'd ruined Springtime and now had to save it. I asked PS, how'd Tinkerbell go from being this Tinker fairy, to being Peter Pan's sidekick, her response, "Oh, I know. I read it in a book once. I'll tell you after the movie." She also talked and squealed and bounced around throughout the entire movie.

eat popcorn

I woke up because PS suddenly demanded, "When are we having our popcorn?"

go to sleep

She went to bed around 9:45. I took a shower and then watched the PBS version of Jane Austen's "Persuasion" (thanks Lia!). When B got home he could see the covers were only disturbed on my side of the bed. He asked why I didn't sleep in the middle, he would have. I told him I didn't even think about it. Funny how people are different. Although, technically, he sleeps in the middle of the bed every night.

Father/Son Campout

Our church ward had a Father/Son Campout this weekend at a guy in our ward's property. This was Little Guy's first Father/Son Camput. His first year, in Kansas, he was only 8 months old. And last year, we moved a month before they had it.


The boy's enjoying hot dogs.


B called me soon after they arrived to let me know they had arrived and he didn't know who our kids were. Buddy immediately jumped into this game of basketball (probably the sport he's least familiar with, next to volleyball, which he played later) with a bunch of big kids (although looking at this picture, they are mostly the boys Princess Sparkley's age... the one on the far left is her future husband).


And B was shocked because Little Guy became best friends with this giant dog. He just followed it around and pet it all night. He came home smelling like a dog, so I can attest to this. I like this picture because it looks like he and the dog are giving each other "furious squinting looks."*


A nice action shot. B says this was the only time the dog ever barked. A car was coming down the driveway so when the dog barked, Little Guy shot in the other direction. But they stayed friends and Little Guy got to pet him more.


In the tent going to sleep.


Little Guy and Bubble.


Buddy.



The next morning. Buddy had a tee ball game, hence the uniform.

Buddy went, mainly excited to play tent basketball. Our tent has pockets, for wallets and such that you want hanging up in the air and not getting lost, I suppose. They've invented a basketball game with the pockets so high on the list, right next to sleeping bags and flashlights, was balls to pack. When he got home he told me his favorite part was the hot dogs.


Father/Son Flashbacks:

May 2005
Buddy - barely 1 year old
Dennison Park (between Santa Paula and Ojai, CA)


September 2007
Buddy - almost 3 1/2
Perry Lake, KS


September 2008
Buddy - almost 4 1/2 years old
Melvern Lake, KS (Eisenhower State Park)


*A quote we like, and use frequently, from McDuff.

Growing Up

A friend is having twin girls that will probably be early, so we got out our* preemie outfits to mail to her. I can't believe Princess Sparkley was ever this small!! But then there is proof.



*Princess Sparkley wasn't actually a preemie. She was actually four days late but only weighed 5 lbs. 14 oz. and for the first couple weeks was drowning in regular newborn clothes, so we got her a few teeny outfits.

Happy Birthday to Uncle R!

There's a three hour time difference between us and my family, so we recorded the kids singing happy birthday to my brother since he was probably still at work when it was their bedtime.

Flying Baby

This is called a "flying baby" or, sometimes Little Guy calls it a "flying [Little Guy]."

Burke Lake Park

B's sister called us up earlier in the week saying they had a free Saturday, did we want to go down to them, or could they come up to us. Since Buddy had the later T-ball game (not getting over until lunch time), they came up. They were very nice and took us to lunch and then we headed to Burke Lake Park. We'd never been before, but they'd been once with our brother-in-law's family when their kids were babies.

The park has a train, a carousel, a playground, a lake, a ice cream parlor, a disc golf and mini golf course, and more. Uncle G was super nice and bought us all tickets for the train ride and the carousel.


Little Guy was THRILLED.




Buddy was also THRILLED. Notice PS's crazy face in the background.


Cousin G and Cousin S.




The lake. Cousin G was excited to get in the water and PS was right behind her. Buddy wandered in a little ways.










Little Guy wanted to go in the water too, but was wearing Nikes with socks. He was content to throw sticks in.


Cousin G and PS. Cousin S was too far away for me to see while still holding on to Little Guy and his horse.


This might have been Little Guy's first carousel. He liked it a lot for the first few times around... but then it kept on going. He'd say "horse up and down."


Buddy named his horse White Chocolate Chip.


The Carousel went around about 20 times too many. And I was the only adult brave enough to go on it. Bleh.

T-ball

Saturday, May 16th's T-ball game against the Cubs.








I tried to get a picture of him scoring at home plate, but I was too slow.


Buddy is in gray shorts, right behind the coach's daughter with the pink batting helmet.


After lining up and slapping hands with the other team, our coach gets the kids in a huddle and they cheer "Go Yankees!"

Boys in Undies*

Friday night we were sitting around getting the kids ready for bed when all of a sudden water started spraying on our front windows and the tree branches were going crazy. It was unexpected and seemed like someone squirting the windows with a hose. No, a storm had blown in really quickly. Here are the boys watching out the screen door as the front of the house gets sprayed with rain. I like how Buddy has his hand on Little Guy's head. He does this a lot.

*While they are wearing "undies," they aren't actually their underwear. Buddy wears these Star Wars boxers with an undershirt as pajamas in the summer (he's got underwear on underneath) and Little Guy is wearing little underwear shorts over his diaper as his summer jammies.

Little Guy Sings

Here's an attempt to capture Little Guy singing the theme song from Bob the Builder. I can hear him singing it in his room sometimes, and he does a pretty good job. But B said he's just been singing "Bob the Builder can you fix it" and repeating that as the second verse, instead of the second verse, which is "Yes we can!" He did it real softly here.

Air and Space and Boys

I took the kids to the Air and Space Museum several months ago, but this was B's first trip. He took the boys while I did PS's end of the year homeschool testing.


Space Shuttle.




Enola Gay


Apollo 11 reentry capsule.


Air Control Tower watching planes at Dulles.

Testing

Homeschooling in Virginia is a bit different than in Kansas. Here we have to let the school district know we plan to homeschool, submit a brief outline of our curriculum, submit a copy of a high school or college diploma (from the parent), and submit test scores at the end of the year. Someone in our homeschool group suggested where to buy our tests from and it turned out to be CAT... the California Achievement Test I took in grade school growing up. Thursday and Friday were our test days.



Thursday was Buddy's test day. B (done with his semester of classes this week too) took Princess Sparkley and Little Guy to the pet store to look at hamsters, guinea pigs, etc.

On Friday, (I forgot to take a picture of Princess Sparkley because B had the camera at the Air and Space Museum with the boys), PS had her test. She freaked out a bit about the math because it was all addition and subtraction (carrying, borrowing, etc.) and she's been working on multiplication and division, so her mind wasn't used to adding and subtracting. But, she did great.

I still have to mail the test in to be graded, but with only one student taking the test I'm administering, I was able to keep a fairly close watch on their answers so I think it's safe to say they passed. They each missed maybe a handful of questions.

Little Guy's Pets

During school the other day, I found Little Guy like this watching an alphabet video.



This is when I asked him for a littler smile.

Hamsters

PS must have taken this picture. Both big kids, PS especially, are obsessed with hamsters right now. We got a "how to care for you hamster" type book on clearance at the bookstore a few weeks ago and last week PS checked out a video on caring for your hamster from the library. And she talked B into checked it out again this week. Buddy got his Zhu Zhu* pet hamster for Easter (it's the dark brown one). PS got hers with leftover Christmas money a few months ago. B told them he'd get them a hamster when we go to New Hampshire (get it, hamster... Hampshire). That trip will be no time soon.

*Little Guy is at times terrified of the Zhu Zhu pets because one chased him down in the kitchen.

Red Sox for Grandpa L

Grandpa L is a HUGE Red Sox fan. For his birthday (May 5) I took a bunch of pictures of the kids in their Red Sox attire to send him. The first picture is when I did the same thing a few years ago with Buddy and Princess Sparkley.


May 5, 2007


May 5, 2010


Princess Sparkley is wearing her old Red Sox championship t-shirt from from 2004 World Series. It's now Buddy's shirt.


Buddy got a new Red Sox jersey for his birthday.


Buddy's Red Sox uniform from Halloween 2006 (which was big on him then) is still huge on Little Guy.




Thowing the ball to Buddy.


Catching his shorts from falling off.