The Boys

Here are the boys watching soccer together online.

Funny

Mystery Baby spat up and Buddy cordoned it off just like he used to cordon off Little Guy's potty accidents.

Mystery Baby planking.

Crazies

B came home from the store with these rubber gloves for Princess Sparkley to clean toilets.

Immediately following the picture of B wearing pink gloves, I looked over to see Buddy looking like this.

I found Little Guy in the bathroom like this the other day.  He told me he was doing a science experiment.  It involved soap, Germ-X, water and the sink and had something to do with whirlpools. 

Air and Space Museum

Princess Sparkley's Girl Scout troop visited a pumpkin patch yesterday afternoon, and rather than pay for the boys and I to get in ($9/person) we took advantage of the free parking at the Air and Space Museum (after 4pm) by Dulles.

We got there just before the Observation Tower closed at 4:30. It's probably our favorite part.

It was neat that we got to see the Space Shuttle that flew over us a few months back.

The museum closed at 5:30pm, we had to pick up PS 11 minutes away at 6pm.  Traffic was HORRIBLE.  It took us 50 minutes to make it to the pumpkin patch.  Luckily all the other parents were stuck in traffic also.  And then we still had to get home... 

Air and Space Museum visit - May 2010

Air and Space Museum visit -  September 2009

Cuddle Time with Grandma L

Mystery Baby clasps his hands together a lot now and "chews" on them.  The other day, Buddy said, "He looks like an evil genius." 

Cinnamon Roll Factory

My tradition, since I went to college, is to make cinnamon rolls for General Conference.  While the kids were watching Conference, Buddy drew these pictures.

Notice the details on this!  The cinnamon roll boxes with open lids waiting to get filled and closed.  The conveyor belt. The little house shaped compartment where the lids get closed.  The guys with the dollies loading the truck and airplane. 

Pyramid

Buddy's Black Eye

Friday night B took the big kids down the street to practice running while Mystery Baby and I took a nap.  B noticed Buddy looked like he'd hurt his eye, but Buddy, in true Buddy fashion denied any known injury.  When they got home, I confirmed that he had indeed hurt his eye, it was visually obvious, but Buddy denied it.  Finally, later the next day Buddy said it maybe could have happened when he fell off the futon and landed on his nose. 

In other news, he recently ordered this Barcelona soccer jersey and it arrived in the mail.

Four Kids

First Day of School

    5th                     3rd                Kindergarten

 

 

 

I forgot to take Buddy's first day of school picture until this week.  We "started" our school year the day after Labor Day like the rest of Virginia this year.  We're still slowly getting into it, having the new baby and all.  We decided that since Little Guy can read (he's working his way through Princess Sparkley's first grade phonics books) that we'd start him with Kindergarten this year even though he'd have to wait a year for public school.  And even picking out Kindergarten workbooks for him was difficult because he knows all his numbers and letters.  He does a great job with school too.  He knows when it's "school time" and rather than disappearing every chance he gets like the big kids (especially Buddy) he finds books to read, brings me the workbooks and has me read him the directions, ets.  Basically, he's going to teach himself Kindergarten while I'm holding a sleeping newborn whom I can't set down.

Soccer

We signed all three kids up for soccer this year.  I failed to get a picture of PS at the first game last Saturday, but here are the boys.  Luckily their practices are all at the same location, but Buddy and Little Guy's are at the exact same time so on the days when B can't be there, Princess Sparkley hangs out at Buddy's practice for him while I'm across the giant field at Little Guy's.  Until the last game of the season, their games overlap a bit but aren't at the same time so we at least get to see some of each kids' game.

 

 

I love the little kid soccer.  Little Guy does great, way more agressive than his older siblings.  And he's good at following rules and instructions and learning new things.  His team is the orange tigers.  He was thrilled that last week his team won, 14 to 1.  One boy on his team scored all 14 goals.

Little Guy is the far left.

 

Little Guy took this picture of me.

Buddy

I put Buddy in charge of loading the dishwasher the other night.
It's a little messy.  And one cup is on its side.

Buddy and Little Guy playing their version of Risk.

Buddy made this bridge for Lego vehicles out of Duplo blocks and Little Golden Books.

Pioneer Day Picnic

A family in our ward does a Memorial Day picnic at their home each year.  This year, we did it in July and called it a Pioneer Day picnic.  They set up a slip and slide each year that the kids love.  And this year, Buddy got to try out his new badminton skills he learned at Cub Scout day camp.  He seriously loves badminton and keeps making us watch it in the Olympics.

Lego Creations

A couple weeks ago we brought all the Legos down from the boys' bedroom, documented their creations (see below) and spent some time each day rebuilding Lego creations from their instructions and organizing the Legos so that Buddy will be able to keep them organized and nice.

Cub Scout Bird House

A few weekends ago, we made a trek to the Boy Scout store and Buddy picked out this bird house to build to complete one of his Wolf requirements.  Little did we know, in volved zero hammering and nailing and all gluing.  He picked out the paint colors and together, he and B sanded, painted and glued.  Then they came up with a system to bracket it to some wood pieces (Buddy got to use a drill) so that it will be easy to remove when we move so we can take it with us.

Cub Scout Bike Rodeo

On June 7th Buddy's Cub Scout pack had a bike rodeo.  Luckily Buddy and Princess Sparkley just perfected riding their bikes without training wheels.  Little Guy had a lot of fun as well.  PS is in the purple shirt in the back of the bottom left picture. 

What's been going on...

6/1/12   Me at 30 weeks and 1 day.

6/3/12     We went on a family walk/bike ride to the park near our house and B got bitten by a giant Mastiff.  He thought it mean that I gave him a dog shaped ice pack.

6/5/12      Buddy got the flu which meant his nice Daddy moved our teeny tv and the Game Cube box up to his bed and Buddy spent about 6 or 7 hours playing Lego Star Wars.

Little Guy has been putting this USA magnet puzzle together once or twice a day for a few weeks now.  The other day I came across Buddy teaching him how to play Risk with is.  For those not in the family, Risk is the board game that all the brothers and brother-in-law play when the family gets together.

Memorial Day

Our ward had a Memorial Day pancake breakfast.  Buddy, as a new Cub Scout, was asked to be there to help with the flag ceremony.  It turned out that only he and one other scout were there at the start of the breakfast to be a part of the flag ceremony.  Buddy had the choice to carry the flag or do the speaking part, he of course chose to carry the flag (which he told me afterwards was VERY heavy).  Here's what I captured with my cell phone camera.

Buddy's Baptism

On Saturday, May 19th Buddy was baptized.

Father/Son Campout

5/11-5/12

A man in our ward (but outside our ward boundaries) has the ward father/son campout in his yard each year.  Last May was B's graduation (Masters) so the boys missed it.  This year they made it and Princess Sparkley and I had a fun Girls Night Out and stayed up super late to pick Grandma and Grandpa L up from the airport at 11 PM.

Here's what B captured of the campout.  The bottom two pictures are our friends the Js.  He was super excited to find out that O was a boy so he could finally go on a father/son campout.  O was the youngest son there, just over two years old.