Mad Birds

Little Guy is obsessed with Angry Birds.  A little over a year ago, he called them Mad Birds, I sort of miss that.  The downside of his Angry Birds obsession is we don't have smartphones or Ipads* so the kids used to only get to play when we were visiting relatives who did own said devices.  Not anymore.  For his birthday in January, Little Guy got this physical (picture below), build up blocks and launch a bird at them, board game version of Angry Birds.  He loves it.  And just recently he decided to save up his money for a different version.  (I've seen both at Target.)  Plus, we recently discovered this website where we can play online.  (And this one where you can play my favorite, Cut the Rope.)

Decorating for a pretend, Angry Birds-themed, birthday party.

I've spent all week printing out Angry Bird coloring pages for Little Guy who then colors them and insists I cut out all the birds and pigs.  We have dozens of Angry Bird bits of paper floating around our house.  So it was an awesome discovery at A.C. Moore (our local craft store) when we found Angry Birds coloring books for $1 each yesterday.  We got two.  I might need to go back for more since he's already colored a bunch of the pages.

*We're a little slow on these types of technological advancements.  It wasn't until earlier this week that Little Guy informed me the birds are angry because the piggies stole their eggs.  I seriously had no idea. 

Firehouse Tour

6/21

Our ward has a park day group and over the summer, they planned a field trip to the downtown fire station of a nearby town.  We tagged along for the fun.  Little Guy didn't want to squirt the fire hose but the two big kids did.

Friends

6/18
Princess Sparkley went over to her friend's, A.D., for a play date and afterwards, the friend's mom posted these pictures she'd taken of the girls playing on Facebook.

Orioles vs. Pirates

I'm not sure why the stadium staff doesn't get that the whole point of getting your picture taken at the park (center picture) is so that you can tell from the picture what park you're at.  Luckily, we went to a Red Sox v. Orioles game at Camden Yards two years ago and my parents took a better picture, although looking more closely at it, it doesn't necessarily tell which ball park we're in either.  Argh. It is however better than the family picture above which is just us and stadium seats.  Sadly, the Pirates lost... by a lot. 

Fort McHenry, Baltimore, MD

 B has been wanting to take us to Fort McHenry in Baltimore since we moved here.  It's where Francis Scott Key penned what became the national anthem during the War of 1812.  The Pittsburgh Pirates were playing the Baltimore Orioles (an unusual match up) so we headed to Baltimore for the game (which I told B counted as an early Father's Day present, even if I could only convince one of our kids, PS, to cheer for the Pirates).  Little did we know, there was a huge Flag Day celebration (or Sailabration as they called it) going on at the fort and the harbor.  We parked forever away from the Fort and walked in (no parking due to crowds they were expecting) and just as we neared the fort there was a LOUD noise and fighter jets flew over.  It turned out to be the Blue Angels and we got to enjoy watching them for about 30-45 minutes. 

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.

Finishing up the Girl Scout year

Towards the end of May, the girls earned a sewing patch.

And with some of their cookie earnings, they had enough money to go to Build-A-Bear and get the 100th Anniversary Girl Scout Bear.  This was Princess Sparkley's first time to Build-A-Bear so she was super super excited.

Awards Night where the girls got all their patches, etc.

The girls in green vest are the Junior Girl Scouts.  There were just three of them, PS, Mya and Jojo.  Ms. Shannyn was their leader (in the black and white), her daughter Eden (in black with the tan sash) helped, and Ms. Caren (in the white t-shirt) worked mainly with the Juniors.

Grandma and Grandpa fly home

 It was fun having them here for two weeks, but Grandma and Grandpa L eventually had to return to California, their home, their other grandkids, and, of course, their dog, Fenway.

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.

Nationals vs. Pirates Baseball

B is a Pirates fan.  The kids... they go back and forth with who they cheer for.  Since we went to a Cincinnati Reds game in Ohio last year, Buddy is apparently a Reds fan.  This is slightly infuriating.  I'm okay with him cheering for our local team (he's decked out in his Nationals apparel for this game) but I'm not okay with him cheering for random teams he has no connetion to.  Oh well.  My dad loves baseball and enjoys visiting different ballparks so we headed to Nationals Park Thursday night for the Pirates v. Nationals game.

And the Pirates WON!

US Botanic Garden

We headed into DC on Thursday, May 17 for a Nationals vs. Pirates baseball game.  We headed in early to avoid traffic and to see some sights.  We started at the US Botanic Garden then walked over to the Air and Space Museum.

Resting on a wall at the National Museum of American Indian.

Shenandoah National Park

We drove to the northern part of Shenandoah National Park, visited the visitor's center there and then went on a shortish hike to an old cemetary.  We saw some interesting insects and two deer as we got back to the road.  When we first arrived at the vistor's center, a ranger showed us on his digital camera a film he'd gotten at about 6:30 that morning of a mama bear and her two cubs walking along Skyline Dr.

Marine Corps Museum

We took Grandma and Grandpa L to the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle (Quantico) VA.  They were really impressed and the kids were excited to see the new Chesty the bulldog mascot areas especially for kids.

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.

Cub Scouts

With the passing of his 8th birthday, Buddy started Cub Scouts at church.  He's been excited about it, but he's nervous about new stuff and new people so I wasn't sure how well it would go over.  Turns out he loves it.  And he's actually been very brave about being a part of it without me or B being there at all.

Here he is in uniform.  Grandma and Grandpa M hook their grandsons up with all their scouting stuff on their 8th birthday, complete with patches sewn on!

He hates the neckerchief.  I insisted he wear it.  He lost the wolf neckerchief slide at the second meeting he wore it to in the overgrown front lawn of the church while playing soccer.  Lucky for him, I don't think he did it on purpose.

The Playroom

It's been almost a year since we moved, and the bottom level is finally clean enough to photograph.

The much anticipated...playroom.

This is the level of our house you enter on.  It's sort of like a walk out basement, except it's all above ground.  There's an unfinshed section that B uses as his office.  There's a laundry room.  And there's an under the stairs closet.  And this giant bonus room. 

Heart Check-up

picture from April 27th

Little Guy went for his yearly heart check-up on Friday (May 4). 

He's 39 lbs. and 44 1/2 inches tall.  I think the doctor said he's grown 4 or 4 1/2 inches since last year. 

This year B got to come with us, but the fish tank was empty and under repair. 

The doctor said she hoped his heart would stay like this forever.  The valve they repaired is still growing with him as he grows which is good. 

So, for this next part to make sense, I'll have to reexplain some stuff.  When he was three weeks old they did a Balloon Valvuloplasty, going in with a catheter through his leg and explanding the aortic valve in his heart that was too narrow.  With this comes the knowledge that since they basically just tore it a little bigger, there will be leakage.  Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little.  He's always been on the lower side.  Last year the measurement of leakage from when they did the procedure was 23, this year 20.  She said normal is 1-10 and serious need for worrying is 50+. 

She talked a lot about how this valve will definitely have to be replaced someday.  Originally, when he was a newborn they told us they would probably wait until he was adult sized and that they couldn't predict what kind of technology would be around at that time to replace an aortic valve.  She talked again about how this procedure would probably happen in his adolescence and that she couldn't really predict how they would do it.  The latest technology right now for replacinga valve is going in through the leg rather than open heart surgery.  For whatever reason, that seems much less scary to me so I hope they keep going down that line.

Little Guy did great.  He was nervous but does such a great job holding still and listening to the directions given to him. 

Angry Dad

by B

My kids have seen the episode of The Simpsons where Bart makes his "Angry Dad" comic (and I think they have seen the one where the comic gets optioned for a movie), so Princess Sparkley had that influence when she decided to offer her expertise to other tormented children.

The "mad dad" appears to be loosely based on me (it might be a coincidence that I own a t-shirt that reads "Watch Out: Mad Dad!").

Comics Drawn at Church