First Day

Today my eldest started second grade. I now officially am old. (At least according to my kids.Ed-In my son's defense, he read this and said, "you're not old, Mom!") Here he is in all his almost-7-year-old glory:


Only one more month to go before his birthday. What am I going to do? And how can I stand this cuteness on a daily basis, and not squeeze those cheeks? (I apparently was meant to be an annoying distant relative, only seen on major holidays.)
And yes, he just lost his first tooth. He was very excited about it. The tooth fairy paid him a visit, and left him with a 50 cent piece. I'm dreading the possibility that he will loose his teeth the same way he got them: all at once. He literally went from no teeth to 5 teeth within the space of about a week. At nine months old. Immediately after minor surgery. On a holiday weekend. It was fun.

So the next time you see this guy, ask him how school's going, and count his teeth. They may not be there very much longer.

Waking Simon (a vignette)

After getting out of the shower, I found Simon had crawled back in bed with Jonathan and had fallen asleep. I had to document the cuteness.

I love my baby.

Introducing Josefine!

Meet my new niece, Josefine. She was born June 26, a whopping 5 pounds, one and a half ounces. She's cute! And tiny. And the collecting of future blackmail pictures has already begun ;)

Does this make me a bad person?

So today's been pretty rotten. I'm sick, I'm tired and grumpy, and I didn't sleep well. (Okay who's playing the world's smallest violin? Louder now!)

The point is that I'm not dealing well with being a Mom today, ie telling my 3-year old to stop crying because it's just a scrape on top of the scrape he got yesterday, and keep walking cos I can't walk dog, and carry him and keep his big brother going too when I'm sick. It's just pain! Suck it up and deal.

Anyway, after dinner we go outside and play with chalk on the sidewalk. The dog tries to eat some chalk, and in playing keep away, I notice the chalk leaves nice bright lines on his black coat. So I write DOG on both sides of Connor, and am beset by helpless giggles.

Does that make me a bad person?

Family Vacation in Virginia

I just wanted to share some photos of the family on our recent trip to Virginia Beach. This is the second year we've gone, and stayed in a cabin at First Landing State Park. The cabins, and the park itself, are wonderful. I really recommend staying here if you're ever in the area.

And we had wonderful sunny days while we were there:We made some new friends and worked very hard:

And I really do mean very hard:


And we documented the rise of the beach zombies in broad daylight. Very scary! I thought they were only supposed to come out at night:
All in all, a wonderful little beach vacation. If you like zombies ;)

Easter Baskets

Well, we didn't do much for Easter, except have baskets for the kids and color eggs. Ethan really got into the spirit of coloring eggs this year. I had fun coming up with something other than a chocolate rabbit for their baskets. Simon has been asking me to read Max's Chocolate Chicken repeatedly, so I went looking for a chocolate chicken and found a very cute one at Walmart of all places. And, since Ethan has decided he doesn't really like chocolate, I made him a rice krispy treat. See if you can figure out what it is:

Yes, it's a rice krispy treat castle! Just what every sword mad 6-year-old needs. Don't you wish you had one? I'm such a good mom.

Hot Wheels! Beat That!

So, I'm working on pages for a submission to Creating Keepsakes magazine's Hall of Fame contest. One of the things I'm working on is a little mini-book detailing the boys' love of all things Hot Wheels. I just thought I'd show you a couple of the photos I'm not using in the book:



The one on the left is Ethan's idea. He said it was his Hot Wheels Supermodel pose. The one on the right was my attempt to get them to do their "Hot Wheels! Beat That!" pose. This one was the closest, but Ethan's elbow was in the way. I'm using a different one for their book, but you'll have to wait to see that one.