Happy Birthday Daddy!

Today my amazing hubby turned 37 years old.  That just sounds so old!  Good thing he just keeps getting better with age.

Today the little boys and I baked brownies for the occasion.  We picked up the candles and the worlds best card.

There are so many reasons why we are lucky to have this guy as part of our family.  He does an amazing job providing for us.  Every day he models for the boys what it means to work hard.  I always feel supported by him and the boys do too.

We have lots of fun together.  As Brian put it last night - when I lost it with Will at bed time - we make a great team.  When one of us has been pushed just a little bit too far, the other is there to step in, pick of the pieces.  There isn't anyone else I could imagine being on this wild ride with.  I'm one lucky girl!

Miscevious Jack

 This man keeps me on my toes.  He has figured out that even when the gate is closed he can squeeze through the balusters.  He is so proud of himself that it's hard to be upset.

I mean look at that grin!  Who could be upset with him!?!  It is making cooking dinner much more difficult.  As soon as I take my eyes off him I hear his clopping up the stairs.  He usually cries when he gets to the top because he realizes he is all alone and he isn't the best at getting down the steps yet.  I'm trying to decide if we should work on that.

Max's Party

The parties continued after lunch when I headed up to Max's school for his party.  I'm one of hte room moms and I have to say it has been so much fun doing this job.  The other moms are great and we have so much fun together when we plan our parties!  In fact we met at a bar and grill to plan this one and they had to kick us out because we were there so long just chatting!

 We planned a matching game and a relay with conversation hearts.  The kids had a great time.

They also made adorable little bookmarks with their fingerprints.  The idea was to over lap their prints so they look like little hearts. Its adorable and I'm already using for my book.  

  Of course no party could be complete without a snack!  Oreos it is!  It's so tough to plan a class snack.  Everything seems to be off limits for some reason or another.  Apparently you can be allergic to just about everything and still eat Oreo's.  Nothing natural about them, but the kids sure did like it

Such a sweet little class!

We have been really happy with Max's teacher.  When I first met her I told Brian she looked twelve.  I still think shes young - this is only her second year teaching, but she is great.  This picture cracked me up because Max kept leaning away from her.

Will's Party

Thursday was a big ole party day for the big boys.  First up was Will's party.  I was one of the organizing moms and I went up to help with the party.  It was just so darn cute and reminded me once again that we are so fortunate to have found out about his school.  He has just thrived there!  Every time I see his teachers in action I'm even more impressed.  It's also nice to get to know a few moms of preschoolers.  The school is close to our elementary school so several kids in his class could start kindergarten with Will in 2016.  Yikes, that sounds really close!

When I arrived they were practicing making hearts with their hands - so cute!

 Then it was time for ice cream!  The parents went around with several toppings - I don't think Will said no to any of them.

This picture just melts my heart.  While the kids were waiting to start games Will and two of his little buddies sat down to read.  It was so precious!  We have noticed that Will is 'reading' more and more.  In fact at bedtime he often reads to me instead of the other way around.  He talks about every picture and explains what is going on.  It's funny because he knows all the words to a few of his favorites - Road Work anyone?

We played a few games and the kids all had a blast.  This is the aide in Will's classroom.  She is so sweet.  At home when we play school he insists that I call him Mrs. D.  He then gets out paper plates and napkins and passes them out.  I mentioned it to her and sure enough she passes out the supplies before snack every day.   

We have Will signed up for five mornings a week at the same school next year. We've been so spoiled with his teachers this year that the new ones will have huge shoes to fill!

Will the artist

Will loves anything crafty.  He paints, he cuts, he colors, and his very favorite is when he gets to glue.  So with his party coming up at school he and I worked together to make some little valentines for his class.  He was all about punching out the hearts and gluing them on.  Writing - not so much.  We attached packs of fruit snacks to each one and they were ready to go.  That is until Will wanted a snack later.  He found them and pulled off the fruit snacks because he was hungry :)

I love this last picture.  He does this little tongue bite every time he is working on something that takes some concentration.  It is such a silly little thing, but one of the things that I know I will miss when he doesn't do it any more.

The Black Knight

We were in California when Max's pack had their pinewood derby.  Luckily the pack from our church was willing to let Max race with them.  He was so excited!  He and daddy worked really hard to make the Black Knight one of the fastest cars on the track.  All those You Tube videos Brian watched paid off and Max came in third place!  He is already planning his car for next year - apparently there was a pretty cool pencil design at the race that he loved.

Science Night

What a fabulous night!  We attended science night at Max's school last year and he loved it, so when the sign up came home this year he was all over it.  The kids work in small groups and rotate through classrooms completing different science experiments.

The first experiment was a huge hit - I mean come on, it involved holding a worm.  It was funny to see how different the boy groups on behaved on this one than the girls.  The little boys in our group were pretty much fighting over who got to hold the worm, the girls next to use wanted nothing to do with it.

After the worm they moved on to bubble making.  There were several different bubble blowers and they had to predict how many bubble each one would blow.  They compared their predictions to the actual and then graphed their data.

Lastly they worked to use air pressure to move objects across the desk.  Our whole group was shocked that it was so hard to blow the feather across the table!  At the end they were able to race these little cars across the table.  It was fun, but pretty gross.  Little boys blowing through straws to race cars means lots of flying spit.

There was another big element to science night - the Science Fair!  Max first got excited about the idea when his school hosted a STEM evening.  Then we came up with idea for his project over winter break when he was bored and we looked up paper airplanes on You Tube.  He made five different planes and predicted that they would all fly the same since they were made out of the same paper.  We tested his hypothesis by flying each plane three times and recording the data.  He did found that the Streaking Eagle flew the farthest.  I was so proud of how hard he worked on this project.  He recorded all his steps in his log book and even worked with me in excel to create a graph of his data.  He was super proud of the final result - he got second place!