Grandma and Grandpa Visit

Eric's parents, Grandma Barb and Grandpa Steve, came up for the weekend for Cal's birthday. We got very spoiled when they were here.

Eric thought it would be fun to dye the kids' hair. They loved it.

Here, Cal made this little car into a clown. When he turned the head (which was the steering wheel), the feet moved.

And Ike with green hair.

Steve and Barb took us out to eat at Chevy's. The kids meals came with cones.


Eric and his dad.

We ran a bunch of errands on Saturday morning. The boys did great. I'm sure it had to do with the fact that we went to a halloween store, toys r us, and a bagel shop.

Here's the Halloween shop. It was heaven for Calvin (not pictured b/c he ran around the whole time picking up things, dropping them and running to the next thing).

The coin-powered car outside of toys r us.

Thanks for coming Grandma and Grandpa! We are looking forward to your Halloween visit!

Calvin's 5th Birthday

Happy Birthday, Cal! There are lots of things I love about you- your kindness, your sense of humor, your hospitality "Welcome to our home! Would you like something to drink?", your silliness, your amazing artistic skillz, your compassion and heart for the needy, your particularness (since he was a little dude, he lined up all of his toys in a row), your curiosity (even though sometimes it drives me nuts) and your honesty. Thanks for making it easy, Cal. I love you!

I got a lot of great pictures of birthday fun with friends and family. But here are some of the highlights...

Our friends, the McCowen's, who moved to India came over the day before Cal's birthday. It was a great treat for us all. But short. Hannah and Cal picked right up where they left off. It was so great to see them all again. But I was reminded of how much I miss them.

Cal pointed to a picture of a cake on a card he received. It was chocolate with pink frosting. It wasn't exactly the same, but he was still very excited and didn't give me a hard time (good thing, too, because I would have thrown them right out the window).

We planned on going apple picking with our friends this morning, but it was raining. So we met at McDonald's Playplace. It was hot, sticky, dirty, snotty, but loads o' fun. Here they all are- right at the entrance.

The Rods got Cal this crazy flavored plastic mustache.

Presents: A batman costume (terrible picture, I know)

A rollerskating set- complete with helmet and pads/guards. He is terrible, but super excited.

A lightsaber (but Cal calls it a "lifesaver" because it saves lives when the bad guys come)

And Grandma Barb and Grandpa Steve came in time for Grandpa and Eric to take Cal to see a movie while Ike napped. Then we ate Cal's favorite dinner, went for ice cream, and stopped by Choo Choo Bob's, a local favorite train store.

Rough and Tough

We aren't completely sure how this happened. Isaac said a ball hit him (it was a plastic ball). I'm thinking he tripped on a bat he was holding and got confused. Either way, it looks pretty nasty. He's a tough kid, though, and only cried for a few minutes.

Siblings

Calvin to Ike- "Ike, I have a job for you to do! Why don't you leave me alone while I rest."

Football

Eric is getting extremely excited about football and likes to talk about it lately.

He was sitting next to Ike watching the pre-game (Black-eyed peas) and asked, "Do you like football?" Ike said, "yeah." Eric asked, "Why?" Ike responded, "Idunno. It's awesome." And then a couple seconds later, he shouted out, "They knock themselves down!!!"

Birthday Fun

Happy Birthday, Mommy!

It's Leah's birthday today! She's loving, patient (with us), sweet, fun, honest, serving, creative, active, funny, and really good at Skip-Bo. What's not to celebrate? We love you, Leah.

Here's a list of things the boys said they like about their Mom:

• She is fun
• She plays with us
• she takes us to Luke and Ella's house
• She takes us to Molly's house
• She pretends she's a monster
• She reads stories to us and does the voices
• She makes funny faces sometimes
• [insert breath between every word when reading this] - She takes takes me to the big tractor and I go inside and I ride in it (Ike)
• [insert breath between every word when reading this] - I I I like presents and pictures and candles (Ike while looking around the dining room)
• Sometimes she sings and dances around goofy
• She plays Mr Potatos Heads with us
• She makes us good food.

This list is good and all, but what would you put on your Leah list?