It's that time again....time for another birthday party! Aiden turns 3 in 2 weeks, but his party is next Friday, the 3rd. It's "get messy" just like last year, but with a Hawaiian Tiki theme. Logan and Aiden have been helping me get everything ready for the crafts we have planned. I'm posting our "tests" on the projects page. I took a couple funny pics of the big boys helping me out though plus one picture that makes me quite worried for the future....

Before I get to those, I needed to post this one. I didn't realize that I never added a picture of the front of Aiden's UP house to my last post. Idn't it the cutest?? Yes...I do mean idn't :) I still can not fathom the amount of work this must have taken!! P.S. Nana, all the balloons are still attached (no longer floating, but still inflated) and all three boys are still happily dragging it around!
Here is the picture that got me worried (I took several like this with my iphone one day while we were playing outside). This is Susan's big battery-powered jeep toy. As you can see, it's supposed to fit 2, but no one wanted to be left out. Logan was driving and was being quite reckless....which I'm pretty sure was by design. He ran into: AJ's scooter, his bike, Mackenzie's bike, the tree in our front yard and almost his brother. Aiden and AJ, to add to the drama of the situation, were hanging on the back and would nearly fall off every time Logan would jerk forwards or backwards (and we're talking falling off on the hard sidewalk or driveway). I looked at Susan and said "we're in big trouble when these kids have actual driver's licenses!!" It's hard to tell, but Logan has himself in a pickle right now...he's trying to turn around after having run into our tree so that he's back on the sidewalk.
Here are the boys washing out 24 little water bottles for me. We're making sand art palm tree people and needed the labels off the bottles. Logan was in charge of opening them, putting the caps in a cup, dumping out the water, and giving the empty bottles to Aiden. Aiden's job was to put each bottle on the stick end of a mixing spoon and submerge it into the hot water on the other side of the sink until it filled up and sunk to the bottom (the water was pretty hot so I didn't want him to hurt himself....hence the spoon).

The palm tree people have googly eyes....the boys were playing around with them...

....now that's pretty funny....and kinda weird!!

Ok...I super hate it when I accidentally upload my pictures to be aligned to the left. I simply can NOT figure out where to put the type and the preview looks nothing like my actual post (captions are mostly under the pics...until the end of the post where the pictures were actually centered...shrug). Sorry for the ugliness of this post :):)

Well...it's been another week or so since my last post...obviously I have a lot of pictures (camera happy = me)! Last week was a ton of fun, but it did have it's very sad moments. Two of my very good friends are moving away within the next 2 months. I started off my week with a going away party for Kristina (see queen of fun with the mattress surfing) and Kelly (a member of the greatest playgroup Mothers and More has ever known). It was seriously one awesome going away party....a bit of the "laugh so you don't cry" philosophy!

So...we had one final playgroup with Kelly and her kids on Wednesday. Another sad moment for me! Back when Logan was only 6 months old, I joined this playgroup with other moms and their (one and only!) babies. There were originally 4 of us with three boys and 1 girl, then came Darlene with Kennedy and then Kelly with Caleb (total count: 2 girls, 4 boys). After Kelly joined, she, I and Lisa all had a second boy and Lauren had a second girl. We continued meeting weekly until some of the kids started preschool this past year. We've tried to meet here and there, play when we can, go on park outings etc. I can't even remember if Brady came before or after the official end of our playgroup, but Kelly also had a third baby (a girl) after we had already stopped getting together on a weekly basis. I remember thinking, back when we had our group every week, that I just never wanted it to end. Kids grow up though...and good friends have to move on to different places. Here are some pictures to commemorate and remember the good times:


This is Halloween 2005 with 4 of the original 5 playgroup babies (Logan is the pumpkin!)



That was then....this is now! (5 to 12!)


Logan did a great job holding Brady next to his buddy Caleb, one of Kelly's little boys, who was doing a great job holding his baby sister

Aiden ended up next to Caleb's brother Sammy....those two are little peas in a pod! I didn't get a good picture, but they were grinning at each other and having a blast during the pictures. I found them upstairs hiding together under a blanket when we were trying to pull the whole group together for our photo session :)

The light coming in my windows was horrible, but here are the 6 playgroup mommies and all our babies.

The mommies!!

Friday I took the boys to Prairie Fest for "Wheels Go Round". We went with the neighborhood crew. There were at least 7 or 8 vehicles that the kids could climb in to, honk horns, check out gadgets etc. Here are Logan and Aiden in the garbage truck!

Here are the babies: Jackson, Kate and Brady. Bray was SUCH a good boy that day. It's getting harder and harder to convince him that the stroller is tons of fun (notice the emergency paci is in place....that always helps)

Little kids, big wheel!

Little kids....big scooper!!!

After procuring balloons and fake tattoos, we played with the goats and rabbits. It was....red day for my boys :)

We had to teach Brady to show his open hands to the goats, indicating that he did NOT have food. After they stopped rushing at him, my little animal lover had a blast petting them and running around. I swear that Bray is going to be our kid who, "just really really wants a puppy mommy!"

Saturday night was family night for the neighborhood crew. Logan and I picked up Nana and Papa at the airport, drove home, had a quick re-fresh, packed the car and headed out. The kids all rode a ton of rides. This was the first one they did (and a first for Aiden who was too small last year) - the dragon roller coaster

When they got off the ride, AJ and Aiden rushed over to each other, grabbed hands, and had a conversation that went something like: AJ: "Aiden!! Did you like that?!"

Aiden: "ya!! it was like THIS (jumps) and like this (sways to the side)" AJ: "me too!!" (jumps and waves his arms in he air as Aiden does the same)

then they happily hugged for a while!

Next, the kids all tackled the cars. I got a sweet picture of Logan (in his "just like daddy visor") and Ryan who rode together.

Nana and Papa took the boys on the big Ferris wheel (I was quite happy to stay on the ground...!




Here is Aiden coming down from the big obstacle course / slide thing. His shirt says "100% good, 10% of the time" Hysterical!


While the kids were on the rides, I was trying to scope out an arcade game they could actually play. I found this giant fishing game...a smaller version of the one Aiden loves at home. For $3, you try until you win....and you win a ball (what could be better?!) Aiden and I went first....it took a while until "he" got the hang of it (plus the girl running the booth finally showed us where the fish were the hungriest...aka opened their mouths the most). After Aiden, Logan and I gave it a shot...we got his ball much faster :)

Aiden was hugging his ball as we walked back to our circle of chairs

A few more kids in our group went to play the fishing game after we came back (oops....sorry moms and dads!) They did make for great entertainment while we were there though!

Here is our annual "circle of fun" at Prairie Fest. Papa got all the kids some balloons from the info booth. We all ate, played with some mini beach balls and danced until it got close to dark. Since there were no fireworks this year, we left "early" and invited everyone to come back to our place to make s'mores outside and play with glow-in-the dark stuff

Bray tried a corn dog. He actually liked it despite the face he made

Brian somehow got mistaken for a climbing toy

I think he prevailed though...

Brady found a chair just his size and chillaxed in it for a while.
On Sunday, it was time for Nana and Papa to give Aiden his early birthday present...an actual UP house!! After we saw the movie, Aiden said he wanted a house with lots and lots of balloons on it. Wish granted!

Nana bought a bird house, added shingles, a door, windows etc etc and painted it to look just like the house in the movie! We bought 12 balloons to see if they would lift the house off of the ground...no luck. Another trip to the party store and we had a total of 35 balloons. Brian even cut the bottom out of the house....it was SOOOO close to flying! Bri realized later in the day that the best thing to do was to toss it over the edge of the balcony upstairs and watch it float nicely down to the ground floor....we let them do that a few times with supervision.

Aiden's house was waiting for him under the front stairs when he woke up from his afternoon nap. It took him a while to fully wake up and enjoy this amazing balloon creation, but he LOVED it!

We tried to fly it outside (see video). Aiden even wanted it to sleep in his room that night (and he put all his stretchy worms, frogs and snakes inside the house for their bed time). I for one loved the house, but would probably freak if I woke up and saw it in my room in the middle of the night! I kept mistaking it for a person standing in the living room all afternoon!

Brady has a thing for bottles right now and tries to steal them ALL the time. Brian was trying to enjoy a beer Sunday night, but it's hard when a little one is chasing after you whining. So....he filled his empty bottle with a little water (after it was washed out) and Brady was just so very happy. He climbed up on the fireplace and sat there grinning. Silly baby.

Per usual, I was planning to write a real quick post on one little topic...until I took a look at the pictures currently on my camera! The one little topic was: my boys and magic. I didn't realize until yesterday that we have several little rituals that involve having or being "magic":


1. Every time we go into or out of a store where there are electric handicap doors, the boys run and compete over who gets to push "the magic button" (which is nice because I need those doors open for the stroller!). It's gotten to the point where I have to monitor the whole process "ok guys...there's a magic button on this door...Logan gets to push it on the way in and Aiden gets to push it on the way out". For the most part, they are very courteous about sharing the magic.


2. Aiden loves to "use magic" on automatic doors (the ones that open via sensors as you approach). At Home Depot one day, for example, he stood about 5 feet from the front door until the person in front of us went through and until the doors slid shut. When everything was all set, he quickly ran towards the door, jumped into a sort of crouched position and waved his hands, palms out, towards the door. Ah...every time he does that, it cracks me up!

3. This is what made me think of all our "magic" stuff: Last night, we were playing outside with friends. It was time to go in so I asked the boys if they wanted to eat real quick and then take a bath so that they could play with daddy when he got home. Logan said "sure....but can you do the magic tonight?!" Aiden chimed in with "ya!! do the magic!!" Mommy's magic started one night, over a year ago, while I was giving the boys a bath (in our bathroom as always...which is right over the garage). I heard the garage door open and then I heard Brian walking up the back stairs. Anyway...I turned to the boys and asked, "you guys want to see mommy do a magic trick?" They were totally excited. So...I said, "abracadabra....hokus pokus"....and a bunch of other words, until I heard the door open to the bathroom. Then I said "TA-DA!" and in walked Daddy. Now we have a system. The boys ask for the magic if Brian isn't home, but is supposed to be home before bedtime ("do the magic in the bathroom mommy!!"), Brian will call me when he's in the neighborhood and I'll say "ok guys....it's time for the magic!" They get so excited...especially when I finally get to yell TA-DA!



And now for the pictures on my camera:



Last week the boys needed something to do. I wanted them to go outside. I set up this little bubble machine we got after our super cool one kicked the bucket. I told them that Darth Vadar had created clone bubbles and that they needed to be destroyed as they rolled off the production line!! Here are the boys battling the clone bubbles.



Last weekend we went to Wisconsin for Charlie's open house (a chance for everyone to come and meet the new baby!) We were at the beautiful home of Aunt Sara's mom and dad and got to see a lot of people we haven't see for quite a while (lots of new babies in the mix!). Right before we left, we took a picture with Charlie. He's sitting on Aiden's lap. It was a really fun little party and our boys were like shockingly well behaved. We were a super happy mommy and daddy as we drove home. Of course we went to The Brat Stop to grab some of Brian's favorites for the freezer.

So...we're all familiar with Logan's pictures from my camera. Aiden got a little curious about it Sunday morning while the two of us were making pancakes and eggs. He kept wanting to take pictures of himself.

Ouch...I wonder if the flash hurt!

I love making photo albums using shutterful.com. At one point, I was looking at all the different albums they offer and noticed a recipe one. Brian was making an AWESOME meal for us on Sunday and mentioned that he would like to make a family recipe book. The only problem is that each page in the shutterfly album layout is accompanied by a picture. So....we have a new family mission: make all our favorite recipes, take pictures, and make a book! We had Meemaw and Grandpa over for dinner on Sunday (belated bday for Meemaw, early Father's Day for Grandpa). We decided to take pictures of the food...and a few of the family.

Aiden loved the corn! The night's menu included smoked ribs, rotisserie chicken (the best we've ever had!!!), grilled packets of red potatoes with blue cheese crumbles, and corn. Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard! I'm saving the pictures of the ACTUAL food for the book :)

And now we have a series of pictures that Logan took yesterday. I will narrate what I think might have been going through his head:

mommy said my friends are playing outside....here I go!

There's my brother Aiden!

He has a bunch of monster stickers on his shirt today! (from Ella)

Here is my friend Ryan! He just got done playing in the water. WATER! That sounds like fun. I should go get my bailing suit!

I'm walking back home....that's my patio! I need my bailing suit to play in the water!

Here I am walking back inside. Where is mommy??

Wait....no....I don't think I'm done playing with the camera yet. I'm heading back outside!

Here is some stuff on the porch....

This is me sitting at the little picnic table...

This is me laying my head on the patio couch

I think I came off too serious that last time....here I am grinning

Wait...that wasn't a very good picture....I didn't get my whole head. Let me set this shot up one more time. That's better!!
Oh my gosh....did you think this post should be over?? me too! But...the boys were playing in the rain today and I thought it was cute. Brady was a bit upset because.... He was having some initial problems managing the big umbrella his brothers gave him.

Logan offered to take the big umbrella from Brady. He thought it was pretty cool that you can hit a button on the handle to make it pop open. Here he is saying "look Aiden...I can cover us both!"

Brady did a bit better with the smaller umbrella, although I kept holding mine over his head so he wouldn't get soaked.