I really have no good title for this post...just pictures of what we've been up to. Logan has also been doing some pretty funny stuff during "nap time" lately.

Monday: we went for a quick play date with some friends. Here, my friend Kristina (aka: the queen of fun), introduces the boys to stair surfing on an old crib mattress. Aiden loved it! I suspect that the next thing we'll be doing is trying this on our front stairs. I was surprised at how slow the mattress goes down. Several of my friends (Karen!) have said that they do this too....I'm sold - totally fun!
...check out my bad photography skills! :)
Tuesday afternoon, we had some of the family over for a quick lunch. Aiden and Logan were almost beside themselves when it was time for baby Charlie to leave (Logan cried and hid under a pillow on the couch!) Aunt Sara let them hold and kiss on him for a couple minutes. Of course I had a great picture of L, A and Charlie together right as my camera battery died. We'll see them again this weekend so hopefully I'll get more shots of our new little cutie.

During "nap time" on Wednesday, I decided to mow the lawn for Brian. Logan, who rarely naps anymore, usually plays outside while I work. He doesn't like the sound of the mower though and tries to play on the other side of the lawn. I looked up at one point and he was coming out to meet me with the play mower. Mama's little helper!

Wednesday was a tough day for Aiden. He was getting up to all sorts of mischievousness and lost almost all his stars. Sadly, he wasn't allowed to have a freeze pop after dinner. Brady actually walked over and snuggled up to him as he was being sad. Nothing like a Bear hug to make you feel better!

Today Logan and I did quite a few things together while the little guys were napping. We played Neighborhood Sounds Bingo, built some sort of ship out of his shopping cart and then "played" rock band (no TV was turned on during this play session). Logan stood up on his stage (the couch), said "alright every body!!" and then started singing (Hello Now Ladies and Gentlemen....intro song to Rock Band) Rock it out dude!!

Lastly, I was really touched by Logan last night. He received a thank-you card from one of his preschool teachers yesterday thanking him for his end-of-the-year gift (Target gift card and a green car). He had me read the message to him 3 times and then took it up to his room that night so he could sleep with it. He ended up putting it up on top of his bookshelf and said "Mrs Karin is so sweet mommy!"

Yesterday started with a rainy morning. Brian and I had discussed taking the boys to see Up. Most of the time, Logan and daddy do movies while I stay at home with the little ones during nap time. Memaw said she would watch Bray for us (even though I was determined to take him if necessary) and we went to a 10:10 show. By the time we got there (late...what's new?!), there weren't many seats left. We sat in the very back and ended up in 2 seats - me with Aiden on my lap and Brian with Logan on his lap. Both boys did GREAT and loved the movie. We let them have 2 slushies each and popcorn. Not a bad morning if you ask me!!

After naps it was time to head over to Uncle David and Aunt Diana's house to meet Charlie! Brian's little brother and his wife are in town with their new baby boy. Pete and Sara adopted Charlie 2 months ago. He is ADORABLE and makes 7 grand baby boys on Brian's side (no girls). I was finally able to give them the shirt I had made. It says "Born 2 B A" on the front and "HOUCK 10" on the back since he is the 10th boy in a row starting with Brian's oldest brother.

Diana (my oldest sister in law) had scheduled a photographer for us so we all went to a really pretty hiking area and did family pictures. I think we got some good big group shots....no real good pictures of our little 5-some though. Oh well :)



Here is the shirt I ordered for baby Charlie when he was born...

didn't realize this was sideways until I uploaded it, but Blogger is being goofy for me today so I'm not going to fix it.

Mom & Dad + three sons + three wives = 7 grand sons (yes...no girls....none). The only girls that will join this family have to be bribed with engagement rings!

We love all our boys!! (my sweeties are: sitting on Grandpa's lap top left, sitting on daddy's lap top middle and on the very bottom right).

This was the best picture we got...wiggly boys.

This one cracks me up ...

poor Logan and his forced smile. He actually looks mad in this one :)

Today I was talking to Denay on the phone while she was at work (I was folding laundry, the older boys were playing Wii together, Brady was running around the house and coming over every so often to hug my leg before running away to play again). Mid sentence to Den, I remembered that Aiden was sitting on the couch NOT wearing a diaper under his pajamas. We did an early bath so that we could eat with daddy when he got home from his work out and then have some play time before bed. So...back to being mid-sentence in a conversation, I suddenly shouted over "Aiden! Don't pee on my couch!" Denay started laughing and said "hold on...I have a word document for these occasions...it's called 'Things Renay says on the phone'". She opened it and read it to me. Apparently she hasn't written much since last year, but I was literally laughing so hard that I couldn't breath. I'm sure it's funnier to me than to most people, but here is what the list contained (she emailed it to me):

3/12/08 (Aiden is 20 months old)
Renay – why are you eating your foot?
Aiden – “eat foot”
Renay – why? Eat foot?
Aiden – “eat foot”
Renay – Ok…

3/31/08 (Logan is 3)
Logan – while hanging on to Renay’s arm Logan sang “close your eyes and think of me, and soon I will be there. You’ve got a friend” <-- note: this is his "special song" that I sing to him at night

4/4/08
Renay – (after Aiden dumped shredded cheese on the floor) – “don’t dance on the cheese Aiden”

4/28/08
Renay – Aiden, don’t drink the butter honey!

6/4/09 Renay yelled to Aiden mid sentence to me on the phone “Aiden, don’t pee on my couch”

Aiden has a bit of a reputation for doing goofy stuff I guess!

Here is a video I made of the boys yesterday. It's hard to hear the music. I have TRIED to get this on film several times. This is what we call "the rockin' it out song" at our house. It's "Sleeping Lessons" by The Shins. I used to play it in the car and the boys would go crazy. They made me play it 3 times yesterday. The song starts off really slow....they get all excited, dance around a bit and then....it gets REALLY loud and they start RUNNING. I love it - it always makes me laugh. My camera card filled up as I was filming so I didn't get much...

I'm so tired.....really....just so incredibly tired this week! Teething bites! With Logan, we would be playing around on any random day, peer into his baby mouth and report "hey - he's got 2 new teeth!" Aiden struggled with the molars, but was pretty fine over all. Brady.....Brady is a whole other story! That kid is a HORRIBLE teether (is that even a word?)! He has sleepless nights (translation, WE have sleepless nights), cranky days and don't even TRY to take the paci away at all...ever! He's working on an incisor right now. Saturday night, Sunday night and last night were rough rough rough for us. It's so hard to remember who/what/where/when the morning after you spend a good amount of time padding the hallways to calm a crying child. Saturday night, every one had a turn needing a visit from mommy and/or daddy, but Bray was up practically every hour. Somehow, after multiple trips to and from 3 different rooms, Brady ended up in bed with me and Brian ended up in bed with Logan. I'm so tired!!

On the flip side, after dealing with Aiden waking up every day exactly at 10 to 6:00 for the past month or so, Brian finally executed the idea he's been proposing for the last week: light blockage. He threw two of my fleece tie blankets over the curtain rod in Aiden's room and guess what....he slept until after 7:00 today! What timing too! At least we're getting some morning relief from a night of baby teething.

This concludes my whining ;) I actually debated posting this, but it's one for the records. I do have to say that having Bray in our bed has been nice at times. He is such a soft, warm little cuddly thing! He'll snuggle right into you with his chunky-ness and lay his head on your shoulder...ahhhh...what a love! Last night, both he and Logan ended up in the middle of the bed between me and Brian. Brady was cuddling his big brother...leg thrown over Logan's tummy with his sweet baby head snuggled right up against Logan's shoulder. The king-sized bed is quite the life saver at times!

Today was Logan's last day of preschool for the year (1 year down and 18 more years of school, through Sr. year of college, to go....hopefully anyway!) Thoroughly Three's is over. Sniff sniff. Mrs. Jen was such a wonderful teacher! I know Logan is going to miss her! Thankfully we'll see her at drop offs and picks ups next year when Logan goes to Pre-K.

The big final celebration for Logan's class was this past Tuesday at one of the local parks. It was basically a day to get outside, do a few fun things, and play with his school friends. We got there pretty early so we ended up being the first in line for almost all the activities. Here, Logan is the very first to try out the face painting. He requested a super man emblem on his cheek:

These are the same face paints that we used at the zoo last week. I took a pic of the box because I guess they are hard to find. The person who purchased these bought them from a place pretty far from our house. I'm thinking Internet!
After the face painting, we went up to the covered picnic area, got some popcorn, juice, a cookie and a balloon animal (Logan said it's a cat). Here is Logan's "I'm trying to smile, but instead I look like someone gave me something nasty to eat" face.

There we go....a little more natural plus you can see the cool superman on his face.

Bubbles....

Playing with his friends....

Today, each child leaving class had a bag like this with every one's hand prints on it.

Inside was Logan's portfolio from the year. It contained, among other things, all the letters they learned (each week they would talk about new letters and then make them for their book)

T is for tape and toothpicks. (Aiden was particularly fond of B as B is for bubble wrap...he popped a few in Logan's book!)

This is the number section of the book. These exercises taught 1:1 ratios, counting, colors, number recognition, and cutting.

His certificate!

The most impressive part of the book was a folder stuck in the front that contained a bunch of papers detailing information on social development, class interaction etc. The one pictured below was Logan's "friends collection form". It detailed with whom and how he played all year. Another form talked about his favorite things...one of which we found out were the big blocks in the room (not the cars...as I would have expected!)

Here is a sun Logan made with his hand prints. I swear, that kid needs some pointers for smiling on command! Look at that sweet squinty face!

This is one of two signs that were given to me at the beginning of the year. They are used during pick ups. You put one in your window or carry it with you to the room to help the teachers see who is waiting in the pick-up line and gather the kids accordingly. I put it in my window for the last time today. Next year, Logan's sign will be purple (he was SO very lucky to be in the green room this year!) :)

After dinner tonight, we celebrated this milestone with s'mores on the fire outside.

When I asked Logan what he wanted to give his teachers for a thank-you gift, he said "a car". As is my usual mode-of-operation, I ran out at the very last minute....last night, to procure two matchbox cars (different ones for each, but both green), Target gift cards (what could be better....or maybe that's just my opinion) and thank-you cards for the teacher and her assistant. Logan colored in the cards and signed his name this morning - phew! <-- I so wish I could be more of a planner sometimes!!

Aiden INSISTED that he be the one to give Mrs. Jen her present. He held on to it for dear life in the car on the way to school and gave it to her when she opened the door to get Logan out. Mrs. Jen and Aiden are already smitten with one another. I promised her I would do my best to get him in her 2011 class (he's supposed to go next year, but with a July b-day, I'm holding him back one extra year for a multitude of reasons....none of which is that he's not ready, but I am convinced I'm doing the right thing in the long run!)

And now let the summer fun to begin! Aiden's "jumping class" (tumbling) also ended today so we're class free for a few weeks!

Kudos to anyone who actually reads this entire post! I thought my previous record of 30-some pictures was impressive, if not a bit overboard, but hey...we DID treat this week like an actual family vacation so 40+ pictures seems reasonable. Brian snapped over 80 pictures at the zoo alone! I edited as much as I could :)

The past 10 days have been FANTASTIC! We started last weekend with the rock band party (as per my previous post). Monday began our true family time. We could not have asked for a more beautiful week. Until today (Monday, Memorial Day) we had no rain and very nice temps. We started with a trip to the zoo. Tuesday was a project day for Brian. He and his dad fixed our sinking back porch steps by re-leveling them. On Wednesday, we went back to the Arboretum. Thursday, another project day...our garage is finally dry-walled - go daddy! On Friday, we attended the re-opening of the Aquarium "Ocean-arium" and new children's area before heading home, cooking up some steak sandwiches and hosting our weekly TGIF party. Saturday and Sunday were hang-around the house days. Brian cooked for us on the grill Saturday night and then we had a BBQ with the backyard bunch (three of the 7 TGIF families) on Sunday. Today, we barely left our couch!! Everyone was a bit on the cranky side from having so much fun and because we're losing daddy tomorrow. The excellent news is that the NYC project is probably over so Bri will be home for, or shortly after, dinner every night this week. YEAH! This past weekend also included lots of fire-side hang outs after the kids went to bed...it's not even "summer" yet, but it feels like we're in full swing!

Pictures from our week:

Brady in the stroller at the Zoo on Monday (5/18). I inherited this hat from my sister in law. It says "mom rules"
The most interesting animal thing we saw was this camel playing soccer with a giant ball. I don't think I took pictures, but the Dinosaur exhibit was AWESOME. They have something like 15 life-sized, remote-controlled dinosaurs in a special display right now and it's sooo cool!
Gotta love a toddler who just strikes out on his own! Look at him go - doesn't even care that we're not behind him! :)

Every time we go on a family outing, I feel like I get all these adorable "daddy and sons" photo ops. Aren't they sweet?! (despite the large group outing in front of them wearing the searing yellow shirts...as you can see....we went green on our boys for the zoo).

The boys check out the penguins

We bought tickets to go to the Hamill Family Play Zoo...this awesome house-enclosed area just for kids. We had never been in there before and it was SO much fun!!! We started with some face painting (you have to do it yourself). I made Aiden a Leopard (I meant to do lion, but he insisted he was a leopard when I was done) and Logan a Cheetah (again...I did a lion...and then he had me add spots).

You can dress up like a zoo keeper and clean the lemur area (the actual lemurs are behind a glass wall....but...

There was a Brady-sized lemur wandering around the play area!

Thankfully, daddy caught the Brady-lemur and gave it some hugs!

Don't feed the animals....oops...too late!

The boys played with puppets...

...watered plants in the green house with spray bottles (a dream come true for my trio of spray-bottle lovers!)

...and then went outside for an interactive story

Then we (me, Logan & Aiden) rode on the carousel while Brian procured snow cones - their first ever - HUGE hit!

They usually don't let you take animals home with you, but these ones seemed unwilling to stay in the zoo-provided cages...and they're real cute so we let them come with us.

Brady thought a nap was in order...Aiden didn't think that looked like very much fun and tried to wake him up (unsuccessfully)

This picture is out of order and is actually from Thursday. We did several days of "wild, wacky water world" in our back yard. On Tuesday, the boys & their friends tested out EVERY single water toy we own...and broke the good slip-n-slide (I have to go on record here to say that it wasn't actually one of my kids who broke the slip-n-slide, but I was totally not angry...just happy that it was someone else's child for a change!) :) THIS picture is from when I decided to make Connor and Logan play "old school" and put out the ACTUAL sprinkler. It brought back happy memories from my own childhood when we didn't own a gazillion water toys. Also in this picture: the not-so-good slip 'n slide that sprays everywhere except ON the plastic sliding part

Back to Tuesday. While I lounged on the porch with my friends, and while our kids played in the water, Brian and his dad re-leveled the steps out to our back porch. They look great now!

Logan is a PRO at sliding this year. I got several action shots of him. I was surprised considering that, last year, he had no CLUE as to how to dive and slide all the way to the end. This WAS Tuesday....and that WAS the good slip 'n slide (daddy found a cheap replacement at Walmart later in the week....oh phew!)

Some of the neighborhood crew. I think Aiden was sleeping at this point. When I went to wake him up, I picked him up out of bed, walked to the windows, opened the blinds to the back yard and said "you wanna go do that?" Of course he nodded yes!

Wednesday was Arboretum day. Anne and her kids just happened to have plans to go there as well so we met up. They introduced us to another new place we had never been...the tadpole pool! There were HUNDREDS of them. One of the workers there showed the boys how to catch and release them.

This whole part, plus another big area of water, is filled with tadpoles! (the arboretum was red shirt day....just like the last time we went)

Logan catches one.

Another awesome daddy and son picture!

This time we had our picnic at the top of the tree house.

Our last stop, as always, was the creek area for some splashing around.

That day, we brought boats with us to race down the water

Update to the birds in the window: the babies hatched about 2 weeks ago and we watch the mommy bird feeding them worms all the time. They seemed to be crowding the nest a bit by the end of last week. I even saw mama bird bringing some more nest material, although I'm not sure what she did with it. On Sunday, the birds left the nest and we saw them in the back yard, practicing their flying & looking for food while the daddy bird (according to Brian) watched them from a short distance. This is Logan on daddy's shoulders checking out the babies:

Our 4 robin babies (picture below) They are brown with white spots and actually quite large when we saw them out of the nest. They grew SO fast!! Every time we had rain and the worms came out on to the driveway, I thought of the birds and how nice it would be for mommy to just swoop down and grab some grub from the sidewalks and the drive. At times, I would look up in the window and the babies would just be sitting in the nest, still as could be with their little mouths open....that was always sort of a creepy picture. I wanted them to move so they looked alive!

Friday was a busy and fun day. We dressed the boys in orange and headed downtown to the aquarium. They re-opened the dolphins, whales and penguin areas with some great new additions. We had some parking issues (no one would take debit and we had no cash), but we managed to sort that out and start our adventure at 9:30! I found it quite impressive for the members of the 554 to be 40+ miles away from home with full bellies, clean cloths, brushed teeth, a parked car and already starting our activity by 9:30 in the morning! I sometimes have a hard time getting Logan to school 300 yards from our house by 9! Go us!!

And now... another cute daddy & sons pic!

This was one of the coolest new additions: a penguin play area! It was a rock climbing structure with "ice" slides where the kids could put on penguin costumes, climb around, feed baby penguins and explore some tunnels. This is Logan penguin:

Bear on the slide with a daddy-assist

Logan gathers fish for the babies while Aiden and Brady check out the nest of eggs (some were cracked and had stuffed penquins inside...who supposedly ate the fish). It looks like Aiden was feeding the babies in this picture.

I'm sorry...but Brady was the CUTEST penquin there! Brian had him dressed and brought him to me before I even saw the whole penquin play area and I just busted up laughing. He was adorable!

This was Logan's favorite thing: a submarine! It was pretty cool!!

So many buttons! Some many dials!! So much stuff to turn and poke and look through and talk into! Everything actually "worked" too (ie: every button made a noise or changed a dial or something else cool...I'm surprised we were ever allowed to leave!)

After we finished up at the aquarium, we drove home to get ready for our TGIF. Brian planned steak sandwhiches with blue cheese and balsamic grilled onions. OOOOH yum!!!! We also invented our drink of the week: Litchfield Lemonaid. My one wish: a really really pretty container to serve from - and we found it at Homegoods on our trip back to the house! Each week's host is supposed to make a drink. I wanted ours to be really light and not taste like a ton of sugar so we made: blackberry iced tea with light lemonaid and blueberry vodka. yummers! It's only pink because Brian put frozen blueberries and fresh blackberries in the container. The actual color looks more like plain iced tea.

The Sunday before Memorial Day, we did a small BBQ with the backyard bunch. Brian wanted to teach the boys about "real BBQ" (ie: using the smoker and slow cooking ALL day long). Here, the boys show off the plate of spiced meat ready to go in the smoker.

...and there is the smoker....baby proofed against Brady for the day! I was laughing later that night because it was a mildly hot day and so Brian, as is his custom, opened all the windows in the house to get a cross-breeze going. This particular breeze made the whole house smell like smoked meat....a good and a bad thing :)

That same day, Susan brought out her new DOUBLE slip 'n slide and we set it up between her/Pete's house and Anne/Jeff's house. Brady doesn't do much slipping....he prefers sippin!

Logan!

Aiden!

This is probably one of the only times Aiden actually slid. He and AJ mostly just RAN down and jumped over the water at the end.

Me and Brady! He and Aiden kept coming over to give me lots of love.....at least Brady wasn't soaking wet! I kept getting drenched from Aiden....but it was worth it for the hugs!

The end (really...I promise!)