Noah and Eli turned 4

Clockwise from upper left: Eli in his Captain America mask and Noah opening his present; Eli eating his cupcake; the boys with friend Landen and the pinata; Eli opening his Batman utility belt from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa; Noah; Noah and Eli with Aunt Wendy; Noah and Eli in their new Batman costumes.

Noah and Eli had their birthday on the 21st and I think they had a blast. Aaron and I woke them up by singing them happy birthday. They weren't all that excited to get out of bed until I said there were presents in the living room. That definitely got them moving and were so excited for their Captain America helmets and Batman costumes. We then headed over to Grandma's house and woke everyone up. Deb's sister Wendy is visiting so they couldn't wait to show Grandma and Aunt Wendy their new stuff. They of course couldn't wait to open more presents so Grandma let them open the presents from them.

Aren't these the coolest boots you've ever seen? The spiders and heels light up. The boys love their Spiderman boots.

We were supposed to take them to Spalding Donuts for breakfast but apparently they are closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. We had to improvise so we headed over to Brown's Bakery to get cupcakes for their party and ate Subway which was just next door. By this time we had to make our way over to speech therapy and of course their amazing therapists spoiled them with candy and toys.

Clockwise from upper right:  Eli; Noah and Eli waiting for their party to start; the delicious cupcakes; Eli devouring his strawberry cupcake; Noah and Eli showing off their outfits at Brown's Bakery; Sarah and Grandma at Brown's Bakery

 After speech we headed home and decorated Grandma's deck for a little birthday party with the family and Miss Ginny, Landen, and Laura (our backyard neighbors and good friends). We stuffed ourselves with delicious cupcakes, opened a couple more presents, and did the pinata. Aunt Wendy gave the boys gift cards to Toys 'r' Us so after the party we headed over to TRU so the boys could pick out their toys. The both picked out a Power Ranger figurine and Power Ranger sword. Aaron met us for dinner at Applebees. The boys felt pretty special when the employees sang them a birthday song and gave them each a giant ice cream sundae.

It was a busy day but they had a lot of fun. They are already asking about their next birthday :)

Random Pictures Revisited

Noah and Me @ Joe's Grave

 12/2011 - Novelty Hill Cemetery, WA

A Colorful Bath

7/15/2011 - Lexington, KY

Noah Flying

 01/01/2012 @ 30,000 ft.

Noah on a Ferry

 12/31/2011 - Puget Sound, WA

Eli Feeling Left Out

 Christmas Eve 2011, Raymond, WA

Eli Contemplating the Ocean

 12/26/2011 - Hood Canal, WA

Eli Making A Face

 12/29/2011 - Hood Canal, WA

Sarah with Her Grandma

 12/28/2011 - Hood Canal, WA

Sarah with Her Grandpa

01/16/2012 - Lexington, KY

Turtleman

 

I wish this was a post about Turtleman. Have you seen him on Call of the Wildman? It's hilarious! What makes the show great is that he's from Eastern Kentucky and they are all such hicks. If you haven't seen the show you really should. It's on Animal Planet. Go now! But I digress...

 About a month ago we were getting ready for church and Aaron walked outside to find a turtle walking across our front yard. I of course couldn't just leave him to get run over by a car so we put him in a box with some water. When we got home from church we decided to go take him down to the creek. The kids were pretty excited about the turtle and had fun releasing him into the creek so he could find his family.

Sarah's 1st haircut

Anyone that has seen Sarah within the last couple of months probably noticed her rat tail. Her hair hasn't grown much except one long section in the back. It totally brought me back to the days when boys grew their hair like this:

  

Hers wasn't quite this hideous but still present.

I finally decided it was time to cut if off and see if I can get it to grow out evenly. We went to Kiddie Cutters and she had a lot of fun. She played on the slide and picked out Backyardigans to watch. She chose to sit in the pink jeep and sat amazingly still while she got trimmed up.

 No more rat tail! The hairstylist was so cute. She tried to stack the back like a bob. She was laughing at herself. Sarah's definitely looking better with her new do :)

Twins Days

We drove up to Twinsburg, OH this past weekend for the Twins Days Festival. It was honestly pretty cool and so weird to see so many identical twins in one place. Friday night there was a hotdog dinner at Twinsburg High School for all the registered twins and their families. We preregistered for the festival in hopes to have the twins' names published in the program but we got their information in too late.

It was superhero themed this year. Perfect for my superhero loving boys!

On Saturday morning we got up and headed to the parade. We were a little late but still got to see a good chunk of it. Since the boys were registered they could have walked with all the twins in the parade but I'm sure they would have just whined the whole entire time since that is what the did most of the morning anyway. They did enjoy collecting as much candy as they could that was thrown into the crowd.

After the parade we walked to the high school and then rode a little shuttle down to the festival. The boys quit whining and complaining about wanting to go home and watch a movie as soon as they saw the rides. After they rode as many rides as they could we headed over to the white tents. They had twin contests, people selling crafts and other junk, food, and (what we were most excited about) twin research. Aaron thought it was pretty cool that they had tents set up with people conducting research. The boys were too young for a lot of the studies but we did fill out some information for research on skin disease. At the end a physician came over to look at the boys and do a mole count. The doctor commented on their red cheeks (they get really red when they are hot) and I mentioned that it runs in my family and my brother has really red cheeks. He made a note that they would be good to look at in 15 years.

We didn't do this study because they boys weren't old enough but there was a whole area of different tents set up with tables and researchers.

 Aaron and I were busily filling out paperwork when all the sudden I realized the boys were just going throw the suckers as fast as they could.

The boys were really impressed with the identical twins from Canada. They had on some pretty crazy costumes and ran around with their arms out in front of them - they even sang a theme song wherever they went. They mentioned that the boys might not get it now but when they are older there is the twins festival and then their is the "twins festival." What you are seeing here is the hung over phase of the festival. They were pretty funny.

Identical twins with identical twins. It was so bizarre seeing so many identical twins with other identical twins.

 One tuckered out little girl.

I think what they boys enjoyed most were the hotel rooms since we had an adjoining room with grandma and grandpa. We had freshly renovated rooms so that was a plus. We rented Avengers one night and went swimming in the pool. The drive wasn't even that bad since we finally got to see another side of Ohio besides North I-75.

People came from all over. We talked to one couple that had 2 sets of twins in a year and a half. Later we saw adult triplets and one of them had triplets. Crazy!

Michigan trip - July 2012

We went to Michigan a couple weeks ago for a wedding. My pseudo-brother (I grew up really close to his family), Doug, got married on the 21st to his beautiful bride, Shanita. The wedding and reception were perfect and they looked so happy together. Here's a few shots I got at the wedding. The little ring bearer is my nephew Kenny and the bottom left photo is a picture of my brother, who was one of the groomsmen.

 This is a picture of the quilt I made for Doug and Shanita as a wedding present. I made it with fabric from my mom's sewing stash.

The only fabric that wasn't my mom's is the gold fabric on the back shown below.

We had a barbeque at my dad's house with some of my dad's family on Sunday.

 On Monday and Tuesday we went out to my Uncle Bill's and Aunt Dar's house. They moved a couple years ago to a house on a lake and we've never been able to make it out during the summer. We made sure to get out there this time and loved going out on the boat and swimming in the lake.

 Our last day was Wednesday. We didn't have any plans during the day so we took the kids to the zoo. After the zoo we headed over to my brother's house for a barbeque and to see the family one last time.