Xander's Birthday Party

We had a lovely time at Xander's birthday party. We had a really good turn out and the weather was beautiful- albeit a little hot. Xander wanted tractors on his birthday cake so we went with a John Deere theme, which was a lot of fun! It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be to find tractor decorations. I ended up having to get them online but I did find these wonderful little table tents that had spaces for photos. I dug through boxes of pictures, what a trip down memory lane..., and found a bunch of pictures to use for the tents. I tried to pick a good selection of pictures throughout his life so far and I think they came out really nicely. It will make a nice souvenir for Xander's memory box anyway. We also had a tractor pinata and of course tractors on the cake just per Xander's request! The cake was made by Xander's godmother, aka the queen of cakes! Didn't she do an amazing job. Xander kept trying to play with his cake like it was a toy. He wanted to scoop the dirt and push the tractor through the dirt...Mostly I was able to keep his fingers off until after everyone had their piece! So we had tons of good food, lots of good company, delicious cake, and Xander got lots of fun presents. His favorite presents after te party were a truck that you can take apart and put back together with a toy screwdriver and a wheelie tower from Fisher-Price. What more could a three year old boy want?

Xander is three years old!

Today my baby boy is three years old. He decided to celebrate by waking up at the brink of dawn, getting dressed (all by himself), coming downstairs, putting his boots on, going outside, and waking mommy and daddy up with the honking of car horns! He has figured out how to open car doors and he got into Frank's work car and had the lights and horn going full blast- what a wake up call! Of course then he decided to come inside and make us all pancakes in his kitchen completed decked out in his chef's gear- oh how cute!

I don't know why three seems like a big year to me- I mean they are all important and special in their own way but THREE is coming at me in a big way. I think it is because he will start school in the fall- actually he could start tomorrow but we decided not to start him at the end of the school year so come August he will be in preschool! I know it is only 1/2 days, 4 days a week but that means that I will be at home with just one kids for some of the time and that our days have to revolve around someone else's schedule and for me that seems like it is going to be a big change! I guess I will just focus on making it through the summer for now!

More from his party later....

1st trip to the drive-in 2011

So in case you didn't know I love the drive-in! Mostly I love movies, even though I don't get a chance to watch them as much as I used to, but I really love the drive-in. There is just something so fun about camping out to watch a movie. I really look forward to the days when the boys are a bit older and a bit more into sitting still so we can truly enjoy the experience. Right now we spend most of the first movie chasing them down and shushing them but at least we get to enjoy the second movie. We have the extreme luck of living only about 15 minutes away from the Northfield Drive In so as long as I am not working we are there. We took our first excursion of 2011 to the drive in last night. We saw Pirates 4 and Thor. Fresh night air (with no biting insects amazingly) and cheesy good summer action flicks = heaven!

After several years of spending almost every weekend at the drive in we have a nice system going. We have the folding chairs and the cooler filled with snacks- although we usually try to buy some food/snacks at the concession because a. they have awesome fries and b. we really want to drive in to stay open and they make most of their money from concessions so.... We have the neat sheets so when it gets dewy we don't have to get wet. The boys have their own little tent to hang out in and Xander even got to use his John Deere sleeping bag for the first time this year. For sound we use the old boom box that I got for Christmas when I was about 12 years old and as long as you put new batteries in it it works great.

You know summer has arrived when the drive in is open!

Yarn Along- It's Finished!

So I finally finished Xander's hobby horse. As I expected the details in the finishing took me almost as long as it did to knit the horse's head! I haven't been reading much because I have been trying to finish this up, working on some sewing for a diva swap, sewing up gifts for all the birthdays this month, and cleaning like a mad woman because my house is filthy and it is going to take all week to get it in shape for guests on Monday for Xander's party. Poor Frank thinks I have gone completely insane... Back to the horse- part of the reason it took me so long to finish it was because I sewed the ears on at least 3 times.... they kept flopping over and then they were in the wrong place for the bridle and I just couldn't seem to get them right but I think they are in a good place now and they are mostly sticking up instead of flopping. For awhile I thought I was going to have a hobby donkey instead of a hobby horse! I also wanted to make sure that everything was really sewn on well because I don't want 2 little boys ripping pieces off! I still need to do some work to make sure it stays on the stick (the look on the guy's face at home depo when I told him that I wanted him to cut my broomstick to 3 feet was kinda hilarious!). Right now you can still slide the stick out pretty easy so I have thought about glue/tape but I'm not sure what I am going to do- maybe nothing and see how often it gets pulled off before I worry about it! I also knit a whole other project this week, a small one, but that must remain a secret until after it is gifted for one of this weeks birthdays... I think it came out super pretty though!

For those of you who could care less about my knitting, I promise that I will post about something other than knitting soon! I'm not sure when my family blog turned into a crafting blog so we'll get back to its somewhat original intent here someday. I have some fabulous new pics and tales from the NH sheep and wool fest to write about- now if only I could fine the time!

Rainbows among us

So we had a busy day- speech therapy followed by mad house cleaning (I was on a tear- just ask Frank), napping, and plenty of playing outside. It was a good day even if the kids did get eaten alive by bugs- I swear those darn black flies are biting even through the bug spray. Poor Xander's head is a mess- especially after we basically dunk him in calamine lotion several times a day! So this evening before bed the kids took a shower- their new favorite thing. They don't want to take baths anymore- only showers. Good thing we have a large, enclosed shower so they can splash around to their heart's content. After their shower tonight we were heading upstairs to bed when this amazing rainbow just stopped us in our tracks at the front door. You could see the whole thing all the way from one end to the other and it was a double. It was just amazing! I can't remember the last time I have seen such a large and impressive rainbow. It's weird- I don't know what it is about rainbow- they are just light reflecting in the sky but they are just the most awe-inspiring thing to me- real true miracles. (don't mind the schoolmarm voice over in the video please...)

Excerpts from Speech Therapy

Here is an excerpt from Xander's speech therapy today- his last one with early intervention! He has officially graduated from the RISE program and into the school system. The plan is for him to continue speech therapy in preschool in the fall. He doesn't qualify for summer school and although he could start preschool next week after his 3rd birthday we decided that would be too disruptive and plan on starting him in the fall with the new school year. Luckily though because James is now receiving speech therapy Xander will get bonus therapy through James! I love his little accent... a weird combo of Frank's southern drawl and the more New England speech we hear around here. He has good word acquisition these days so mainly we continue to work on speech intelligibility. Even I have a hard time understanding his toddler speak sometimes.

1st Trip to the Dentist

Today we had our long awaited first trip to the dentist. We were supposed to go back in March and then the boys were vomiting and then we rescheduled and then we had to reschedule again so we've been waiting for awhile. I decided to take them to a pediatric dentist so it's about a 40 minuted drive there but I think it will be worth it because she is great. We got there on time ( a feat for me these days...) and the boys played with the toys in the waiting room for a few minutes until we were called back. One tiny pet peeve- there are no adult size chairs in the toy area of the waiting room so where exactly are the parents supposed to sit?!?!?!

We headed back to the exam room and discussed their histories. She recommended getting our well water tested for fluoride to make sure that the boys aren't getting too much fluoride so we'll have to see about that. I'm supposed to brush James' teeth after he nurses in the middle of the night...mmm let me think- NO WAY! Luckily he has been sleeping through the night. And we are supposed to brush 2x daily and floss daily. The brushing ok but I really don't know about flossing my toddlers teeth daily- it is really worth the battle? Especially for teeth that are just going to fall out anyway? Between getting dresses and brushing and ear drops at bedtime I don;t know if I can handle adding flossing to the mix too. We'll give it a whirl I guess.

James got examined first and he did awesome. He opened his mouth pretty well and did let her clean his teeth. He wasn't so wild about the flossing but he didn't completely clench his mouth shut like I know he can so I guess we'll call it a success. He was pretty excited about picking out a toy when he was done though- he picked the biggest truck they had in their toy bin! She told us that we should starting saving for orthodontic for James b/c he has a lot of crowding of his teeth. Him and his giant chompers!!! She's not concerned with the fact that he is still missing teeth (none of his canines have come in yet) so we'll just wait for them to come for now.

Xander went next after a short potty break and he did ok although he was much less cooperative. She tried to get him to sit on his own. James sat in my lap and leaned back into hers for a "lap to lap" exam and she was trying to get Xander without me but he wasn't buying it. So then we switched to a lap to lap exam and he wasn't so sure about that either. He did let her clean and floss but she had to work harder for it. He picked the smallest truck he could find out of the toy bin! I think they were most excited by the stickers though- they both wanted them on their shirts before we even left the exam room. All in all it went fairly well and we'll see what happens when we go back in 6 months.