Bowling

I don't know what has gotten into Jeffrey this week, but he has be CONSTANTLY nagging me to take him bowling.  Just randomly one day he started to ask for it and then it turned into an obsession where it was all he could think about day and night.  Finally this last Monday I was driving the kids home after picking up Ben at school and he had completely broken down sobbing because he wanted to go bowling soooooo bad.  Even though we had plans to go to a Dayton Dragon's baseball game later that night I had to give in because the poor kid was just breaking my heart.....and my ear drums. :)  So right then and there I decided I would take the kids bowling...by myself.  Let's just say it was interesting trying to keep them from breaking the rules like no climbing on the thing that holds the balls, and not crossing the line at the edge of the lane, etc...etc... By the end of an hour I was pretty frazzled, but the kids LOVED it and I had to carry Jeffrey out because he didn't want to leave.  At least we had the bowling alley all to ourselves though since it was 4:00 in the afternoon on a Monday.    It tried to snap a few photos of them as they bowled, between trying to keep them from breaking all the rules and injuring themselves.

Ben got pretty good at perfecting his form.

And when he wasn't doing that, he was trying to pull an "Uncle Jerris."  See video below picture for reference. :)

Jeffrey was one happy boy.  He was so excited to finally go bowling and thought he was an expert!  By the end his favorite move was the "twist and throw."

It took Megan a bit longer to be able to actually get the ball down the lane without it stalling and actually going in the reverse direction.  The poor guys working there had to come get her ball no less than 8 times I'm sure.

You can tell how slow the ball was going considering she was already turned and on her way back before it even went two feet.

And THIS is why you don't cross the line.....

Jeffrey Turns 5!

Our Jeffrey turned 5 this month and what do you think he asked for for his birthday this year?  Yet ANOTHER spider man party.  I tried so hard to get him to agree to an angry birds party, but no, he wanted it to be exactly the same as last year, with a spider man pinata and a spider man birthday cake and a spider-man car for his present.  So what do you do when those great big brown eyes look at you like that with a request?  Do it of course!  And we did, we had THE EXACT SAME party as last year, just with new people.  Hey, at least I got to re-use some of the decorations right?

                                                       The EXACT same pinata.

The EXACT same (type of ) present. (exact same shirt as last year too btw)

EXACT same (type of) cake.  Only this year I waited to the last minute and the only cake I could find with the right colors already had power rangers on it, so it was a Spider-man/Power Rangers cake.  Even better right? 

What's a birthday without having to constantly yell at your brother to not blow out your candle during the song?

All in all it was a very happy birthday for the sweetest most lovable 5 year old by there ever was whom we love EXACT-ly the way he is. :)

Fathers and Sons Camp-out

This was the first year Brian was able to take the boys to our church's annual Fathers and Sons camp-out.  Unfortunately they were only able to be there for about 12 hours total.  Just long enough to play with the camp fire the night before and eat breakfast the next morning and come home.  They loved every second and couldn't wait to tell me all about how they got to play with sticks in the fire and sleep (if that's what you can call laying down on slanted hard ground with dogs barking all night and trains constantly running near by) in a tent.  A couple of days later I heard from some of the other boys at church that Brian had lost Ben for a good 25 minutes or so when he wandered off into another camping area.  Everything turned out okay and Ben had to carry a walkie-talkie with him the rest of the time to make sure Brian could find him if they got separated again.  Anyway, here are some pictures of my boys having a good time. :)

The sleeping couldn't have been that bad because when they got back I had a hard time getting the boys to agree to sleep indoors again.  Every day after that for about a week the boys kept insisting that we needed to go to the store and buy a tent like the one they slept in at the camp out.  At first we tried to appease them by just letting them sleep on an air mattress on our covered deck at night.

Unfortunately that didn't appease them for very long and we ended up going out and buying a tent a few days later.  :)  I don't have a picture of the new tent yet, but we did set it up in the backyard and slept out there as a family one night (okay so maybe my grass allergies got the better of me and I caved and went back inside at about 2am).  

The Return Of An Old Friend

We were faked out by the weather a couple of weeks ago thinking it might just be warm enough to return our old friend "pool" to it's proper state at the new house.  The kids could not wait, Brian had put it on the calendar and they counted the days until Daddy would set up the pool again.  We were nervous, because we didn't know if it would fit on the only level spot of our yard we could find.  Last year at our rental house we had to move the pool 3 different times, each time we thought it was on a flat surface only to realize too late that it was on a slight slope and every time someone would lean against that side a couple of gallons would just fall out of the pool.  Luckily it looks like we may have found the perfect spot this year.  The kids were so excited about the pool that they couldn't wait until it was all the way full to put their swimsuits on and play in it.