Big Boy Birthday and Big Boy Bed

Owen turned five and I cannot believe it. We kept the birthday low key with a day of adventure with his friend Jenelle, a cake at school and of course, a visit to our favorite doctor Dr. Morgan for his annual check up. He got a clean bill of health.
A second, but less welcome milestone, Henry learned to climb out of our crib and continued to do so taking his life into his hands. This forced us to free him from the restraints of childhood and turn his crib into a big boy bed. He sleeps in it sometimes, but other times he wanders the house at 2 am looking for adventure. Door locks and baby gate here you come. Lordy, I was not ready for this one.

Halloween

All dressed and ready to go! Jack Skellington, Little Skelly and Skelly the dog.


Henry trying out the trick or treat thing.


Super strong Daddy pulling everyone up the big hill.


Henry was nervous during the neighborhood costume parade, so Owen held his hand. Sweet.


Owen and his trick or treat partner Aiden.


Henry at the end of the night.

Halloween Preview

Henry rejected the cute yo gabba gabba costume I bought (and then sold on ebay). He rejected the cute dinosaur costume (I bought on ebay and is hanging in the closet). He wanted to look like his brother, so the 1.75 Goodwill skeleton costume wins the race.Yet another example of why you should not argue with a 2 year old.
Meet Jack Skellington from a Nightmare Before Christmas and his skeleton sidekick all decked out for Trunk or Treat at our church.

Owen as an almost five year old

Rain won't get us down.

We had our annual quest to the pumpkin patch scheduled for this weekend, so we were very sad when we woke up to rain. We did not have another time to go, so we decided to put our doubts aside and head out to Washington farms despite the rain. According to Owen, "We are'nt going to let the rain spoil our fun!"
He was right. We had a GREAT time and we had the place to ourselves. We got our own private hayride, our own private ride on the cowtrain and even some extra shots on the pumpkin slingshot. Most off all we had the corn bin all to ourselves.

Daddy and Henry on the pumpkin slingshot


Hayride in the rain.


This would be a great pic but for the porta potties.


"I'm having such a good time I jumped out of the shot!"


More farm fun.

T Ball

Owen is WAY more into T Ball this season. Here are some pics from this year's season thus far. Henry likes to sit in the dug out even though they don't let him on the field.

Henry and Owen are so different and here you have it. Henry got a hold of Owen's marble run this weekend and was so fascinated by it. He was content to sit and play with it for almost an hour.



Owen, on the other hand, needs action. This is him working out his cowboy fantasy. I am shocked that he was able to talk his peace loving Dad into buying him a toy pistol, but somehow he managed to do it. He is a pretty convincing guy.



This is Henry working on his lead vocals for "The Spidermans", the band that Thomas, Henry and Owen have formed. They perform popular covers of the spiderman theme, the batman theme, happy birthday, as well as orginal tunes like ...well they are still working on those.

Some random fun in the final days of summer

We are back to school so fancy vacations and long pajama days are behind us. Here are a few little fun moments in the life.

Henry very much enjoys the kid size carts at Trader Joes. I don't think the people he accidently bumps into with it like it as much.

Owen begged me to buy this Dracula costume at a consignment sale. He was delighted to discover that Theo had one too. This is my matching vampires.

Owen goes to work with Daddy.

Henry eating a snow cone at the school carnival. Terrifying,

Owen and Henry's Excellent Adventure

We are now back from our 19 day road trip. We had far too many photos to post, so here are a sampling from each stop.

First stop DC. The boys went to the ball game. We went to the Smithsonian postal, history and air and space museum.

Next stop my Dad's house in New York. The best parts of our trip were just hanging with the fam. Owen won a blue ribbon at the family fun night ice cream eating contest. They got out all the old playmobil, but the favorite activity by far was wrestling with Uncle Mitchell and Rees.

We took a day trip to the beach. My mom was excited we went to Jones beach because this was the beach where she played when she was a kid. The water was crazy cold for our southern boys, but we had great fun in the sand and dipping our toes in.

We saw the Sosin's and my roommate Lisa and her hubby and daughter from my Brandeis days and all of the kids related. Owen particularly liked the terrace at Lisa's where you could see the Empire State Building.


Next Stop Jamestown in VA near Williamsburg where we saw forts, boats and armor. Owen was in heaven. He was very interested in the canon and talked a great deal with the reenactors about it.


Last stop before the road home was Yorktown. The boys loved this as well. Lot's of costumes, more canons and a turkey that Henry found quite interesting.

All in all it was a great journey. We are all really tired, but I am so glad we did it. I love travelling and it was great to see the boys be amazed by all these sights.

Father's Day

We spent father's day at the water park with some friends from the neighborhood. Henry took the same slide about 600 times.
We followed it up with a very fancy dinner at Moes.

With a little Help from my friends

We have had much more time to spend with Owen's friends this summer. It has been great to see.
Owen and Kirby enjoying a snack at the water park.

This is Owen learning to play chess with Aiden, his friend from the neighborhood.

If you have ever spent much time with Owen, you have heard him talk about his best friend Jenelle. Jenelle was born just a few days after Owen and they have been best friends since the infant room. They don't go to the same school anymore, but they still love to spend time together. Here is a pic we had done so we could always remember this great friendship.