Happy 4th!

We had a very fun Fourth of July this year!

We started off with the annual pancake breakfast at the church.  Scott went early to cook pancakes and Alan went with him.  I guess he was quite the pancake flipper!

After the breakfast we went down to the town common for some family fun.

They had mini golf, a bounce house, hot dogs, balloon hats (or swords in our case;)  The boys had a blast.

They had some of these little games.  Good thing there wasn't a line for this one, because the boys kind of took it over.

James could have done this all day. 

It was a pretty hot day, but we got some yard work done as well as some swimming time afterwords.  Here I am giving the riding lawn mower a try.  It was fine...but we'll leave it for Scott. :)

The boys each got to pick a special treat to bring to the fire works.  James was pretty excited about the McQueen fruit snacks.

Waiting for the fireworks.

Alan did not want to go.  He sat like this for most of the time but he wasn't screaming or crying, which was a major improvement.  And he really did like watching them.  Afterwords he said that he liked watching all the pretty colors, but did not like the loud noise.

James on the other hand was terrified.  He didn't cry, but he buried himself in our laps or chest and we could not pry him away.  When we would try to turn him around he would be all clenched up with his eyes shut.  I honestly don't think he saw a single one.  He kept saying things like...no boom...loud...scary.  The minute they got over he sprung up and said "a boom.  a fun."  Such a funny guy.

Despite the super hot day, it was so fun to be able to spend time together as a family!  Happy 4th!

A New Job...

So I am a little late in posting about this, but we wanted to document this new little chapter in our lives. Scott started a new job last month and it has been an exciting adventure for us.  We have loved our time at Lincoln, but Scott has been anxious to try new things.  He wanted to try his hand at the private sector in a more traditional software engineering environment. And so far he is liking it.  We are now officially part of the Amazon world (in Boston).

Scott went out to Seattle for orientation the first week and got to see a little bit of the city.

And here is Scott on his first day of work. :)

The commute has been the biggest adjustment about the job.  He now works in the city, so it is a little bit farther than his previous job, but the traffic is much, much worse.  He has tried it a few different ways, and so far has preferred the commuter rail train as the best way to get into the city.  We have a station very close to our house and he is able to get things done on the train ride.  He then has a pretty good walk to his office, but has been enjoying that as well.  It may take longer than driving (depending on the time of day) but is much more flexible and enjoyable.

So Scott is becoming fairly familiar with this train. :)  Big congratulations to our wonderful husband/dad.  We are very grateful that we have been blessed with good jobs and that he is such a hard worker.

Alan Turns Four!!

So Alan has been looking forward to his birthday for quite a long time. :)  And though it was a long time coming for him, he had a great day.  Here are some highlights, starting with some pre-birthday prep.

Alan was begging me for a pinata.  I wasn't going to do one, but then thought we could try our hand at paper mache.  I had never done it before, but thought it would make a good project for us. So I told him that if he helped me to make it, we could do a pinata.

He decided he did not like dipping in the glue mixture as his hands got too messy.  So he ripped and handed me newspaper strips as I dipped.  It was best, as everything else got less messy this way as well. :)  He did the majority of the decorating though!  We cut up crepe paper and glued them all over.

We worked on it for several days before his birthday and here he is with the finished product.  He had asked for a "Wild Kratts" Birthday, and this is what we came up with.

I think he was pretty proud.

But his favorite part was clearly putting the candy in. :)

And then on to his actual birthday....

We couldn't really have a Wild Kratts birthday without a creature power suit.  It isn't professional, but I think Alan likes it.  He's worn it every day since.

James loved Alan's birthday.  Every time Alan opened a gift and put it down to open another, James would get to play with it.  He was a happy guy.

Here is Alan fully sporting the creature power suit. (and the scooby doo pjs. :)

Loving his Finn McMissile washcloth. :)

So I also started making the other creature power suit, but.... it is not finished yet.  James didn't seem to mind.

He has been asking for the most random things for months now.  Like 2 lions (like they have in the nursery) and a back scratcher...random things like that.

Thrilled with his Spider-man puzzle

Ever since reading this one Curious George book, Alan has been asking for donuts for breakfast.  I figured that it could be a special treat for his birthday...like he wasn't going to have enough cake right, but oh well.

And speaking of cake, here are our Wild Kratts cupcakes

We had a few friends over for a little party.

It was a beautiful day and we had a ton of fun.  Here's our other big boy enjoying the swing.

Everyone loved the pinata

And the candy. :)  Alan got the breaking hit.

We enjoyed a little lunch... complete with wild animal mac n'cheese.  I went to the store the day before his party to get the mac n'cheese, and they were sold out of the normal store brand elbow macaroni kind.  Then I noticed that they happened to have the store brand in wild animal shapes... and I thought, this would work well. :)

Some more happy guys eating

After Alan's party  we went to pick up Daddy from the airport, and he was able to be home for dinner, more cake and some more present unwrapping that evening.  

All in all, I think it was a very full, very fun filled day for this big guy.  He is super excited to be four.  He is becoming quite the little expert on things and keeps us on our toes.  He is an excellent helper and can do anything he decides that he wants to do. :)  We love him so much and are looking forward to another great and fun filled year!  Happy Birthday Alan!

We Love Our Dad!

In honor of Father's Day, I thought I'd document a little event that illustrates what an awesome husband/dad we have here.

Earlier this week, a dad promised a little boy that he would have a squirt gun fight with him when he got home from work.  Despite the fact that it was drizzly out, that little boy was waiting for him at the mailbox with squirt guns ready when he pulled in driveway. (It was pretty cute.)

Then, this ensued...

It totally made Alan's week. :)  We are so blessed to have such a great Daddy. Happy Father's Day and we love you!

Scooper Bowl 2013

So we decided to try out a new event in Downtown Boston this year.  We packed up and headed out to the Scooper Bowl!  It is a fundraiser that they hold every year to raise money for the Jimmy Fund.  You pay an entrance fee and then you get to sample as much ice cream as you could possibly want. And luckily they give pretty small scoops in the cups, so you don't have to feel bad about trying a ton of different kinds.

We rode the T in, which was half of the fun for the boys.

But it turned out they liked the ice cream too.

And we went through a lot of wet wipes.

When I was trying to decide whether to make the effort to make the trip into the city, I came across the list of flavors... I mean, how can you say no to this??  (When we got there, there were even more vendors)

Baskin-Robbins®

Rock 'n Pop Swirl Sherbet

Piña Colada Ice

Icing on the Cake®

Irish Coffee Frozen Yogurt

Blueberry Shortbread

Ben & Jerry's®

Liz Lemon Greek Frozen Yogurt

Peaches & Cream

White Russian

Milk & Cookies

Cherry Garcia

Blue Bunny®

Cookies & Cream

Homemade Vanilla

Chunky Chocolate Chip

Breyer's®

Vanilla

Chocolate

Coffee

Mint Chocolate Chip

Chocolate Chip

Byrne Dairy

Holy Cow

Green Monstah

Coffee Almond Fudge

MOO Tella

Edy's®

Espresso Chip

Tropical Rainbow Sherbert

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup

Mint Chocolate Chip

Friendly's®

Celebration

Forbidden Fudge

Rockin Poppin Cotton Candy

Nuts Over Caramel®

HP Hood®

Raspberry Granola Greek Frozen Yogurt

Double Chocolate Chip Greek Frozen Yogurt

Double Fudge Brownie

White Gold

We didn't try everything, but we tried a lot!  I think that the Baskin Robbins Blueberry Shortbread was my favorite, and you can't go wrong with Friendly's Forbidden Fudge.  There were a ton of good ones.  The boys of course liked the Birthday Celebration and Cotton Candy, and silly things like that.

Here we are with some of our friends!

It was certainly a good idea to go with a bunch of people.  The moms all took turns running to the different stands and bringing back all sorts of flavors to keep these mouths full!

These awesome friends keep track of how many cups they eat...I don't remember what the total was, but they beat their record, which was 32...

They had a few more people to help than we did, but I don't think we were too far behind.

I think we will be going back next year.  And bringing our daddy with us. :)