Alex's handiwork

Alex did this at school a few months ago and I cracked up when I saw the 9th word he wrote that rhymes with "cat". He told me it says "snat", which I guess is a word he made up, but to me it looks like something else.

One of my goals for the summer is to have him work on his handwriting. It got much worse over the school year for some reason.

Benjamin's Graduation

Today Benjamin graduated from preschool. It was very official, with "Pomp and Circumstance", caps and everything.

I'm glad Ryan was there to get some video of Benjamin getting some wet willies from the boy next to him. Unfortunately it is on our ancient video camera and I don't know how to put it on the computer.

Here are a couple pictures of the boys with their friend Gracie.





And here's Charlie in hockey gear.

more baseball

Someone with a nice camera was nice enough to take some pictures of Alex at one of his games:

Alex has definitely inherited Ryan's habit of unintentional face-making when he's concentrating.

Fathers and Sons

Last weekend was the annual Fathers and Sons campout. The boys got dirty, hiked to a waterfall, saw lots of poison oak (but so far no signs of it on them), found out what happens when a glow bracelet explodes inside a tent, and brought home a big stash of candy from the pinata. I had a wonderful weekend of shopping, cleaning (I'm much more productive by myself), and running errands. I even sewed something (!). Maybe this campout should happen more than once a year.

This is how Charlie feels about candy.

Either Ryan is faking or Alex took this when they were sleeping.

Some of the younger sons of the group.

Mother's Day Tea

Last week Benjamin's preschool had a special Mother's Day Tea Party. The kids sang a few songs and the teacher read the story "I'll Love You Forever", then we had a little tea party with finger sandwiches and everything. All the moms also got some handmade gifts from the kids. It was a nice morning.

May 9th: Jeremy

Happy birthday Jeremy! A man of many talents, including bagpipe playing and gleeking (but not at the same time. Well, not that I'm aware of.)

Number Four Bobby Orr

I guess we're good at this boy thing. I decided it might be kind of rude to post pictures of the "proof", but here are some other shots:

(And no, Bobby Orr is not his name. That's the title of a book about a hockey player. I guess we could consider that name since we are well on our way to a hockey team.)

Happy Birthday to our Benjamin

Benjamin turned five yesterday. At breakfast he reminded me to get out the special red plate, and then he helped me design and decorate his cake. After looking at all the Family Fun cakes he said he just wanted a normal chocolate cake that said "Happy Birthday" on it. He also wanted green and blue. Here's what we ended up with:


I guess I'm not the best at centering words. Also, Josh and Joel will want to take note of his shirt.

Later we went to play miniature golf with a few friends at a place with black lights (hence the change into the white shirts- for the glow factor).










And of course, cake and presents. He was a little puzzled when he unwrapped this one: a pencil sharpener. We were in dire need of a good pencil sharpener, and I wanted to get a manual one. I happened to get it the day before so I just wrapped it up as one of his gifts.






I think he had a good day. I am kind of regretting not making it a bigger party, but it was all kind of last minute. I just feel bad that a few of his friends may have been left out. (So if any of those friends' moms are reading this, let's go golfing!)

Disneyland

The boys (all four of them) went to Disneyland Wednesday. They all had a grand time with cousins and aunts and uncles while I stayed home to write a paper. I guess the Pirates of the Carribean was closed, which was disappointing since Alex still hasn't been on it, and Benjamin has only been with his eyes closed the whole time. This time Ryan had the most traumatic experience of anyone when he went on the Nemo ride. It's not for anyone prone to claustrophobia.

I wish I could have been there to see their excitement, but it was nice to have a day to work on some things I had been neglecting. Plus I got to go out to lunch.