Family Party

On Sunday morning, the birthday festivities continued. We had our family over for birthday brunch. William received more nice gifts: a sleeping bag and lantern for campouts, more tools for his tool bench in the basement, Dr. Seuss books, sand toys, a really cool personalized pillow from Aunt Katie, some clothes, and a matching game. The weather was finally nice enough so he was able to go out and show off his new sandbox. He had a wonderful birthday weekend!

Pillow from Aunt Katie

Yeah Birthday!

Mom and Dad with the Birthday Boy

Opening Gifts

More Gifts

It's Time for Cake!

Blowing out the Candles

Bounce House!

We had Will's birthday party (with friends) at the Blast Factory on Saturday afternoon.  Every had a great time - including the parents!  The kids and adults were able to bounce for about an hour and a half and then we had pizza, cake, and presents. 

Will got a lot of great gifts including: sandbox toys, bubble blowers, play-doh, cars and trucks, sidewalk chalk, butterfly net, a vtech "tablet", and bath toys.  He is such a lucky boy! 

Oh the Places You'll Go Cake

Henry and Alex taking it all in

Singing Happy Birthday

Mmm... cake!

So many gifts!

Birthday Morning

William had a wonderful birthday morning. He woke up really early - 5am. We think he was excited! He climbed into bed with us and went back to sleep for a while. Then we had special breakfast pancakes (with sprinkles) before opening presents from mom and dad, Grann, and Aunt Maran and Uncle Josh.

Will had fun opening all his gifts. He liked to stop and play with things as he opened them so it took a fair amount of time. He really like his new HiHo Cherry-o game. We played it several times throughout the morning. He also really liked his Lego CD player from Grann and the soccer net from Aunt Maran and Uncle Josh.

His big gift from Mom and Dad was a new sandbox in the backyard and some new sand toys. The sandbox is 4' x 8' and should keep both boys (and their friends) occupied for years to come.

Snoopy t-shirt and movies

Lego CD Player

Balloons!

William had a surprise when he got home from school on Friday. Cousin Allison sent him a balloon bouquet! As you can see, he was very excited!

Happy Birthday William!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our sweet William! We love you!

Art Show

They had an art show at Will's school yesterday. All the kids had individual artwork on display in the hallways and each classroom did a group project as well. (For some reason I can't change the orientation of photos taken from my phone.  They are saved correctly but upload rotated 90 degrees.) 

T2 Rainbow

First Painting in the Preschool Room

Reading in Bed

Working Weekend

We had a very busy and productive weekend.  On Friday night, we had some friends over for pizza.  On Saturday, we tackled the 7 cubic yards of mulch we had delivered.  Both boys were a big help.   Will entertained himself by climbing the giant pile but also used his shovel to fill his wheelbarrow.  He ran around saying, "This is hard work!"  His efforts earned him $5 for his piggy bank.  Alex helped by hanging out strapped to Kristen while she spread the mulch and later in his bumbo seat.  We got through 6.5 yards on Saturday and finished up the last little bit on Sunday (we extended one of our beds and needed to buy/put down paper to prevent grass and weed growth).  Saturday night, we walked up to Gaslight for Subway (super exciting dinner) and on Sunday Phil and Will went to Java Gym while Kristen and Alex ran errands.  Both days, Will asked to ride his bike to visit Oma at the nursing home.  All in all, it was a good weekend. 

Less than one week until Will's 3rd birthday - he is so excited for his party!

Supervising mulch distribution

Will built this tower all by himself

Early Preschool!

Today was Will's first day in the "Early Preschool" room! He has been visiting that room for the past couple weeks but today was his first official full day. He has a new "locker" and even had a birthday treat from one of his new friends waiting for him. His new room is right across the hall from his old room. Some fun things about EP are: he gets to go to the real playground onsite, he gets dropped off in AP (advanced preschool) in the morning so he'll have a little change of scenery and they have set activities with some of the residents at Porter Hills. He was pretty excited this morning!



















Bright Eyes

We had a pretty relaxing weekend. On Friday, we walked up to Ramona's Table for dinner (I should go back and count how many times I've posted that...). On Saturday, we met some of Will's friends at Chuck E. Cheese. We got there early to avoid the weekend rush. Will had fun running around even though the other two kids his age were girls. Alex hung out in his car seat and slept the majority of the time with the other 2 babies. In the afternoo, we played outside with bubbles and Will went for a bike ride to visit Oma. Then we walked up to Gaslight to grab Subway for dinner.

On Sunday morning, we all went to Meijer for a major shopping trip. Both kids behaved quite nicely. We played outside some more and then just relaxed for the rest of the day.

I didn't take many photos this weekend... here's one from Chuck E. Cheese:

The Boys

Will is quite the chatterbox. He starts talking the minute he wakes up and doesn't stop until bed time. He has also started making up his own songs by combining parts of different songs he knows. We took this video right before bedtime...



Alex has really taken a liking to his Bumbo chair. I tried putting him in his bouncy seat today, but he kept leaning forward and was trying to sit up and look around. So I transferred him over to the Bumbo and he was happy to sit in it while I finished making dinner. Then we moved him to the dining room while we ate. His little neck is getting so strong!

Oma and Alex

Oma can get Alex to smile/laugh almost every time she holds him!

Easter Photos

Don't even think about taking my chocolate!


























































A boy and his bubbles













































Watching the Masters

Happy Easter

We had a very nice Easter. It started with Alex sleeping from 9pm - 4:30 am. Very nice! He actually slept 9 - 4:30 for two nights in a row now... we're hoping it is the new normal.

Will woke up around 6:45 and was excited to see that the Easter Bunny paid us a visit. He did his egg hunt while Alex was still sleeping and had a decent helping of chocolate to start off the day. We went over to Aunt Mara and Uncle Ken's house for brunch around 10am and William was able to hunt for more eggs there. In the afternoon, we played outside with bubbles and sidewalk chalk. Will also went for a couple bike rides and went to the playground after his nap. His favorite Easter candy is still M & Ms.

I'll have Easter pictures to post later. Will was playing with my camera adaptor and I couldn't find it this morning to load the pictures onto my laptop. Here are a couple I took of the boys on my phone (Will actually asked to have his pic taken with his brother)