Will decided that he wanted to be a pirate during lunch today.

Exciting news...Noah can ride a bike on his own! We are partially at fault for his previous lack of interest in bike riding. Since he was always so happy and content riding his scooter, we never really pushed the bike thing. Not to mention, we only had two bikes that Ethan and Will were always riding. Well, since they have been riding bikes so much lately, he decided that he didn't want to be the only boy on a scooter anymore. Noah, being as self confident as he is, yelled, "Daddy- LET GO!!!" the second he got on the bike. After Chris convinced him that he might need some help getting started, he truly started concentrating. By the end of the block he was riding on his own! He is still a little erratic stopping. This is not at all surprising, after all, he didn't get the nickname Twitchy for no reason. In case you haven't seen Hoodwinked, you really need to. You will see why we call him Twitchy. You are probably wondering who was kind enough to give up their bike for Noah's use. Well, NO ONE was. Chris had to get a new bike for Will today. He REALLY needed a bigger one anyway.

Will's new ride...

Here Ethan is watching his brothers get settled onto their new bikes.

Clearly, the trick to learning how to ride your bike in 1/2 a block is all in the tongue.

Here Noah is cruising on his own. Notice that his tongue is still playing a crucial role in his success.

Well, the last week has whizzed by. It was full of meetings, errands, etc. Chris signed Ethan up for Cub Scouts on Thursday. He is very excited for that to start up. He continues to love the 1st grade and has gotten all sorts of special awards that he proudly shows off to us. Will and Noah are happy. They received their first homework of the year and are eager to be "big boys" like Ethan. Chris has been taking the boys on longer bike rides. They have been riding to Blockbuster and back which is just about 3.5 miles. Chris has been jogging while they ride bikes or scooters.

I have been trying to figure out the best interventions for the kids that I am working with this year. Some have some extreme needs. So far, so good. On Friday night Melissa and I took Katie out for her birthday dinner. Sure, we were a month late, but better late than never. On Saturday I went to my friend Sam's shower. It had a tea party theme. It was absolutely adorable and her cousins did a fantastic job putting it together. After the shower I picked up Melissa and we went to get our hair cut. We look totally different- kidding!

This week we have no major plans. Hopefully we will be watching another shuttle launch in the near future.

Does this look like the face of a sad dog that was recently viciously assaulted? Well it is! Don't believe anything Melissa says about the progress of her Dog Whisperer techniques on Boda. She (Boda, not Melissa) attacked my baby tonight. I must add that it was no way provoked. Hanzie may need therapy! He has a cut under his eye and a slash on his face. On to other news... Friday night I just crashed. I was so tired and I was trying to watch You've Got Mail. After being rudely interrupted by Chris' compulsive steam cleaning, I went to bed. Yesterday morning we picked up Ethan's friend Spencer at 10:00 a.m. Right around 2:30 they started BEGGING for him to spend the night. We caved pretty quickly to the four pleading boys and Spencer spent the night. He is very well behaved and it's nice for Ethan to play with a boy occasionally. The girls came over around dinner time and they all swam together for a bit. Then they all had pasta for dinner and watched the new Shaggy Dog. The adults got Mi Mexico take-out for dinner. It was very good! After we played Rummikub and Mike had his first win. Today we just swam and hung out at the house. Chris took the boys to the skatepark for a bit. Chris and Noah rode scooters and Ethan and Will rode their bikes. Somehow just 40 miles away, they received over 5" of rain today. Ask me how much we got, NONE!!! It has not rained for the longest time and has been a nice, toasty 95 without the heat index calculated in every single day! Hopefully this week will be a bit cooler!

Today was another successful school day. The boys all seemed happy at 2:30 so that is a good sign. I have been giving diagnostic tests to students new to our school. On a portion of the test I give them a word and they tell me what it means. I wish I could videotape some of their responses! You would be amazed by what they come up with. Ethan had Emily come home from school today. Will and Noah get a bit frustrated with the two of them. When they aren't trying to boss W & N around, they won't let them play. It's a good thing they have each other! After dinner and of course their snickerdoodle dessert (we made them yesterday after school) the boys jumped in the pool. They take turns with my raft and change it into a ton of different Universal rides. Today it was the Jurassic Park ride, the Popeye ride, the Jaws ride, and the Back to the Future ride.

Here is Ethan planning out their next adventure.

Here is Noah with his water gun. He likes to fill it up the day before and let it heat up in the sun all day so it's super hot when he squirts people. He takes evil to a whole new level.

Will was having fun posing for the camera.

The boys have had an easy transition into the new year. Ethan absolutely adores his new teacher. This school year has been a breeze with him, especially comparing it to our start last year! Will and Noah don't talk much about school but haven't complained either so I guess that is a good sign. Even Hanzie seems to be doing fine with being alone all day again. Once everyone gets used to waking up so early we'll be set! Ethan has already been setting up play dates. His friend Spencer begs to come home with us every day. We are trying to set up something for the weekend for them.

On Sunday we went to Universal. The boys were very excited that barely anyone was there. They have been dying to get on a bunch of rides at the Universal Studios park all summer but it was always too crowded. I refuse to wait 45-75 minutes to ride something. We got there just as they opened on Sunday and we did the entire park in less than 2 hours! After they rode everything they wanted to get on we ate the lunch we packed and headed home for Will & Noah's ice cream/meet the teacher party. We got home at 1:15, they jumped in the shower with Chris, and were out the door to meet the teacher at 1:50.

Hopefully this week will go as smoothly as the first two days have. They seem to be into the groove already. The pool certainly helps relax them after school. Good thing we have until November for that!

Today was a somewhat relaxing day after an insane week. We just hung out by the pool for most of the day. We had a nice dinner and even better dessert. Chris is having a camp out with the boys as I write this. Chris had to work this morning because he took off on Tuesday to stay home with the boys. Melissa SO KINDLY watched the boys on Wednesday and Thursday. The boys spent the entire day at school with me on Friday. So, the first week back is officially over for me and will just begin on Monday for the boys. Tomorrow morning we are heading to Universal for a couple hours. Will and Noah have their little back to school ice cream party tomorrow at 2:00 so we will have to make it home in time for that.

The boys are all enjoying their yummy strawberry shortcake dessert. That happens to be Noah's absolute favorite dessert. He ate every single bite without talking. Now that is a mini miracle!
Here are Chris and the boys in the toy room watching Mee-Shee for their camp out. They are really roughing it on the pull-out. Hopefully they will fall asleep shortly so they will be ready for Universal in the morning.
This box kept the boys busy for most of the day. This was their Ninja hide-out. Ethan was explaining to me all of his special Ninja senses and also told me how much harder it was to be a Ninja than a mom. How could I argue, oh that's right, I found a way! I explained to him that it was far more difficult to care for a high maintenance Ninja.

Well, the first day back was rather disappointing. Long story, but tomorrow should be better. Ethan is excited. His classroom door is directly across the sidewalk from mine. Talk about a short commute to class!!!

I had to share this picture with you. We read a ton of books tonight. After reading this one about dinosaurs, Noah shared his wisdom. There was a picture of a dinosaur fossil at the end and he said, "Yep, that's why we can't have a dinosaur for a pet, they're all stinked up!" He apparenty gets extinct confused with stinked!

This morning while Chris was doing yard work we were relaxing by the pool. I was reading a book for school and here is what the children were doing...

Will was following his dad around squirting him with the water gun to try to keep him cool. I think Chris was most appreciative.

Noah was pretending to be shot by Ethan's water gun. This is his dead man falling into pool look.

Here is Ethan succumbing to Noah's water gun.

And then there was Hanzie just trying to figure out how to keep cool!

The end of the week was a whirlwind of trying to get organized before school starts. We did squeeze in some fun. On Wednesday night we went to Universal. The boys love Islands of Adventure so we went there. Universal Studios is still insanely busy on summer nights so we can do a lot more in the 5 -10 minute lines there than the 30-60 minute lines at Universal. Thursday and Friday we just hung around the house and cleaned and organized. I feel a bit more accomplished now. Today we went to the beach in the morning. It was fairly cloudy, but the boys had a blast body boarding.

The gruesome photo of Ethan's first lost tooth!

Look Kate- Chris finally hung the picture!! It looks really cute.

It's official... Ethan has lost his first tooth!! He was very excited this morning. We had some excitement with Chris' car yesterday. It appears to have been a minor issue and his car should be ready this afternoon. Better this week than next when I'm back to school. He was able to take my car. Noah was not at all happy with that prospect. He said, "That's not fair- now we have to stay home ALL day!!" This coming from a child that knows he is going to Universal tonight- SPOILED!! We have our fingers crossed that everything goes well with Kate's home inspection tonight. I'm very excited for her. Ooh, my new dishes arrived today- a day early!!! I love William-Sonoma. I just ordered them! I packed up all of our old dishes to give to Katie. She, like Kate, is moving to her own place soon.

SCHRADER DRAMA- The boys have insisted that I call Grandma Pat to tell on her son Chris. Chris was playing, wrestling as usual, with the boys. This is what Will looked like at the end of the night. I think we have settled on his punishment, 34 minutes in time out (1 minute for each year of his age) and telling on him to Grandma Pat!

After spending the morning in the pool, we helped Kyle celebrate his first full day as a 5-year-old. Their family is like our own, new Floridians with no family around, so the boys helped Kyle celebrate. We went miniature golfing. Of course as soon as we start the second hole it started storming. We spent a good 1/2 hour or more in the arcade waiting for the storm to pass and then finished up playing. They all had a great time. The miniature golf place had live gators. I thought it would be impossible to be sad for a gator, but I was. They had about 15 little gators in this 10 X 10 holding pin thing and you could pay to feed them. These poor things were being fed hot dogs around the clock. Not to mention they are swimming in artificially green colored miniature golf water. After miniature golf we went out for pizza and had cake. Ethan rode his motorcycle around the neighborhood when we got home and Will and Noah chased him on their scooters.
The boys enjoying their round of golf.
Documented gator cruelty! That string you see dangling is hot dog on a stick.

We spent almost three hours at the beach this morning. It was so hot that we spent almost the entire time in the ocean! I'm perfecting my bodyboarding. The boys were "WAY OUT" in the deep water jumping waves. Noah was too freezing in the picture to smile. I must note that it was 90 degrees out and the water temperature is in the mid-80's so Noah has an interesting concept of freezing.

Well, Melissa and I have been promising the kids forever that we'd take them to the beach. Yesterday morning we took them. They kids were all playing in a tide pool trying to catch little fish and Melissa and I were in the ocean. I look over and see two gigantic fins sticking out of the water. I pointed it out to Melissa and we both quickly exited the ocean! We've seen sharks before but they are usually no longer than 3 feet or so. This one was at least 5 feet! We stayed in the tide pools for the rest of the time. We ran some errands- I've been putting a lot of things off that I need to get done before school starts and it is now crunch time! Last night Emma and Paige had a sleepover with the boys. They had to leave early this morning to go pick up Bobbie, Steph, and Morgan from the airport. Melissa watched She's the Man with us and had a strawberry daquiri with me! Today we are hanging out with Drew. I also have gobs of laundry to do.

SHARK BAIT!!!

Ethan looking for some fish to catch in the tide pool.

Yesterday we hung out with Drew again. He is such a cutie pie and gives me a quick baby fix! He'll be with us on Thursday and Friday as well. Chris took the boys in the pool last night to teach them some surf moves. They have been watching the Backyardigan's Surf's Up episode and were ready to try out their rad moves! For any of you that have seen that episode know just what I mean. Today we went to the $1 kids' movie and saw Hoodwinked. Noah was laughing so loud and giving a play by play of the entire movie to Emma, Ethan, Will, Paige, Sophia, Emily, Melissa, and myself. I don't think he realized that we were sitting right with him watching the movie! I also went to the preschool to fill out some paperwork. Will and Noah's old teacher is now the director of the school. Noah hid behind me the entire time! Once we got in the car he couldn't stop talking about how nice Mrs. Sarah was. Funny how he wouldn't even look at her while we were there.
Noah preparing to paddle out, um, to the other side of the pool???

Ethan's surf lesson. His favorite part was wiping out.

The newest Gap underwear model!

Yesterday the boys spent the entire morning in the pool. We had to drag them out at 2:30! Mike and Melissa took all of us out on a boat ride. We all couldn't fit on their boat so Denny and Steff were nice enough to let us borrow theirs. The boys had tons of fun. They played on "Hermit Crab Island." Emma collected tons of hermit crabs and lined them up for a race. Clearly, it wasn't the most exciting race to watch! Chris left about an hour ago to go surfing. Hopefully he'll be home in time to go to the beach with us.

Here they are enjoying the view!
Nice hair, eh? On the way back Paige said, "Your hair looks funny Noah." Noah said, "Don't touch it, I want it to stay like this forever!" I guess he likes the wind blown look.

Even more sweet hair! Sadly, Will's hair always looks this crazy.

Chris and the kids are staring at all the hermit crabs. They were everywhere!

Here is Emma setting up her hermit crab race.

Here we are soaked after riding the Popeye whitewater raft ride, twice!
Ah.....

We survived our latest Disney experience! We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside. We were familiar with that resort. It is the same resort that we stayed out when we went with Bill and Steph a couple years ago. The last time we stayed there we were quite far from everything. We were literally the furthest building away from everything at the resort. This time I knew to ask to be closer to everything. After standing in line for 45 minutes to check-in with all the other people checking in with the conference and a few unlucky families that were checking in at the same time, I begged the lady to give us a room close to the lobby, restaurant, and pool. She was nice and not only gave us a room close to everything, but a room that was available 4 hours early! That worked out nicely for Chris and the boys. They didn't have to hang out waiting for the room. I checked in, gave Chris the key, and RAN to catch the bus to take me to the conference at the Dolphin Resort. The conference was insane. Unfortunately, only a few of the workshops that I attended over the three days were helpful. Those few did provide some great ideas though so it was worth it. They also had some great keynote speakers such as Antwone Fisher and Ron Clark. I now want to read both of their books. Each night Chris hung out with the boys at either Downtown Disney (No worries- the hotel had a boat that launched there so Chris didn't have to navigate himself anywhere!) or the hotel pool. Each night we went to Universal and rode a bunch of rides at Islands of Adventure. We also worked in trips to Mall at Millennia and Florida Mall. The highlight of Universal was getting drenched on the Popeye whitewater ride. We were lucky enough to get to stay on and a get a second dose of getting drenched. The boys thought it was awesome to be soaked. They couldn't stop talking about how their socks and even their underwear were sopping wet- good times! Chris also enjoyed scaring the life out of Will and Ethan on the Jurassic Park River ride. Noah wasn't tall enough so he was spared! (I have unsuccessfully tried to add pictures, I will try again later.)

Well, Daytona USA was not that thrilling. The 3-D IMAX movie was sort of cool, but it could have been a 1/2 hour shorter! I personally had more fun buying back-to-school clothes for the boys at Old Navy and Target. They also got their lunchboxes for next year. Will got a space shuttle, Noah got a robot, and Ethan got this firefighter jacket looking lunchbox with an American flag patch.

It's Friday!!! A rainy Friday, but still it's Friday. Baby Drew has been hanging out with us for the last few days. Christie and RJ's regular babysitter is on vacation this week. Noah loves babies and was more than happy to have him here. He wanted to feed him, burp him, hold him, talk to him, etc. Drew is such a good baby and we had tons of fun playing with him this week. Chris got the boys free tickets to Daytona USA. We'll be spending the day tomorrow in NASCAR country. I don't know why he isn't getting any free Disney tickets or something like that. Everything is NASCAR related!!! Oh well, we checked out www.daytonausa.com and there is an IMAX theater there which the boys will love. On Monday we leave for Disney. I'll be working most of the time, but the boys will get to hang out at the hotel pool and Downtown Disney. The resort we are staying out has a boat launch to Downtown Disney so Chris won't even have to load the boys in the car. Katie was kind enough to agree to stay with Hanzie! Here is cutie pie Drew hanging out with us.

Noah asked if we could keep Drew forever!

Ethan was completely zoned into TLC's While You Were Out backyard makeover. Ah... rainy day fun!

Here is Chris torturing Will! Okay, Will was really laughing, but it looks like serious child abuse from the angle it was taken! I promise his head never hit the table... that hard, LOL!

Hanzie did his best to entertain me during the rainy weather. We had a nice little bark off. I think I won!

HAPPY 4th OF JULY!!! And happy birthday to Roey! We had a nice relaxing day today. We slept in a bit, until 8:00, pretty nice. Once we got in gear after a big breakfast we went plant shopping. Will was amazed at how much stuff we had for breakfast so he insisted that he needed to use a big boy plate (aka dinner plate) to fit it all. They were all quite happy to be eating from the big plates. While plant shopping Noah picked out another purple flower. He picked it from a clearance rack and it only cost $1.99. I wish the stuff I wanted was on that rack! Melissa keeps telling me to get some lantana. Well today I found some that I liked. It is an Anne Marie lantana and flowers in yellow, purple, and pink. I also got a lavender allamanda. I didn't realize how large they grew when I picked it out. Hopefully it doesn't go too wild! I just love the big purple trumpet flowers on it! After plant shopping we ran home, had lunch, and then took off for for the beach. I read some of my US magazine and then tried out Chris' new body board. I'm officially addicted. It was so much fun! During our visit to the beach we saw the rockets' red glare go bursting into the air! The shuttle launch was cool. The boys kept asking over and over again if it was for real. We watched the live NASA feed before we left so they saw the astronauts on the shuttle talking and were completely amazed that those were the same people going to space! After watching the shuttle disappear into space we hung out for a bit so the boys could hear the loud thunderous sound. After the beach we came home and got ready for the cook-out at Bobbie's. Dick was our grill man and everything was delicious, especially the banana pudding!
My new allamanda! I may have to move it now that I realize how big it is going to get.

The rockets' red glare!!!

A couple more shuttle shots.

Cloudy weather and surrounding storms shot down our idea of going to the beach this morning. Now I know how NASA feels! We have just been hanging out around the house this morning.

Ethan and Noah built a zoo around the jungle puzzle we did.

Will was frustrated because he just couldn't convince Ethan and Noah that his Star Wars ship somehow fit in with the whole zoo theme.

Even more blooms on our crape myrtle. Our other one isn't doing quite as well. Hopefully we'll get a proper rain today to help it out.