GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOALLL!!!

So, "World Cup Fever" has been caught here in Walterland. We are very excited for soccer to be on TV almost every day. Well, Josh, Zeke and I are excited. Deacon and Finn could really care less. Besides the USA (who have been eliminated already), Josh has us rooting for three other teams - Germany, Ghana, and...

What's that? Finn's hands are blocking his shirt? Let's try this:

That's right...go Uruguay!

In case you're wondering, a friend of ours from Germany went to Uruguay for a week or so while we were there, and brought this shirt home for Deacon. Sadly, Deacon was already too big to wear it when he got it, but it fits Finn, ironically enough, during the World Cup that Josh finds himself rooting for Uruguay. Well, it fit that first game of theirs we watched...I'm not entirely certain it'll fit again.

Zeke has really been enjoying watching this "new-to-him" sport as well. He started out by perfecting his own soccer slide, which I have a video of, but I can't get it to post for some reason. I guess I'll have to try again later. But he's getting very good at it. He's taken it a step further in the last week though. Last Friday at the library the boys got beach balls for the summer reading program I signed them up for. The beach balls are now soccer balls, which Zeke (and sometimes Deacon) kicks around the house. I really enjoy it when he stands next to the ball, pretends to blow a whistle, then kicks the ball around a little, gives it a big kick, yells, "GOAL!", then does a little lap around the living room, ending in his slide. It is pretty sweet, I have to say.

*Sorry the pictures are so big. I was trying something new out, posting them via their html codes from my flickr site instead of just uploading them from the computer. I think I need to figure some things out before I try it again. At least I know it works though. Oh well.

Vroom Vroom Vroom!

I am telling you guys, time is just "racing" by. On Saturday, the 26th, Deacon, aka "Captain Hammer" turned 3. (Notice the hammer hanging out on/in his shirt. That's the new way he likes to carry it around.)

In anticipation for this day, I purchased (way back in January) a cake pan that makes little cars and trucks (much like Zeke's dinosaur and train cakes). I baked them in the morning, and during the boys naptime in the afternoon, Josh got all creative and decorated them, creating a little scene in the process.

As you can see, Deacon was super excited about his cake (and his presents).

After we each had a tasty car (or truck), I got the cake out of the way, and it was time to open presents. And here's an example of how sweet Deacon is, he happily let Zeke open one of his presents, since there were two to open.


We got him some more cars and trucks (and tractors!) to add to his little collection. I even found a "Mack" for the set (Mack is one of their favorite charactes from the movie "Cars").


As an extra treat, on Sunday, I took Deacon to Cold Stone Creamery to cash in on his free birthday ice cream. He picked strawberry ice cream with M&Ms. And he refused to share.



His refusal to share with me "forced" me to get an ice cream of my own, which, Deacon was more than happy to make me share with him. I got up to buy that bottle of water and came back to see him helping himself. Must be nice to be the birthday boy.



And here he is, as all the sugar starts to set it.

Turning 3, also brought some changes for Deacon. A few weeks ago, Josh finally took the rest of the crib pieces off of Deacon's bed, so now it is actually a bed.

Deacon is also "too old" for the nursery at church now too (even though I was assured that he's always more than welcome to hang out in there since he's such a sweet boy). So, yesterday Deacon came into church with us and then went to Sunday school. This was nice in two ways because not only did Deacon go to Sunday school and have a good time (until it was over and the other kids started leaving and Mommy didn't get him right away because she was chatting with a friend, causing him to burst into tears and climb into the lap of his teacher), but it convinced Zeke that he was finally ready to move up a Sunday school class to where more kids his age are.

All in all, it was a fun weekend for a fun boy. I still can't believe my sweet pea is 3. Happy Birthday Deacon. We love you!

June's Visitors

So. As I've been saying the past few days, we had our first set of summer visitors this month. My father, my stepmom, and my brother all flew out from New Jersey for a little over a week. We had such a great time with them. Here's a brief overview of how our time went.

They got in Friday the 11th, right around dinner time. So Josh and I made up a big spaghetti dinner, which we all enjoyed. The we just hung out thre rest of the evening. Nothing real exciting, except that Grandpa Bob, Grandma Karen, and Uncle Bobby were here!

On Saturday, we took the drive down to Portage Valley. On the way we stopped at Potter's Marsh, and Beluga Point (a wee bit of info on both those places can be seen on the Portage Valley link as well). It was a chilly day, but it was beautiful, and we saw all sorts of beautiful sceneries along the way.

After having lunch at Portage Valley, Josh and I left to take the boys home for some of their (and my) naptime, while my family went on to Whittier and took a boat ride out to the glacier there.

Sunday morning we went to church. After lunch, the boys and I took naps while Josh took Finn, and our guests to see the base here. He followed that up by cooking a delicious dinner of "Alaskan cuisines" - salmon that he caught last summer, and some caribou burgers. (Karen and I did not partake in the burgers, hence the need for salmon as well.)

Monday morning, my dad, Karen and Bobby left for a little excursion up to Denali. They stayed there until Wednesday afternoon. While they were up there they did all sorts of things - went ATV-ing, shopping, my dad and bobby went on a helicoptor ride to another glacier - along with the 4 hour drive. Wednesday evening, after they got back and we put the boys in bed, my dad, Bobby and Josh went out to dinner while Karen and I had a nice time at home chatting, getting caught up on what others in my family were up to.

Thursday morning we went on a big family trip to the zoo. Zeke made sure we kept a steady pace by constantly announcing, "Next animal." After seeing all the animals, and eating some popcorn, we made our way back home for lunch and naps. After naptime I walked the older boys down to my friend's house and left them there so the adults (and Finn) could go out to dinner at a restaurant called Humpy's. My brother had seen it on an episode of "Man vs. Food" awhile back and was excited to go there himself. We had a really fun night out.

Friday, their last day here, was a calmer day. My dad and Karen took the boys to McDonald's for lunch as a special treat. Obviously the boys hated that (lol). That night we had a huge fish fry dinner. Josh invited a friend of his from work and his wife, and I invited my friend who watched the boys for us the night before, along with her husband and 5 kids. It was a lot of people, but Josh made a lot of tasty fish.

After everyone left, we enjoyed the rest of our evening before Grandpa Bob, Grandma Karen, and Uncle Bobby got in their rental car and drove off for the airport. All in all, it was a great visit and we are so happy they came. We love you guys!

PS: all of our pictures from this visit are on flickr and you can see them here.

PPS: all of our pictures from the month of may are up as well, here.

A Smile For You

I don't have a post for today because the little bit of computer time I had today I spent on flickr, uploading, tagging, writing about pictures from the month of May (which you can see on the left side of the screen there...somewhere down there anyway), and the pictures from our recent visitors (which is actually still a work in progress). And since today is almost over, and since everything else I want to blog about requires pictures that are on my computer, and my only option for blogging today is to use my iPhone while I feed Finn for the last time today, all I have to offer you right now is a this ramble. Oh! And this picture of Finn I took this morning. Enjoy.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm a Little Concerned About Bert

Last week, my father, stepmother and brother came for a really nice visit. I want to blog about it, obviously, but I have decided to wait until I get all of the pictures from their visit up on flickr. We had such a nice time, and there are so many great pictures from their trip, that I would feel better having them up on flickr to link to so that anyone interested could see all that we did.

That's going to take some time so I'm going to do a quick blog about something that I've been thinking about for quite a bit lately (especially since it keeps popping up again and again on tv).

Is it just me, or is Bert not wearing a shirt? To me, it looks like Bert is wearing a leather jacket and a white bandana-thing, but no shirt. I'm fairly certain that's his belly button there, right above his belt. I suppose he could be wearing a yellow sweater that has one button? Rubber Duckie is definitely wearing just a bandana/scarf thing, and I want to say the same about Bert, but what would make him do such a thing? I'm sure leather jackets aren't really comfortable enough to wear on their own. I've never owned one, so I don't know for sure, but it doesn't seem like it would be a good idea. If it is a one-buttoned sweater, why did he pick out a sweater that so perfectly matches his skin color? Is that what the bandana is for? To prevent his "sweater" from making him look washed out? I don't know...but it disturbs me every time they play this particular segment. How do you feel about it?

"Graduated"

Since Deacon is exactly where he should be speech and what's-it wise, he no longer qualifies for the speech/occupational therapy he's been recieving the past six months, once he turns 3. Since this week all the therapists have training, Deacon's last day of therapy was last week. And since Miss Patty (his therapist, who is also our pastor's wife) is too good to him, she pulled out all the stops for her last visit with Deacon.

She made him this sweet little certificate (laminated and everything):

She made these amazingly delicious giant muffins (with cream cheese frosting and smiley faces made out of dried cherries for eyes and strawberries for mouths):

She even got him a little congratulations/happy birthday present (Go Fish! cards and a homemade birthday card):

Thank you for everything "Miss Patty"! We will definitely miss your weekly visits. Good thing we still get to see her on Sundays. (That's her in the next picture.)

Well, hey there!

I feel like I haven't blogged in forever. Probably because it has been awhile. Between taking care of two boys and one baby, having guests last week, and still taking naps, there isn't much time left for blogging. As a result, I have quite a few things to write about. My plan is to blog every day this week so I can catch up. We will see how that goes. And I guess this covers today. Until tomorrow, enjoy this picture of my boys.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Getting There

I finally got the handful of pictures I have from April up on Flickr today. You can check them out by clicking

HERE

I will do my best to have May's pictures and a new sidebar up soon. I have family visiting right now, so it'll be at least a week.

That Didn't Take Long

My baby is 1 month old already. I'm not sure how that happened. I wrote this to a friend the other day, while each day seems to take forever to get through, looking back, the month as a whole has flown by. I mean, it's June already. We are closing in on Deacon's 3rd birthday.

While Finn may be only 1 month old, last week (when he was only 3 weeks old) I had to go through his clothes and weed out all the newborn and 0-3 month sized onesies already. Crazy. Like my friend said to me yesterday at church, Finn's really chunked out lately. He's got these cheeks that are just fabulous. We call him mush man because his face is so mushy - especially when he falls alseep on one of us.

We are really enjoying Finn. He's a pretty decent sleeper already. I mean, he's not wonderful and we are exhausted, but he sleeps a good portion of the night (much better than either of his brother did at this age anyway), and I can usually get him to sleep for most of the time his brothers are napping. That's right, all 3 of them sleep in the afternoon at the same time for at least an hour, if not all 3 hours. Oh yeah. (Of course, now that I've put that out there he'll stop sleeping then.) But it's wonderful because it means I get to have a nap as well in the middle of the day when I really need one.

Otherwise, there isn't much else about Finn - he is only 1 month old. He's a good baby. He eats well (and often). He's great at being quite alert when he's awake. Sometimes when he cries you can really hear the "w" in his waaa, and it's sweet. He also squeeks a little when he inhales when he's crying. He like the swing (most of the time), LOVES being held (who doesn't?), and is really just an enjoyable kid.