Sunday, May 18, 2014

April Snapshots, Part One

April was a full month--time with family, a wedding, Easter, a trip to Hawaii, Josiah's birthday, and, of course, normal life!

Building a suit of armor out of construction paper and duct tape

Elijah spent lots of time with his Legos
Dustin worked hard on getting the garden built.
Lots of dirt and gravel to move

He even had some helpers!


Dustin's parents came down for the weekend; we had a lovely time visiting with them.



The place where I went to get baby girl's nursery bedding (hurray for Craigslist) was close to the beach, so we enjoyed a morning there.
When Josiah saw the caps I gathered for the beach,
he immediately wanted to switch his for his
beloved knit hat.

Elijah enjoyed running in and out of the waves

Josiah still strongly prefers to play in the sand and have people
bring him buckets of water

Building the castle wall

Making a satelite

Reading in our freshly potted front patio

Josiah set up this jousting tournament

One of J's favorite trays at preschool: dot paint letters


Playing with their second cousin

Lego play!

And more Lego time

Lego Penguin
In April, Josiah made the overnight switch from drinking a gallon of milk a week to not drinking it all.

Both boys continue to sit with us during church (although both are happy to come with me when I help in "Josiah's" class twice a month); the whispered threat is that if they are too wiggly/distruptive then they will be sent to Sunday School class where they can play, talk, eat snack, hear a Bible story.

Major themes are: castles, space shuttles, and Revolutionary War.

Josiah told me, "I want to study animals," and followed up by suggesting we visit the zoo so that he could watch the animals. He has since been reading Ranger Rick, Jr. daily and his new favorite tv show is Wild Kratts.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

He's 3!

Josiah turned three at the end of April! While he definitely loved being two, he has happily switched to doing everything in multiples of three (3 kisses, 3 strawberries, 3 stories, etc.) and is quite bothered when he is only allowed 2 pancakes or 2 stories.

His birthday fell on a fourth grade day (and the day after Dustin and I got back from Hawaii); my mom made him delicious chocolate cupcakes to share with his beloved friends.

My mother's helper comes Mondays in the late afternoon, so Josiah was delighted to play with dear Ph. And then we had a family dinner in the evening (spaghetti, cucumbers, and strawberries).


Presents were opened.


Legos were built while I cleaned up from dinner and got ready for dessert.


He had a sea turtle cake, since I turned down his request for a British Revolutionary War cake. Unfortunately, I did it all wrong--apparently it was supposed to have chocolate frosting (it was a chocolate cake, though) and the sea turtle was supposed to be inside the cake so that he could be swimming through the water. I think it turned out cute.




We think he's a pretty special three year old!