Lake Pictures

Like I said in my earlier post, we went camping last week with a group of people from Dan's family's church. One of the days, while the men went golfing, the women took all the kids to the beach. I braved the sand and brought my telephoto lens for my camera and got some great pictures of the kids.

Last year when we went to the beach while camping, Adam would only go into the water with Dan. This year, Dan wasn't there and I had to watch Andrew also (and take pictures), so I didn't really go out with him. However, he seemed to overcome some of his fear of the water and went out on his own. In fact, I was starting to worry he'd go out too far on his own :-). The kids all loved the water (even thought it was waaaaay too cold for the adults!), and they loved playing in the sand.

Unfortunately, we forgot to bring sand toys, but they managed to make do with their hands. Of course, Adam also made friends (and enemies...when he tried to knock down their creations) with other kids who were working on sand castles. There was one older boy who had a really elaborate fort going. He was really nice to Adam and showed him what he was doing and gave Adam "jobs" to "help" him.

Andrew also loved the beach. He loved walking around and looking at everything, although he didn't seem to want to get into the water (probably too cold for him!). He had to sample the taste of the sand (since he has to put everything in his mouth), and he tried to chase a seagull. He was also obsessed with trying to get the Cool Ranch Doritos in our little tent (I brought a little sun tent for him to nap in). We brought them for lunch and he kept wanting to open them. I gave him one, and he started choking on it, so of course, I didn't give him anymore. He is very persistent...he kept trying to get the bag and open it. Finally, I had to throw the Doritos out of the tent for someone to hide :-).

Adam is 4!

Last Wednesday was Adam's 4th birthday, which we celebrated while we were camping. We had planned a camping trip with a church group for Friday through Monday, and we decided to go early since it was a long drive and what better place for Adam to celebrate his birthday than while camping (which he loves!).

We really didn't do too much besides hang around the campground, but Adam loved playing at the park and in the sandbox. We gave him his present from Aunt Sandra and Uncle Mike (a Matchbox car holder that doubles as a semi)...which he loved and he got his first bike from his mom and dad. He was really excited about that...excited enough that he forgot that he also wanted one of those $200 ride-on tractors (good luck with that one!!). Before his birthday, if you asked him what he wanted, he would say a bike and a tractor. We also bought him a Spiderman bike helmet. Even though Dan and I both rode our bikes all the times as kids without any helmet to speak of...I thought we better go the safe route :-). He still needs some lessons on actually pedaling himself. Right now, he thinks that mom or dad needs to push him on the bike while he sits in comfort...spoiled boy!

We also bought cupcakes at the Super Walmart and sang "Happy Birthday" to him. I will make him a real cake when we celebrate his birthday with Dan's family later. I went the easy route for the camping trip :-). He didn't care...he only seems to like the frosting anyway. I have lots more pictures from our camping trip...especially some really good ones from the beach, but I'll wait until later this week to post those.

Blue Angels

On Saturday, we went to an air show nearby with Dan's parents featuring the Blue Angels. It was so much fun! Dan was the only one of the group of us that had ever been to an air show, so it was an adventure. Since my sister, Sandra, is an old pro at attending air shows (her husband, my BIL is a pilot), she advised me to buy ear plugs for the boys. Boy, was she right. The F16 and the Blue Angels were really loud.

When we first arrived (we were a bit late and parking was a nightmare), a small plane was doing some acrobatics. For some reason, Adam was really scared of that little plane (and it wasn't loud). He announced that he wanted to go back to the car and go home. Dan had to hold him and try to console him. You wouldn't think that he would grasp the concept that the plane could go down (it made me a bit nervous with its stunts). Then the F16 was next and he really hated that. There was some time between the F16 and the Blue Angels, so we bought lunch and then I ran Adam over to one of the tents that was selling little toy airplanes. They had various models as well as some Blue Angel planes. He insisted on getting a B52 bomber, even though I tried to convince him to get the Blue Angel. He even cried when I tried to put it back. Needless to say, "Andrew" got a plane also, since I didn't think we could see the Blue Angels and not have a Blue Angel plane. Anyway, he was busy playing with his planes during the Blue Angels (and we got his earplugs in), so they didn't bother him. Andrew was a trooper...he mostly played with gramma or a water bottle. The Blue Angels were awesome. At one point the formation of 4 planes were only 18 inches apart from each other...that's the first picture of the planes. It was really amazing some of the maneuvers that they did. It was a great show...we're really glad we went.

Happy 4th of July!

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July (or a Happy Birthday party for America, as Adam would say). He thought we were going to America's house yesterday as we were driving to our party. We had a wonderful time yesterday with a group of people from church. I volunteered to bring the dessert, so I spent some time Monday researching on the internet for the "perfect" 4th of July dessert. There were several sites that had a cake with strawberries and blueberries on it in the shape of a flag, but I personally don't like fruit and cake together, so I wanted something else. I found a site with an Uncle Sam hat made out of a 13x9 pan, which I thought would be perfect. I'm including a picture of how it turned out. I thought it was cute.

Before we left for the party, Adam wanted a baseball cap like Beaver (we have cable for 6 months on special, so Adam and I have been watching Leave it to Beaver on TVLand). On the prior day's episode, Beaver was in PE and couldn't hit the baseball, so he moved his hat around and was doing silly things so the kids would laugh at that instead of the fact that he couldn't hit a baseball. Anyway, Adam put the hat on and immediately moved the brim around like Beaver. I thought it was cute...not sure if Beaver should be his role model...but at least there were always consequences to his actions on the show :-).

The boys had a great time at the party (as did Dan and I). There was a tree fort and a rope swing for Adam to play on with all the other kids and Andrew loved walking around everywhere. It was a little more difficult at this party...since this was the first time Dan and I couldn't rotate watching Adam and socializing...since we now had to watch both kids. I don't know how people with more than 2 kids do it!! I'm going to include a few pictures at the party, too.

More Birthdays!

May, June and July are very birthday intensive months in our families...2 birthdays in May, 4 in June, and 5 in July. So, we have lots of birthday parties! We visited Dan's family this weekend to celebrate his mom and his nephew's birthdays. Since Dan's mom normally makes everyone else's birthday cake, I volunteered to make her cake, so she wouldn't have to have a store-bought cake. I didn't have time to buy roses at the cake decorating store (like I usually do...I really need to learn how to make them myself), so I bought a stencil that allowed me to make some vines around the edge of the cake. I thought it turned out really cute (and so did Dan's mom). The boys had lots of fun, as usual, with their cousins, and Andrew showed off his new walking skill to the family. I'm including a few pictures from the party (as well as the cake).