Happy Birthday to Isaac!

We had so much fun celebrating Isaac's fourth birthday!

The celebration started with a birthday party on Saturday.  Isaac invited his friends from his playgroup.  It was the perfect combination of kids!

Waiting for friends to arrive

Birthday party lunch

Making wind catchers

Birthday party cupcakes

Isaac hid under the table while we sung "Happy Birthday"

Birthday party kiddos

Then, on Tuesday, Isaac celebrated his birthday with his preschool class.  His class also had a costume parade on the same day!

Isaac's last day of being three years old

Isaac woke up early on is birthday to open presents.  It was an avalanche of construction vehicles!

Before trick or treating, we sang "Happy Birthday" again and surprised Isaac with his construction cake

Police Officer Noah, Bob the Builder, and Ryan the Astronaut set off to trick or treat

Isaac has perfected the art of getting extra candy on Halloween.

This year he went to each house and said "I'm Bob!  I'm four!"  Then he would be given extra candy while he told people that today's his birthday.  It was too cute.

Happy Birthday to Isaac!

You make us laugh everyday with your stories and vivid imagination.

You are going to change the world with your unique perspective.

You are our wonderful gift from God!

Now you are four!

Handsome Boys

Noah decided that he wanted to wear a dress shirt and tie for picture day at school this year.

The results were quite handsome:

Isaac decided that he would also wear a tie for his school picture day in a few weeks, so he had fun trying on what he would wear.

The results were also quite handsome:

You can dress them up, but they're still silly boys!

Hello Preschool!

Isaac was so excited about his first day at Stonebridge Preschool!

He will go to school on Tuesday and Thursday mornings this year.

The very most exciting thing for him is that the preschool uses a car line to dismiss the children, so Isaac gets to wait for me to pull around in the car and his teacher will help him get in the car, just like how we pick up Noah at his school.

He's also excited about having his own lunchbox, new backpack, new toys in his class and new teachers, but it's the car line that is the very pinnacle of excitement for Isaac.

Here's to a great year of preschool!

Hello First Grade!

Today is Noah's first day of first grade!

He's been excited for the new year to start and he has been looking forward to having lots of time with his friends from Kindergarten.

We wanted to share a few highlights of our exciting morning with you:

Safety First

Isaac is fascinated with skyscrapers, and he has just discovered Bob the Builder.  It's the perfect combination and Bob the Builder feeds into Isaac's vast imagination for how things work.  Isaac loves to re-create what he sees in the world around him.  One day, after watching Bob the Builder and seeing how workers use safety harnesses to stay safe while they work in skyscrapers, Isaac was busy rummaging around the house looking for supplies for a new project.

A little while later, he said, "Look at me!  I'm working on a tall building!"

He's using his drill to work high up on the stairs, but it's his safety harness that's the important part...

He made it all by himself out of string, a clothes pin and a loose tea infuser spoon.  He pulled the string through the spoon handle, looped it around the banister spindles and clipped the string with the clothes pin.  Then he clipped the tea infuser spoon to the back of his shirt all by himself also!

I love to watch him rummage around the house and see what he's going to make!

Take Your Child to Work Day

Every year, Microsoft holds a big event for Take Your Child to Work Day.

Noah was so excited to spend a day at work with Matt!

Heading off to work

Noah even got his own badge!

Noah came home with lots of great souvenirs, including this great photo that is now a magnet on our fridge.  There were lots of great events for the kids during the day, and they even served pizza and ice cream for lunch.  Isaac and I picked up Noah after lunch, and he beamed with happiness for the rest of the day from his great experience with Daddy.

Little Slugger

How to play baseball, according to Isaac:

Make sure you're wearing your batting helmet.

You can use a soccer ball instead of a baseball.  It will work just fine.

When you're ready, address the ball.

Scream at the top of your lungs as you wind up

Continue screaming as you hit the ball, but make sure you completely take out the tee also

Fall to the ground and yell "Touchdown!"

Learning Balance

The news of the day is that Noah has learned how to ride a bike!

Just look at that smile on his face!

He spent the morning cruising around our driveway and sidewalk.

Everything clicked today and now he's an official bike rider!

A glimpse of the future...

One of our summer traditions is going to the New Life 91.9 Faith Family and Freedom Celebration in June.  It's always a great concert and it's a night of rockin' entertainment.  It also gives the boys a lot of inspiration for the band performances that they do at home.  This year, we got to meet Joel and Luke from For King and Country.

They're brothers, they have a band, and they use at least 6 different kinds of drums, a xylophone, and a cello during their performances.  They're unique, talented, and inspiring, and if Noah and Isaac ever decide to have their own band, I felt like I had seen the future of what their performances would be!

Here's two videos of For King and Country's performances (the videos may start with a commercial):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYP-8f11mmg&feature=player_detailpage#t=7s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=oV4llLa_2nk

What do you think?  Could that be the future Noah and Isaac someday?

Here's a few pictures of the boys at the Faith, Family and Freedom Celebration:

Isaac's Worksheet

Isaac was so proud to show us the paper that he worked on in KidStreet at church. He wrote his name on the top, which is so exciting! He said, "I did the beginning and the end of my name, and the middle looks a little bit funny." He carefully glued the scenes from Noah's Ark in the correct order, but he glued the ark upside down in the last picture "because it's floating upside down." I love him and his always interesting perspective of the world!