4th of July & Evan's First 1-Mile Race

For the 4th of July, we were able to head to Cranford and take part in the annual race which happens on the morning of the 4th.  Last year, I ran the 4 mile race for the first (and maybe last) time.  This year, Evan, Brian and I ran the one-mile fun run together . . . or I should say, we intended to run it together.  Evan went out to a fast start and I kept warning him to slow down and take his time, that we had a long way to go.  Eventually, I let Brian and him go ahead of me, figuring I'd catch up to them when he ended up slowing down.  Well, sure enough, he never did slow down and I never did catch up!  Matthew ran it too and beat all of us.  Here the cousins are before the race:

Running by my parents house on Springfield Ave:

Very proud, with their ribbons

 And a collage of the day:

And here is Eric in his red, white and blue for the 4th:

Since my parents are considering selling their house in the next year, that may have been our last 4th of July on Springfield Ave :(

Pre-K Graduation

Evan officially graduated from Pre-K in June of 2015.  He had spent all of the first 5 years of his life at the Goddard School in West Goshen and had a wonderful experience there.  We were very excited for graduation day, where the class put on a whole show for the parents and family.  Here is our graduate's official graduation photo:

Performing his sign language song to Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up", with his best bud, Liam:

During the ceremony, Evan's teacher, Miss Melissa, got up and spoke about each student.  During Evan's portion, Evan hid his face in his hands in embarrassment.  It was certainly cute.  Miss Melissa spoke about how she thinks Evan is going to be a professional athlete when he grows up:

Evan and his best friends, Liam and Dominic:

The proud graduate with his mom and dad:

Closer up:

With Deedee and Pops, who made the trip from NJ to see him:

And now with Nana and Morgan, who made an even farther trip to come see him.  It was so great to have our family there to celebrate with us:

Mr Graduate:

And he threw his cap in the air:

With his very sweet teacher, Miss Melissa, who took such great care of him during the year:

And now that we have moved onto a new daycare for Eric, we are most certainly missing these familiar faces each day!

Lots of Catching Up to Do!

In an attempt to get myself back on track with the blog, I'm going to try to get caught up a bit with this past summer's events.  With the craziness of a move to a new house, getting settled, changing schools, vacations and just general fun of the summer, I took a rather long break from blogging.  So here goes my attempt to catch up in the next few weeks and will see if I can get back to this a little bit.  So let's start at the beginning of the summer with our move . . . which was a pretty big decision that we had been pondering for awhile.  With the desire to get a little more space and a basement, we set out to find a new home.  It didn't take too long to find one which we loved in a great neighborhood  with a fantastic school district and decided to go for it.  But, that didn't mean I was necessarily happy about leaving our old house . . . the house we had been in for 11 years and had brought our babies home to.  To top it off, we had the best neighbors and not getting to see them regularly has definitely been an adjustment.  But, here we are during our last night hanging out at the old house as a family:

 With our neighbors, the Allison & Dave Keefe:

And our last visit from the "music truck", which visited our old house every single night:

Last time hanging out with the Keefe kids for dinner on their deck as neighbors:

And a few days later, with a LOT of help from our family (my parents with the physical move and Brian's with babysitting the boys), we got settled into our new place on Saber Rd:

 The foyer (these were the realtor's pictures but it doesn't look all that different now):

 The kitchen, which definitely gives us more space than we could have ever dreamed of!

The 3-seasons rooms, which is also great for hosting company:

 And, most importantly, one of the main reasons for our move was the basement:

Now I've got a full summer's events to catch up on, including a Pre-K graduation that I just realized preceded this move but forgot to blog about.  That one will be up next!

Evan's 5th Birthday - Milky Way Farms

We held Evan's 5th birthday party at Chester Spring Creamery and Milky Way Farms.  It was a little different than the standard party we are used to but we decided to take our chances with the weather and plan something that would be partially outside. Thankfully the weather held up for us. The party started off at the creamery, where the kids did a farm craft and followed that with pizza and ice cream.  Here is Evan with Deedee just as the party was starting:

 Time to sing to the birthday boy:

And blow out the candle:

After the food was eaten, we headed off to a tour of the farm by the farmer.  Here is our group gathering for the tour:

The crew on their way to see the pigs:

Evan feeding the pigs:

A cow staring me down:

Evan was loving being the center of attention on his special day:

Brian was a helper, taking ahold of the chicken to bring it out for the kids to play with:

The kids all gathering around to feed the chicken:

Chase up close with the chicken:

Next it was onto feeding the baby cows - both Morgan and Claire below:

At home after the party, these two cousins love each other so much:

The birthday boy happy after a successful party!

More to come soon with Evan's 5 year old stats.  Thanks to everyone who helped celebrate Evan's birthday with us!

Mother's Day 2015 at Tyler Arboretum

For Mother's Day, I took the boys to Tyler Arboretum since Brian has a fractured ankle.  We met up with friends there so the kids could run around and enjoy the beautiful weather.  Here they are, pausing for a quick second for a photo:

Evan, just like his mother, leading the way and "reading" the map to guide us:

This is how Eric generally feels about photos:

The lilacs were incredible and smelled even better than they looked:

Now a little more camera friendly:

Hopping from tree trunk to tree trunk:

All of the kids:

Evan on the large chair:

Eric on the smaller chair:

All in all, it was a nice, relaxing Mother's Day.  We have a busy few months ahead so it was even more important to enjoy a nice day together!

Eric's 3 Year Old Stats

Eric's three year old stats are long overdue.  We had his visit back in March!  Eric weighed in at a whopping 27 lbs (11th percentile) and measured exactly 3 feet tall (19th percentile).  The doctor was hoping he would have gained more than 2 lbs since his visit at age 2, so she asked that we make sure he eats more and gets some more weight on him.  Now we are reverting and feeding him whatever he will eat . . . which means he's eating less and less variety of food.  I feel like we are in a no-win situation but we need to get some weight on him.  

Eric is your typical 3 year old.  He loves all things Cars, trucks, trains and planes.  Lightening McQueen is his go-to toy and thankfully we have several of them.  He loves riding his ride-on gator around the yard and now can take his scooter all the way around the neighborhood.  He loves music and will sing at the top of his lungs . . . making up the words with the best of them.  I think it's safe to say Eric will not be the next American Idol but he has fun belting out songs.  Just the other day, we were at the zoo and he was singing a Kanye West / Rihanna songs at the top of his lungs.  He definitely takes after his dad with his love of music.  

Eric is starting this "threenage" year.  His temper can get the best of him at times and he's testing us.  He and his brother are very physical together and he's usually on the losing end of their battles.  He makes sure to tell us when he's not happy.  He constantly says "You are CHEATING" when he doesn't like what we're doing.  I'm not sure what he thinks "cheating" means but he's not using it in the right context, which is adorable!

At school, Eric is doing great.  He knows all of his letters by sight and in sign language with his own hands.  Whereas I had to work with Evan for him to learn the letters of the alphabet at this age, Eric has known them for a few months now.  It's interesting to see how they differ because Evan had a 70 page book memorized at this age and Eric does not have that skill.  They continue to be so totally different . . . and Eric is still a mini-me of his father in almost all ways. 

We love our little man and can't wait to see what the next year brings!