Hunter starts kindergarten!!

Hunter loved school. The teachers commented on how excited he was to learn! He did all his work without errors and knew exactly what to do with the homework when we got home and told me he didn’t need my help!

Luke started in a new class as well. He was crying when we got there, but I asked if he could sit in a chair so I could take Hunter to kindergarten. He said sure and the tears stopped. A great second child!

He says the cutest things

Luke woke up with a fever on Wednesday so we kept him home from school. When he came down for breakfast in the morning I asked him how he was feeling (trying to check if his ears were bothering him.) He replied: "um, happy!"

Our Summer Vacation 2010

We had a great, busy and exhausting summer vacation. We started in Ocean City, NJ for a bit of beach time. (I can't make it an entire year without a visit to the beach!) This was a nice beach for kids. Our hotel was within walking distance, there is a great boardwalk with restaurants, ice cream and even an amusement park. Both boys loved the ocean and I wish we could have stayed longer.

Next stop was Philadelphia. This is a great town with kids. We visited the Children's Museum, they could have spent the entire time playing in the construction section.

We ran the Rocky steps up the Museum of Art,

took our picture with the phanatic,

checked out the Liberty Bell, went to the amazing Science Center (with a planetarium), Natural History Museum,

the Aquarium

rode the tour bus, and ended up at Longwood Gardens in Deleware. We stayed at a hotel in Philly that had a pool on the roof, so we had a nice energy reliever at the end of each day. Hunter is incredibly interested in dinosaurs, space, science, and sharks, so this vacation really kept him interested the entire time. Can't wait for next year!

Hunter's 5th Birthday

Can you believe my baby is 5? This year we celebrated his birthday at a local rec center pool. All the kids had a blast and hopefully were tired out when we sent them home.

Look at this precious face, couldn't you just eat it up?

Graduation Day!

Hunter graduated from Preschool! I can't believe it. The ceremony was so cute and Hunter did such a great job delivering his lines.

Aunt Patty and Dave made the drive down for the event and Hunter was thrilled. He wished they could have stayed longer.

Power Tots

Hunter has been doing Power Tots (a gymnastics class) at his daycare since he was 3 I think and loves it. Every year they have an end of year performace. Here are some pictures:

Look what I can do!

Hunter was so proud of himself and still thinks it is awesome to ride on just two wheels!

Easter 2010

Our Easter weekend started with one of Hunter's friends birthday parties at an indoor pool. Part of the goodie bag was a pack of 2 sets of goggles. As you can see from the pictures, both Luke and Hunter loved them.

We colored eggs which was messy and fun.

Easter morning we hunted for eggs the Easter Bunny hid.

Then we opened presents Aunt Patty and Uncle Dave sent from their trip to Disney. Luke was so surprised, and Hunter loved his gifts as well.

Notice the goggles!

Bonpoint....finally!

On one of my trips to France when Hunter was about 18 months old I bought some adorable clothes at a very high end kids clothing store called Bonpoint. Ordinarily I would never spend that much for kids clothes, but they were having their half yearly sale and a coworker's wife works for the store and passed on her employee discount. Still way more then I would spend, but it was a special occasion so I splurged.

Fast forward to the fall/winter, and Hunter became a very opinionated 2 year old and refused to wear everything but one sweater. He wouldn't even put any of it on.

I got a second chance with Luke and turns out he loves the clothes. I will have to take a picture in the jacket next which is so cute....and Luke loves. But this picutre is of the pajamas. Very unkid like, more like something an adult would wear but I love them. Thank goodness for second children.

Luke is 2!

I am just amazed at how quickly time flies. When I am rocking Luke at bedtime I can still pretend he is a baby, but during the day, he is all boy!

Luke is such a sweet, cuddley boy who LOVES his brother, being outside and playing. His vocabulary has really expanded in the last couple of months and we can understand his requests and words most of the time.

His ears have proven to be the biggest source of problems for us, having 2 sets of tubes in a year. We are very hopeful that we are on the road to recovery and he will be infection free this next year. It has really impacted his speech, and hopefully he will be able to catch up quickly.

Sleep has also been affected by the ear infections and we are still waking up multiple times a night, mostly out of habit for him I think.

It is interesting how in just the last few weeks he has turned into a full fledged 2 year old, with the required tantrums when he doesn't get his way, and his interest in all things that move, cars, trucks, buses, trains, birds and dogs.

He can sing and we can recognize - Frère Jacques, twinkle twinkle, ABCs, This little light of mine. He can count up to 10 with help and knows some words in Spanish. Right now he is really into the TV show Caillou and can even sing the intro song. (He doesn't get the luxury of being able to watch Elmo like his brother, so he is exposed to shows Hunter likes.)

His stats are exactly the same as Hunter, which is interesting since Luke is much more interested in food than Hunter. He is 35 inches long and 28 lbs.

For the most part Luke is a much more laid back version of a 2 year old, letting us decide what he will wear most mornings, and is more easily distracted if he is upset.

I love to see the relationship between Hunter and him develop. They generally play together so well, and when the occasional fight breaks out, Luke is much more aggressive than Hunter is and is usually the one that ends up bullying Hunter, not the other way around. Hunter is always gentle with Luke even if Luke strikes first and hurts him.

We are so glad to have been blessed again with another happy, healthy boy. Happy Birthday Luke!!

Luke's 2nd Birthday Party

We celebrated Luke's 2nd birthday this weekend with great weather and great friends. Luke had a wonderful time with all the big kids.

The kids loved playing in the backyard and although the game of football often got a bit to intense, I think they all had a great time.

As you can see from this solo shot, Luke is hard to get a picture of. He is a man in motion. But what I hope you can also see is that he is wearing a button down shirt! He is so much more flexible. Yeah!!

Unlike Hunter at this age, I don't think Luke really got that we were singing to him. But...he still enjoyed his day and all the sweets!!

Christmas 2009

We had a great 1st Christmas in our new house. It was a bit of a scamble to get everything unpacked and setup but we got the important things done.

We baked and decorated cookies...so much easier in our new kitchen.

A big concern was whether Santa would find us in our new house. Thankfully he did and they both really enjoyed opening their presents.

Then it was off to Gigi and Papa's for more present opening and dinner.

Next year will be a bit smoother, hopefully and we can do more of our traditions without feeling so rushed.

Our New House

On December 17, 2009 we moved into our house. Everyone was ready to be in, including my parents who were able to reclaim their house and the quiet!

As crazy as it was to move in the week before Christmas I am glad that we were able to do it and spend our first Christmas at home.

On Friday a massive snow storm plowed into the area, dumping over a foot of snow on us. Thankfully we had found the snow shovel and it gave us a few days to do nothing but shovel, play in the show and unpack.

I will post more pictures when we are a bit more settled.

First Snow

So between the time we sold our house and moved into our next, there was a 5 week gap. My parents gratiously allowed us to move in with them. We were able to experience the first snow of the season in Darnestown. Hunter and Luke had a blast.

Fall 2009

Well this has been a very busy few months. We put our house on the market in September and life never was the same. I will post more on that later, but we managed to fit in all the standard fall events with the kids, visit to the pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins at a friends house and Halloween. Here are a bunch of pictures, enjoy!