Greek Festival & Strawberry Festival 2012

This weekend was definitely packed full with lots of fun activities.  Friday night Grammy Civiello, Great Grampy & Great Grammy Day came for a visit.  We were able to take them to the Greek Festival here in Portland which is one of the highlights of Noah's summer.  For the 3rd year in a row now Noah has enjoyed dancing with all of the little old Greek ladies:)  Saturday morning we were able to enjoy the pool at the hotel and the kids got to show off their swimming skills.  Later in the morning we attended the strawberry festival in Cape Elizabeth.  We had not been before, but were glad and pleasantly surprised at how much fun the kids had.  The kids got their faces painted, planted some seeds and made some crafts.  James was pretty distraught that we didn't actually take any strawberries home, but the tractor ride to the from the car made up for it;)

Miscellaneous- June 2012

This month has been so exciting, both with visits/adventures and all 3 kids growing and changing.  Benjamin is getting around more and more, still not "crawling", but he does get around pretty fast with his military crawl that can get him in just as much trouble.... he has discovered the bathroom...  Yesterday he also started pulling to stand... and I was on top of things enough to get a picture!  In the morning I left he and Noah playing in the living room while I was dressing James.  I heard Ben laughing and walked in to see this.  He was so proud of himself, as you can see from the beaming smile!

Noah continues to build and create things with a keen eye for problem solving.  He built this tall tower of legos (how he did this without anyone else knocking it over is in itself a feat), but couldn't get it to stand up on its own, so he added this slightly larger slanted piece to the bottom and problem solved. James and Noah have started the summer session of swimming lessons.  This time around James is old enough (by one day) to be in the preschool class.  I was concerned about his listening skills and wasn't sure he was really old enough to be in the class, but he proved me wrong.  Not only is he old enough, but he is such a good swimmer they put him in the intermediate preschool class with Noah... who knew!  I am curious to see how this will play out over the summer... right now Noah is thrilled to have James in his class and to "teach him how to be in swimming lessons". 

Nanny came to visit last week and in the heat we were able to enjoy some beach time, playgrounds and the new slip n slide Noah and James pooled their money to buy.  It was really funny to watch because neither James or Noah dared to actually use the slip and slide.  I have some video that I will have to try and upload.  I was also able to pick my strawberries for the year while the kids waited patiently in the car with Nanny.  Before I could make jam though, James got a GI bug which we are still recovering from... here is to crossing our fingers that no one else gets it!  The bottom few pictures are of what happened when Gabe decided to try and take a nap yesterday... N and J decided to take a nap too and read a book to him:)

Funtown 2012

We made our annual bargain trip to Funtown/Splashtown on Father's Day/James's birthday.  This year James insisted on driving the race cars and riding the roller coaster, both of which he was much to short for..... This morning I heard him yelling for me to "come quick and see".  He was standing on the porch  on the stool and said, "Wook I am growing so big, now I can wide the wace caws and rower coasters".... so cute!  Noah was tall enough to ride both, but decided that he wasn't ready to ride either until "I get bigger like daddy".  We will see what happens next year...:)

Father's Day 2012

One of the coolest things about having children is to watch your spouse turn into a parent.  These boys are lucky enough to have one of the best fathers out there and they know it.  I am quite sure there are not many men out there who handle the stress of residency and being the father of 3 young boys as well as Gabe has.  He seems to be able to ALWAYS have time to play and spend time with the kids even though he has a million other things on his mind... like sleep usually.  Here is how the kids woke Gabe up on Father's Day this year:)  Thanks for being an amazing father and role model for our boys!  We love you daddy!!

James Turns 3!

This morning at 4:44 AM our precious guy turned 3!  What a fun kid he is:)  He is all that a 3 year old could offer. He has the cutest little lisp that part of my really hopes he doesn't lose. He knows all of his letters and has an incredible memory for songs, books and movies.  His biggest love continues to be his cars, any small car. Most recently his favorites are the cars from the movie "Cars 2" he has been receiving as a reward for using the potty. He can play for hours by himself just driving the cars.  It is really funny to listen to the conversations he makes up between the cars and about their adventures.  He is a great eater, his favorite foods continue to be cheeseburgers, Chex and Kix (together in the bowl), and any fruit.  Thankfully in the past few months he has started eating vegetables again!  He is very independent and likes to do most things "by myself" which he is usually surprisingly competent about, but I can usually get him to let me help by "using teamwork" to get something done.  He loves swimming lessons, gymnastics, music class, riding his bike and playing at the beach. He really enjoys playing and pretending with his big brother, he likes to copy almost anything Noah does.  He is very patient when Noah is extra bossy about what they are going to do;)  James also has a very gentle and thoughtful heart when it comes to both of his brothers.  He gets very concerned if one of them is not around, or gets left out of something.  He loves teaching Ben how to use manners and he can make Ben laugh harder than anyone else:) We love you big guy!!

James's 3rd Birthday Party

James turns 3 next week!  We celebrated his birthday a week early so that our family could attend both his birthday and Gabe's graduation. I gave James the choice of several different themes, but he insisted on the robot party.  He loves the DVD "Little Robots" that we get from the library as well as the movie "Wall-e". Gabe made his a fantastic robot made out of diaper boxes and tinfoil which James was so EXCITED about, even though he kept referring to it as a snowman... Noah spotted James's cake on the morning of the birthday and was pretty stressed out that it didn't have any decorations on it, so I was able to negotiate only one umbrella;)  I also found a nice solution to James's hoarding problem with his cars in this car bandolier.  I didn't get a great shot of it, but it carries lots of his cars without dropping them;)  Overall James had a fantastic day celebrating, thanks everyone for sharing it with him!