Wordless Wednesday

 

Another Birthday!

September 17th was my mom's birthday!  To celebrate we all went out to dinner and then back to her house for gifts and dessert.  You know, pretty much the same thing we do every year :)

After mom blew out her candles, each of the kids took their turns blowing out a candle, too!

Then it was Sam's turn...

And we tried to get a photo of mom with her 3 boys... you can see for yourself how well that went.

Happy birthday, mom/grandma!

No Creative Title

This kid (love him!!!) came over to play for a few hours...

So we headed outside to play trains (big surprise)!

I was trying to get a close up picture of Jack's eye, so I asked him to help me out with that.  This is what I got.

I think his eyes might be on their way to turning green, but I can only see it when the light hits them just so.

Time will tell, I suppose.  And speaking of blue eyes...

I just love these boys!  It's so fun to watch the three of them interact together!  I hope that they end up the three amigos.  That is, if it stays just the three of them.  'Cause if more are added then they couldn't be the three amigos, could they?  Maybe one day there will be four of them... could they be the four amigos?  Or Five?  However many there end up being, I hope they're all best friends. 

Is this post even making any sense?

That was the last picture from this day.  The End.

Best. Park. Ever.

I am the type of mom that will go way out of the way and make 3 u-turns just so that we can go over as many railroad crossings as possible.  Call me a softy, but I just can't resist when I know that the simple act of driving through a railroad crossing will light Jack's face with joy and fill him with such awe and amazement.  Most people get disappointed or even angry if they happen to have poor timing and get stopped by a train, but I get disappointed every time when we don't get stopped by a train... we haven't been lucky enough to get stopped yet, but I know that Jack would absolutely die if we did!  Each time I hear the train whistle I check the time and make a mental note to try to be at the railroad crossing at that same time the next time we're out... but each time we miss it.

And then I had a "DUH!" moment.  There is a park right next to the nearest railroad crossing!  So, I took the boys to that park on our next park day!  I don't know why it had never occurred to me to take the boys to that park before that day, but it was such a great day that it was definitely worth the wait!

My OCD kid was a little unsure when I told him that we were going to a new park (I didn't tell him about the train- I wanted him to be surprised!), but when I told him that Grandma and Luke were meeting us there he felt a little better about it.

While we were waiting for Grandma and Luke to get there, I realized that it was the perfect opportunity to put Sam in the park swing for the first time!  He didn't really care one way or the other about it.  He just chilled.  Which was actually perfect because Jack was very insistent that I push him "the most high that it can go" and Sam didn't mind one bit if I spent more time pushing Jack than I did pushing him!

As much as Sam didn't mind the swing, he was definitely much happier on solid ground

At that time, Grandma got there with Luke!  Luke had fallen asleep on the way there, and so Jack got to have Grandma all to himself for a little bit!

And then, we heard a noise...
 

... and what did we see?


SURPRISE, JACK!!!

He was so excited to see the train!  It was so fun to see him watch the train... it definitely got his imagination going!  So much that it was hard to get him to start playing again rather than just stare in the direction where the train had disappeared!  But, eventually we convinced him to join Luke and Grandma in playing on the playground!

Funny story: Jack saw a puddle on the bottom of one of the slides.  He knew it was there, but he slid down that slide anyway and ended up sliding right through that puddle!  I laughed and said "Well, now you're wet!" and he did his fake yeah-this-is-probably-supposed-to-be-funny-but-can-we-be-done-with-it now? laugh and said "Mom, let's change my pants!"  I told him that he could play in his wet pants and when we were ready to get home I'd change him, just in case he got dirty again, and then I turned to take a picture of Luke.  Once again, Jack asked me to change his pants, and when I turned to answer him, I saw this:

DUDE!  You can't just drop your pants in the middle of the park!!!  I laughed sooo hard!  I managed to convince him to keep his pants on, and by the time we were ready to go home they were dry anyway!

Then, since Luke and Grandma missed swinging, we hit the swings again!

Then we paused to eat lunch and play on the blankets...

And then before we headed home we put the babies in the stroller and went to check out the train tracks!

And on the way home, Jack told me "Mom, that was the best park I ever saw!  Can we go there again!"  Yes, dude.  Yes we can :)

In Which Jack Shows Off His Tan

There was a heat wave (that lasted all of 3 days!) in August, and Jack and I were thrilled that we could pull the pools out again!  Jack was thrilled because he just loves water, and I was thrilled because this time it was warm enough to put Sam in the water, too!  And not just his feet, either!  Jack was so excited when I put Sam in his little baby pool!  He did a great job not splashing Sam's face, too!

After he played with Sam for a bit, Jack decided that it would be really fun to run around like a madman... he liked the idea even better when he saw how much fun Sam was having watching him run around like a madman!

Then, Jack decided to go play with his water hopscotch...

And Sam forgot about Jack and started playing and splashing in the water.

Jack loves to play with the hose because we have a really cool nozzle that makes 8 different spray patterns.  He knows the patterns and the names, and can even read the names on the nozzle so that he can find the right spray all by himself!  But, since Sam doesn't enjoy being sprayed in the face I wouldn't let Jack use the hose.  Don't worry, he found a good substitute! (Check out how tan he got this summer, too!  I swear I always cake him up with SPF50!!!)

After a bit, Sam got hungry so I dried him off and fed him, and then he played happily in his exersaucer.

Which made Jack happy, because then he got to splash like a crazy man in Sam's pool!

And he got to use the hose!

My apologies to the neighbor that happened to be walking in his backyard when Jack missed-aimed!  Thanks for being so understanding! (Although I bet it felt good on such a hot day! *Giggle*)