Blake's 4th b-day, Summertime and Craig's Visit...continued

Hang on...it is a long one!! So after a great time at the DQ, we arrived home late on the 10th to find this in the garage!

Blake's 4th birthday was on the 11th and we wanted him to be able to play with his new toy on the day! We had a small family gathering planned at Chuck E Cheese (his choice, of course!), so we wouldn't get home until late that night for him to open presents.

Can you tell they were quite excited for the new toy!! They had been wanting a Gator like their friend Drake, in England, but we decided that now that daddy has a new truck that they should have one too! Our neighborhood has very little traffic since it is a new subdivision, so the kids rule the street. Blake thinks he is "kind of the world" in this thing.

When Blake woke up on his birthday, Max and Mommy had the birthday donut all ready to go. Just check out how many candles are on it?! Two funny stories about this. 1) I was only going to put one on it and Max said, "Mom, why does he just have 1 candle, he needs 3." Ok, so mom puts 3 candles on....we didn't even realize we had done it until we went to bed. 2) I did the same thing for Max's 5th birthday, only he reminded me before he blew them out that he needed 5 and not 4. I am losing my mind more and more every day! The wonderful world of Chuck E Cheese! For those of you from England, it is a place to take the kids to eat horrible pizza and play loads of games for tickets. These tickets are then used to purchase the most useless toys that break in a minute! The kids love it though! Blake was so proud of his Harley cake! Max was a little scared to eat it at first...his last experience at this place was for Clyde's 4th birthday. We got him a bright green dinosaur cupcake cake with way too much frosting! Max ate way over his limit and proceeded to get sick all over Grandma's cream carpet that night (with Kara sharing the room with him!). We took off quite a bit of the frosting this time. So, Max thoroughly enjoyed it and his tummy didn't mind either. Thank goodness that David was at the party to help Blake earn so many of these wonderful tickets! I can't even remember what he bought....I do know he got at least one Laffy Taffy!

Every Friday, our local library puts on a program for the kids at lunchtime. The first one, we just couldn't miss! The fire department was coming along with a family that races go-carts and cars. Blake was just so excited!

Here is the fireman getting all suited up and explaining to the kids about fire safety. We quickly ran over to the race car after the presentation to make sure the boys could see it and Blake could sit in it.

He is living his dream at the moment!

Later that day, Max got up the courage to do this.... he was concentrating so hard! He ended up with a huge scrape on his leg, but was really tough about it and just kept trying. Now he is riding all over the place.

Thanks for teaching him, Uncle Craig!!

The boys continued to do their swim lessons on Mon-Thurs mornings, but now we added t-ball and soccer to the schedule on Tues and Thurs before swimming. Blake starts at 9:00a and Max at 9:45a. Then, we just walk across the field to the swimming pool. Both boys ended up on the Yellow Giraffes. They do t-ball on Tues and soccer on Thurs. Blake switches off as to which is his favorite, but Max loves the soccer!

Blake at t-ball. Grandpa had to inform the coach that he is a "lefty"...for batting anyway. We still haven't quite figured him out!

Does Max look at all interested in what this girl has to say??!! Don't bother me....we are playing baseball!

Blake just scored a goal!

Max scoring a goal!

Thurs evening, we all went to the Peoria Chiefs baseball game. It showed 96F on the scoreboard when the game started. Luckily we were in the shade most of the time.

We were sitting right behind the pitchers from the other team. This guy was nice enough to give Blake a ball which was signed by all of them. Blake was thrilled!

Another Friday afternoon at the library. This time was a visit with Ronald McDonald.

Blake got a Slip n Slide for his birthday and the three boys just had a blast! Blake was a little nervous at first, but after Craig threw him down it a couple times, he got the hang of it and stayed out there all day!

One last trip to the DQ with Grandma and Grandpa

Thanks for coming to visit, Craig and Clyde. See you in CO in August!