Party time again

July is a busy birthday month for Christopher and his friends! I just realized that I didn't update the blog about Emily and Connor's birthdays last week. It was a super fun gymnastics party and Emily's mother, super creative woman that she is, made personalized Olympic shirts, water bottles and gold medals for the kids! Here is Chris after earning gold in the "run run jump jump" competition!

Today was Maddie's birthday too! Randa and I have a running joke that we've never been to each other's kids' birthday parties and we've known each other since the kids were a month old. This year it finally happened. Maddie's birthday present was this super cool backyard water slide. Chris had the best time. Check it out!

There were more celebrations last week and Mommy and Daddy went out for their 7th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe it's been 7 years since that amazingly fun wedding with, apparently, the best food ever that we only had a little bit of. Nevertheless, we did a little staycation 4 miles from our house and had a nice leisurely and late dinner and even got to have brunch the next morning at 9:30 (when I'm usually having my first snack of the day since breakfast is usually served around 6:30). Here we are decked out to go out...

Christopher got a lot of fun gifts for his birthday but one of his favorites is this water squirter from Luca. He likes to pretend it is a "bug zapper" and he gets rid of all our pests in the yard!

Finally, here is a pic of my boys. We went out to our favorite local establishment, BRGR, because it was Friday night, also known as "the night Mommy doesn't cook!"

Look out for another entry soon as we make a return trip tomorrow night to Great Wolf Lodge!

Dance party

Okay, so Christopher's favorite movie right now is Happy Feet 2. We have been listening to the soundtrack for the past 2 weeks nonstop! So now Chris likes to put on "shows" where he sings the music from the movie. Tonight he recruited Mommy to join him and Kasey worked her way in as well. Enjoy!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1c-0ZhYQeo

Bros

I was watching a certain reality show on TV the other night (no it wasn't Jersey Shore) on which one of the guys kept using the term "bro" to address another guy. Apparently this is a commonly used term, especially amongst the twenty-something male set, and I was discussing with Brian how obnoxious it sounds coming out of certain people's mouths. However, I believe in the case of these two sweet and adorable little boys, who are just like brothers, the term "bros" should be appropriate. Luca came over to play today after open gym and here is a picture of the boys actually sitting down and one of them looking at the camera. You didn't expect them both to be looking, did you???

Woah is me...

Oh, woah is me. It is so hot and nobody will take me for a walk. Instead I have to sit here on this big red couch and try to get you all to feel sorry for me by giving the most pitiful looks you've ever seen. Ho hum...

(I swear I did not set this up. I came out of Christopher's room and she was sitting like this on her own).

Kaleidoscope

We took Grammy to Kaleidoscope today. Kaleidoscope is a children's activity center that is affiliated with Hallmark. It is free and kids can go into it and make all kinds of art projects. For example, they can color this piece of cardboard and then a machine cuts it into puzzle pieces so kids can make their own puzzles! There is also a black light room where they can "paint" with LED lights and color with glowing markers. Christopher made all kinds of things and in true Chris-is-a-four-year-old-boy form, spent all of 30 seconds on each coloring project. Here are some pictures from our morning...

The second picture above is a little blurry but it was this really cool table that had pins underneath so when you put your hand under it, the shape of your hand would appear on the top of the table. Now this was an activity Chris wanted to spend time at and do over and over! There was also a place where the kids could dance and watch themselves on the screen. Here is Christopher busting out his moves...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r6I7h9Wk2U

While we were at Crown Center, we decided to go to the gift shop at Legoland because Chris got a gift card for his birthday. After picking out something, we get to the cash register and the guy said we couldn't use the gift card there because the gift shop is different from an actual retail store. Amazingly, Christopher handled the situation very well and we ended up going to the mall where there is a Lego store. Chris picked out a garbage truck and was very happy! He also got to ride the carousel with Grammy...

Party Time (part 2)!

And now it is off to party number 2, Emily and Connor LaBarge's bash!!!

Party time! Excellent!

Today we had Christopher's birthday party at Leaping Lizards! As we drove home from the party, Chris declared, "I liked my birthday party!" I guess that pretty much summarizes the morning. The theme was, of course, dogs and so we had doggie cake, doggie decorations, doggie balloons, even doggie cookies. Here was Christopher's cake...

As you can see, the cake was surrounded by cupcakes and those little white things on the cupcakes are doggie bones. Thank you Hen House!!! Chris had a lot of fun playing on the bouncy houses at Leaping Lizards, as did all of his friends. Here are some pictures from our morning...

And of course we have met our photo capacity for this post. Check the next post for pics of Chris enjoying his day with all his friends!!!

The Scooter!

Here is Chris figuring out his new scooter!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY66nvPU6aQ

Birthday week

This has been a very fun week for Christopher, what with his 4th birthday and super fun camp. Here are some leftover pictures from our birthday dinner on Wednesday. First, Grammy came over to watch "Happy Feet 2" with the birthday boy. Kasey was also very happy!

After dinner, we had cupcakes! Chris helped me pick out these cute cakes from the store and we celebrated in style with a candle and everything!

Chris had his last day of camp today. I seriously have never heard him talk about something so much as he talked about this camp experience! I told his teacher that he really enjoyed himself this week and if the rest of our summer wasn't so busy, I would send him to another week. Anyway, here is a picture of one of his projects. They traced their bodies and chose what kind of Olympic athlete they wanted to be. Chris chose a soccer player. It was so funny too because when I saw this I said, "Oh you drew your body!" To which Christopher replied, "No Mommy it's not a body, it's an athlete." I stand corrected. 

Christopher has also been perfecting his Hamptons look for our upcoming trip to Shelter Island. What do you think?

Finally, we received our deck furniture today!!! Too bad it's a bagillion degrees outside. I'm just going to admire it through the sliding doors here in the A/C. It looks nice though!

Tomorrow is a highly exciting day, with hockey, Christopher's birthday party, Emily and Connor's birthday party, and date weekend with Grammy while Mommy and Daddy celebrate their 7th anniversary with a stay cation on the Plaza, a full 4 miles from our house! When I explained to Chris that Grammy would be staying with him and Kasey, he said, "Oh yeah because you and Daddy are going to get married!" Close enough!

More birthday fun

We have been opening birthday presents in spurts today. After we got back from lunch, we opened the "Shelter Island Ferry" from Grandma Jan and Grandpa Eric and Chris has been having fun with it ever since! As you can see, Erik the penguin has been going for a ride on the ferry along with many other toys of Christopher's!

Happy 4th Birthday!!!

Four years ago today, the happiest little boy on the block was born! Oh and Brian's feet were really hurting from all the standing he had to do at the hospital. (This is a running joke between us because Brian wore his docksiders hour after hour while Chris took his sweet time coming into the world. I, on the other hand...). We have been celebrating Christopher's 4th birthday today in style. It started out with an early gift opening session before breakfast. Over the weekend, we watched "Happy Feet 2" and Chris absolutely loved it. In fact, we'll be watching it again this afternoon with Grammy! Part of our gift to buds was the little penguin from the movie, who happens to be named "Erik" (spelled incorrectly of course, right Grandpa?). Chris has been impersonating Erik all week and today he got to take his new little friend all over with him! Here was part of the gift opening...

He also received a few other penguin figures from the movie and our big gift to him will be a night at Great Wolf Lodge, which we will be doing in a couple weeks. Chris had camp at Pembroke today and I was actually glad because normally, he won't be in school on his birthday. They sang to him (twice!) and his teacher helped him make the crown you see in the first picture. (I can't tell you enough how awesome this week of camp has been for Chris! I am really impressed, in particular with his teacher.). At the end of the morning, Daddy came with me to pick up Chris and see his classroom. Then we headed to SPIN Pizza, Christopher's restaurant of choice! Here are my boys before their meal...

Whenever we celebrate Christopher's birthday, I like to go back through our old pictures and remember what he looked like as a little baby. Here are a few of my favorites from the early days...

There are thousands to choose from but these just remind me of how little he was. Well, I guess he was never really "little" but relative to now he sure was! Happy birthday to our sweet boy! Look out boy, you just crossed the line into Mommy's area of expertise--age 4!!!

Airport

Chris was inspired by his camp today to make a runway in his playroom. Here is a video of one of his flights taking off!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3I567F7hsc

Summer days

So after a month long hiatus, Christopher returned to hockey this Saturday! He was so happy to be back on the ice and after thinking he didn't remember what to do, it all came back very quickly and Chris was skating like his old self. He was so excited that we went back today for public session! After the session, he took a ride on a motorcycle...

In addition to hockey starting up, Chris has been attending a couple day camps at two schools near us. Last week, he went with his friend Nico to the Barstow School's mini camp. The theme of the week was "To Infinity and Beyond" which of course meant they were talking about "Toy Story." Chris has never seen the movie but by the end of the week, he pretty much knew all the characters and the plot. Today he started "Preschool Pals" at Pembroke Hill School and he loved it. Literally could not stop telling me about all the things he did! I walked him in this morning and met his teacher who was wonderful. She was one of the regular preschool teachers and she had so many great activities for them to do. They started to make race cars and even a runway in the block area which, as you could imagine, was very exciting for Christopher! When I got there to pick him up, he was listening to a story and my normally shy little boy was totally answering the teacher's questions and everything. Another great thing is that there are only 6 or 7 other kids in his class--all boys (not sure how that it for the teacher!). Miss Jenny told me that Chris was a great helper and the best cleaner upper today. This mommy is very proud!

Hello? Hello?

Dear Telemarketer Who Just Called Our House,

I would normally apologize to you for having to deal with our almost four year-old answering the phone and talking to you, but I don't think I can because honestly, it was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Apparently we did not pick up quickly enough and that was in fact Christopher talking to you and asking who was calling and laughing. And yes, that was Brian and I laughing hysterically in the background while our son took your call. I hope you at least have a sense of humor and can smile at the adorable laugh you were dealing with tonight. I'm sure it's better than a lot of the responses you get on a normal basis. Please call back again! We will have our answering service take your call anytime.

Sincerely,
The Parents

Random

So here are a few random pictures of Chris as well as some household stuff that I finally got onto the computer...

First is Chris dressing up as a superhero! We were not able to attend his friend Aidan's birthday party, but Aidan's mom gave us the goodie bag from it which included a mask and a cape, complete with a "C" on it.

One night last week, Mommy got to go out with her girls Debbie and Lindsey for a mommy playdate. I even straightened my hair for the occasion! Lord knows I didn't do it myself...

We also finally got a table and chair set for our kitchen and yesterday we were extremely excited to have our TV and speaker system set up! The coolest thing about the speaker/radio is that I can put on my iPod from anywhere and it will play my music in whichever room we choose. No wires or anything! Even better, the TV guy showed us this app that allows you to receive radio stations from anywhere. So when we were making breakfast this morning, we were listening to NY sports radio on the Fan... obviously!

Not sure if you can see it but the picture hanging by the bookshelves is our family portrait we had done a while back. We are finally hanging up pictures in our house! This morning, Brian was going through some things in our sparse and still not unpacked office and he found this jacket that belonged to my Pop Pop (Grandpa T's father). Chris was very happy to try it on although it will be a few years before it fits properly!