Alex scored a goal!

Alex scored a goal at the second game in May (a couple of weeks ago)!!  He was SO excited!! The coach has been working with the kids on "go to the goal" when your teammates have the ball so they can pass it to you... and he did just that!  He got passed the ball and gave it two big kicks to get it in the goal!  

He was SO excited!  LOVE that little face!  He threw his arms up in the air and had the biggest smile! 

He calls it the "winning goal" since it was right before the end of the game (they don't keep score yet for real).  He's been talking about it ever since ;) 

And here's a shot of this sweet boy wathching big brother play!  :)

After the game he asked if we could go somewhere special since he scored a goal... and how do you say no to that cute little man??  We took the boys to McDonalds for $1 sundaes and to play at the play place ;) 

This little guy LOVES ice cream... yeah, he finished that whole thing ;)

My little sister graduated!

Cassie graduated the first weekend in May!!  We were able to go to Pittsburgh, PA and then back to my parent's house at the lake for the weekend to help celebrate!  It turned out to be a packed weekend :)  We left after my final MOPS meeting of the year on Friday around lunch time and got there around dinner time!  We went out to eat with my family then headed back to the hotel for some swimming!  

 I wasn't sure how the kids would do since it was their first time in a pool in quite some time.  Alex warmed right up, which really surprised me!  Last year it took lots of coaxing and many times in the pool before he really warmed up and was comfortable.  He got right in with his swimmies on and was ALL over the pool having a blast!  I'm excited for him to start swimming lessons in a couple of weeks! 

Nathan loved the pool and had no fear last year... but this time he was TERRIFIED!  He refused to get in the water, then grandpa grabbed him and took him in and he HATED it!  He screamed the whole time and then sat with grandma and Aunt Michelle on the side of the pool.  He LOVED sitting there kicking his feet though ;)  There was no convincing him to get in any further than this! 

He just laughed and laughed though as he kicked his little legs as much as he could! 

The boys were THRILLED to be in the hotel!  They jumped on the bed, explored the room, and kept saying how they wanted to stay longer!  Nathan checked everything out and would say "this is really nice!" about the stuff there.  Alex was jealous that Gary and I took the big bed and he had to sleep on the pull out couch ;)  When packing up the next day Alex kept asking if we could "pleeaase stay just one more night!"   

Saturday Gary stayed back with the kids and went swimming and to the park while the rest of us headed to Cassie's graduation! 

Then we got to see Cassie's adorable new apartment! 

After lunch out, we headed to my parents house a couple of hours away and enjoyed a couple of days at the lake! 

Of course the boys enjoyed throwing rocks in the water and running around in the yard! 

We had a picnic outside and a campfire! 

The boys loved the marshmellows and chocolate, but weren't interested in actual smores ;)

The next day they got to go fishing!  They loved it!! 

Nathan kept tanglingthe line and wasn't super patient ;)

Alex actually caught a fish!

I enjoyed some fun quality time with my sisters :)

The boat isn't in the water for the season yet, but Gary and I took Alex out in the canoe!  He loved it!!

Great grandpa came over for lunch!  Alex was SO cute getting all excited to see him and giving hugs and kisses/talking his ear off!  He thinks of "great" grandpa and being GREAT!  haha, so cute ;)

The boys loved spending time with their two aunts! 

I'm so glad we were able to go celebrate Cassie's graduation!  We had such a wonderful weekend! :)

Celebrating our big 2 year old!

We went out for donts the day we celebrated Nathan's birthday as a family (we did it the day before since it was on a Monday and Gary would be working).  The kids loved this special breakfast!! 

We had Nathan open his gifts from us and stuff he'd gotten in the mail from family/friends that evening!  He was so excited! 

He was trying to tell us that he's 2 now!

He loved helping daddy put together his new work bench!  Nathan just loves tools, so this was the perfect present for him!!

We did brownies instead of cake since we'd just had cake the day before at his party.  He loved blowing out the candles so much that we let him do it 3 times :)

With my boys on Nathan's big day!!

This was Nathan's other "big" gift, the ikea easel!  They love it, and so do I!!

Choo Choo! Nathan's 2!

Can't believe we have a 2 year old!  Nathan turned 2 on Monday and we had his party a couple of days early on Saturday.  He's been looking forward to his "happy day" for quite some time.  Actually, he's been talking about his birthday since January when Alex had his... we'd been telling him that his was after mommy's in April.  So when we celebrated my birthday a couple of weeks ago, he kept bringing up his birthday!  I think he'd been thinking about it so long that he couldn't believe it was actually here!  He kept telling us it was "coming up" and would ask me almost daily if it was his birthday.  So cute :) 

We planned a little train party for him with a few of our friends.  The kids were SO excited!  Alex kept calling Nathan "the birthday boy" all day :)  They were excited to wear their train shirts! 

We did mac & cheese, pulled pork sandwiches, and some fruit/veggies/chips.  Here are some of the kiddos enjoying dinner! 

I made my first homemade chocolate cake and icing!  It turned out quite yummy if I do say so myself ;)  Nathan loved us all singing to him and knew right what to do with blowing out the candles! 

We did ice cream sundaes with the cake... that was Nathan's favorite part ;)  All of the other kids had finished dessert and moved on, and he was still here eating away enjoying his ice cream!  He even asked for seconds! 

The kids had so much fun with all of the balloons! 

And of course Nathan loved all of his gifts! 

What a fun birthday party for our big two year old!!

National Aquarium in Baltimore

On Monday the kids and I went with a friend and her boys to Baltimore to visit the National Aquarium!  It's about an hr and a half drive from where we are and was a perfect little day trip for the 6 of us :)  It's been on my to-do list for quite some time, and the kids loved it!  I would say it's not quite as great as the VA Beach Aquarium or Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg, but it ranks up there ;) 

Our boys are almost the same ages (just a few months apart between them) so they are all good buddies! 

The kids were just amazed by everything, so fun to watch them enjoy the day! 

Here are Michael and Alex waiting for the dolphin show to start!  That was probably my favorite part of the trip, so fun! About halfway through the show though, Alex asked me when they were going to do tricks, LOL... I guess it takes a lot to impress a 4 yr old when they've seen all kinds of crazy stuff on TV ;) 

Nathan would yell, "This is AWESOME!" as he ran from tank to tank, too cute! 

We had such a fun day!  Hoping to go back and do the Children's Museum there... it's ranked amongst the top few and was what we were originally going to do, until we found out it was closed on Mondays through the off-season ;)