Bob's birthday

Happy birthday to Bob! We celebrated by going to our newest favorite place in the whole wide world -- Th Porter, a beer bar that just opened and is stumbling distance from our house! Who could ask for a more perfect birthday present.

Here is a birthday card that Bob received that captures the moment perfectly:

Artwork

Some artwork that Colin brought home from school. He said it is a picture of our house and our two neighbors houses. Ours is in the middle.

Homework

Colin has become fascinated with homework. One night when I was trying to get them to go to bed and Colin came downstairs and said his teacher wanted him to do some work to take to school in the morning. I was sceptical because I was one of those kids that stayed up too late and sometimes ... gasp! ... skipped school to finish homework that I put off to the last minute. I did not want him to become one of those kids. But he is only four and I so I let him work for 5 minutes on practicing his cursive writing. The next morning he took his work to school for his teacher to see. Funny thing is, we had a meeting at the school the next night and the teacher thought the work that Colin gave her was a note that he wrote to her, and not a homework assignment.

I think I've figured out Colin's fascination with homework. His nanny, Danni has started back at school and talks about her homework. So I think he is just trying to be like Danni.

The funniest part about all this is that Montessori schools do not even advocate homework at all! Even in the higher grades.

Pizza night

Another sleep-over, this time Nicolas came over to our house. For dinner, Bob had a great idea to have the boys make their own pizzas. So here are the pictures from that adventure!

Adding some cheese:

Nathan putting tomato sauce on:

Bob helps with the parms:

Nathan decides to put sauce on his apples:

Nicolas goes for peperoni on his pizza:

Nathan adds more sauce:

Nicolas's pizza is ready to bake:

Colin adding the final touches before baking his pizza:

Bubbles

Some pictures the babysitter took with her cell phone while giving Colin and Nathan a bath!

North Georgia mountains

We were fortunate enough to get invited to spend Labor Day weekend in the North Georgia mountains at Bob's aunt and uncle's mountain retreat. John, Sue and their daughter Emma were the most gracious hosts, the boys had a blast, and we had some good R&R!


We arrived Saturday afternoon and got the grand tour of their house and their tree house. They had a hammock for leisurely naps and swing set too. Bob tried out the hammock while John and Emma got into a swinging competition. At dinner time, we ate out on the back deck and saw hummingbirds coming up to the feeders.

John and Emma's swinging competition:


Sunday we went out and about, seeing the beautiful waterfalls in the area and then I got to go to a craft fair with Sue and Emma. Sue and I both purchased pendants from the same booth, Goldenrod Designs. Mine is a large pyrotized ammonite from Russia. That evening we went to a Mexican place, then Sue played hide-n-seek with the boys. Of course Colin would get bored of hiding before Sue had a chance to find him and would always come out of hiding early.

The next morning, John played "big bear" with the boys. In this game, each boy took turns holding up a big bear head and pretending to be a big bear and scare everyone. It was great fun for everyone!

Then it was time to go home. For most of the ride, we had an extra passenger on the windshield. A Katydid, which I called a leaf bug was stuck to the windshield and held on even when we were driving 70 mph! Then we stopped for lunch and it crawled to the roof of the car. When we got back into the car, we watched the Katydid through the sunroof until it disappeared.

Second child syndrome

Last week, Nathan fell on his face and it looked like his front teeth got hit pretty bad. So off to the dentist to check it out. Nathan's first trip to the dentist, and he didn't cooperate very much. I had to hold him upside down to show the dentist his teeth and gums. Turns out everything is okay, but as I was telling my mom the story, it occurred to me that this is not the first incident for poor Nathan. I guess being the second means getting banged up more. Some of the incidents involved big brother like this one where Colin was dragging a blanket around and Nathan was riding on it. First Nathan was riding laying down or sitting, but apparently he stood up and that's when the accident happened.

So this is a list of the times that I remember where Nathan got injured, and there may be more that I forgot.

Anyway, there was the time that Colin threw a car at Nathan and cut his head. That was a lot of blood and freaked me out pretty bad. Nathan was less than a year at that point.

Then Nathan's chair tipped forward when he was scooting up to the little table, and he banged his head. He still has a scar next to his eye where it happened. Colin was at school during that one!

Then at the zoo, Nathan fell off a small ledge, head first onto the ground (like about 18 inches to the ground). Huge knot on his head that time. No blood. Below is a picture about an hour after the incident. The knot is above his eye on his forehead.

Then he and Colin were playing in the bathroom, I have no idea what happened, but next thing I know, Nathan's tongue is bleeding and bleeding and bleeding. When we were finally able to see the damage, it looked like a butterfly cut on his tongue, yuck! That took a while to heal, but surprisingly faster than you would think.

So I would conclude that Nathan definitely has the second child syndrome ... and I much prefer to call it that than "accident prone"!

Anatomy lesson

Colin has been very interested in how we get energy from food and asks lots of questions about this. So one day a week or so ago, Colin and Danni were discussing the human anatomy and how things work, like your stomach and your heart. Colin was just in thralled by it all and looked at Danni and said, "It's like I have a whole world inside of me."

Colin's first sleep-over

A couple of weeks ago, Colin had a sleep-over with Edward, a little boy from his class. It was a lot of fun for everyone! Colin has learned the joy of "knock-knock" jokes and passed on this knowledge to Edward. So all night long, we heard "knock-knock" jokes, four-year style. Let me give an example, (this is the first "knock-knock" joke that Colin created):

Knock-knock?

Who's there?

Mr. Orange.

Mr. Orange who?

Mr. Orange Ding-Dong!

And then they would laugh and laugh. I guess you have to be a four-year old to really get it, because I told the joke at bootcamp and everyone just looked at me!

And of course, Colin and Edward were up really late. I really didn't mind because they were just laying there, talking calmly, no horsing around or anything. There was a little issue with Dat Dog, Colin's lovely. Dat Dog makes music which bothered Edward, so I turned the music off. But Edward was convinced that Colin would turn Dat Dog back on. We resolved everything by putting a white noise generator in the room.

But Bob really was the one to get them to sleep when he went in and suggested that they count to 100. "But I can only count to 29," says one of them. "What's after 29?", "30!" There you go! It was very entertaining listening to them in the monitor, "89, 40, 41 .... 49, 60, 61, ..." It was like a perpetual counting system. And eventually it got really quiet.

This coming Friday, Colin is invited to Edward's house for a sleep-over there. I hope they have as good of a time there as they did here.

Nathan, Colin and Edward in the art room before bed.


Working hard.

No locking doors

A while back, we had a big problem with the boys locking doors. After a big blow-up when they locked the door to the extra bedroom in the attic (only door we don't have a key conveniently located above the door), I had a little talk with Colin and really tried to picture things from his perspective.

Turns out, he just wanted a way of insuring privacy. So I promised that I would knock and ask before going into his room, and he promised not to lock the doors. We even made signs to remind us. He admitted that sometimes he forgets rules and thought the sign would help remind him.

Harrison's new school

When I picked up Colin from his first day of school, I had to break some pretty bad news to him. Colin's best friend, Harrison was going to a different school and would not be in Colin's class anymore. Colin was devastated. Luckily we had a playdate planned that afternoon at the park, so Colin could see Harrison. Colin has requested that there be more playdates with Harrison than we've had in the past.

Aiden, Harrison and Colin at the playground. They had nicknames that day, Aiden was "Number Two", Harrison was "Number Three", and Colin was "Number One".