Happy 4th Birthday Jack!

I can't believe it but Jack is 4! We celebrated on Labor Day (a day early) since everyone was already at Grandma and Grandpa's. Here some pictures from the day.

Jack insisted on having a pinata for some reason. Here he is taking a swing with a bat.

After several rounds with the plastic bat Robby and Dave decided a golf club would be more effective.

Breaking it open!

The kids (and Jake) grabbing the candy.

Emmett wasn't quite old enough to participate in the pinata this year so he had to watch with Grandpa.

Everyone hanging out at the party.

Jack opening presents. He's holding his Monkey Webkinz Jr., which he named George. Although poor George seems to have different name on a daily basis. Jack also got a scooter, some Trios, an airplane, a recorder (yup, the instrument, he's been wanting one forever for some reason) and a shirt.

Jack and Owen being silly with Grandma.

Blowing out the candles on the race cars.

This is Meeshka. Jake and Shelby added her to their family the weekend of Jack's birthday. Needless to say the kids LOVE her, sometime a little too much.

Messy Emmett

Emmett is a messy baby! He needs a bath and new clothes almost every time he eats. His favorite food lately is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and he makes a mess.


He gets extra messy because between bites he sucks on his left thumb and twirls his hair with his right hand.

First Day of School 2011

This year Jack is going to preschool 3 days a week and Owen started 1st grade. It's crazy! I can't believe I have a kid that goes to school all day. (And three mornings a week it is just Emmett and I. Awesome!) They both love going to school. Although Owen comes home exhausted every day. And when I ask him what he did at school all I get is a report of what he did at recess. Jack at least tells me what letter he learned about.

Owen's first day of 1st grade.

Jack's first day of 4-year old preschool.

Owen's first day, Jack's second day.

Sprint Triathlon

After Robby and his brother did a triathlon a couple of months ago, my sister-in-law Maddie decided we needed to do one too. Since we weren't ready to commit to anything serious, we decided to do a sprint triathlon. Our other sister-in-law Shelby got on board too. (We are married to the 3 Walker brothers.) It was 400 yard swim (about 1/4 mile), 8 mile bike, and 2 mile run. I trained for all of 2 weeks!

I didn't do in any sort of record time but I did finish in 1 hour, 3 minutes. (Maddie beat me by about 2 minutes and I beat Shelby by about 2 minutes.) It was one of those things where I asked myself the whole run, "Why the heck did I do this?!" But after it was over it was awesome and I'd love to keep training and maybe try something a little bigger.

Of course, the husbands raced as well just to show us they could kick our butts. Big surprise! Once again, Robby beat Sawyer. Don't worry Sawyer, Robby is starting get old, you'll beat him soon.

Here are some lovely pictures from the event.

Maddie, Shelby and I getting ready to start. Maddie and Shelby are in the black tops. I'm next to them but you can't really see me.

Maddie coming out of the water.

Maddie starting her run.

Sawyer coming out of the water.

Me starting the run.

Robby finishing up the run with the boys encouragement.

Haha! Shelby's arm. For some reason she missed being photographed. But I'm pretty sure Robby's mom has more picture so I'll have to add some.

Ocean Isle Beack 2011

We recently got back from our annual trip to my parent's beach house on Ocean Isle Beach, NC and as usual it was amazing. This year it was just our family and my parents so it was unusually quiet and relaxing. Not complaining, just saying. We stayed for two weeks and had so much fun enjoying the beach and having nothing to worry about.

Here some pictures from the trip. Seriously, there are tons, but I tried to just pick my favorites.

Owen, 6 years old

Jack, 3 years old (almost 4)

Emmet, 8 months old

Cute boys

The whole family on the deck.

Owen really started swimming this trip. By the end of the trip, he was swimming underwater, diving, jumping and flipping in to the water.

Jack LOVED swimming in the pool.

The closest your getting to a picture of me in my suit at the beach!

Emmett's "scrunchy face"

Swimming in the pool. Emmett loved the water as well.

Owen catching waves in the ocean.

Last year Jack was a little unsure of the ocean, but this year he loved it and we really had to keep an eye on him or he would just keep going further and further out.

Emmett looks pretty clean here. He actually spent most of the time eating handfuls of sand and had to be hosed off repeatedly.

Thanks Mom and Dad for another great year at the beach. And next year we are going to make sure you guys get in some of the pictures!

Circus

Last night we took the boys to the circus! It was a fun, small circus that set up a tent on the local fairgrounds. It was a lot of fun since we sat really close - on the front row that was maybe 20 feet from the center of the ring. The boys loved the entire thing. They even got us to let them ride an elephant. Jack screamed when Robby put him on the elephant but was fine once it got going. Six bucks a kid was probably a little pricey but hey, when are you ever gonna get to ride an elephant again?! (Plus we had some coupons that came in our ticket package.) They could've chosen to ride on a camel too but we decided one large animal ride was probably enough for the night.

Mayce, Payton and Fallyn (and two other kids) on the elephant.

Owen and Jack (and some girl) on the elephant.

Fallyn, Payton, Dave, Erin and Mayce (They left Drake at home with a sitter.)

Robby was of course taking the picture, but I swear he went with us.

The kids (minus Payton) watching the circus. (Emmett slept through about half of it.)

This was the expression Jack had on his face the entire time.

Here's what Owen looked like the entire time.

This was Owen's favorite part - when the contortionist folded himself in a box.

Jack liked watching the elephants. Although his favorite part was when the clown's pants fell down. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), we didn't get a picture of that.

The jugglers using glow-in-the dark rings and pins.

We're so glad we went. It was one of those last minute things that we just happened to see an ad for. The kids had a blast and it was a relatively inexpensive outing compared to taking them to the Barnum and Bailey Circus. And I think we enjoyed it more since we got to sit so close. (Much better than paying $35/ticket to sit in the nosebleeds of the arena and not be able to see anything.)

No Training Wheels!

Last Saturday, I had Robby take one of Jack's training wheels off since it wasn't staying on very well. He started to fix it then decided to just see if Jack could ride without the training wheels. After a little convincing, Jack hopped on and without any help just started riding. By that afternoon, he rode all the way to the park. His Skuut definitely helped since he already had the balance part down.



Way to go Jack! He's so excited to go on bike rides and feel like a big kid.