On Fridays, Dave leaves for work earlier than normal. So Maggie and Luke get to go with us to the bus stop. Luke insisted on wearing his “back back” too. He was very upset when he wasn’t allowed to get on the bus.

This is just a cute picture of Maggie. No story here.

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, so I took the sickies outside to get some fresh air for a while. Maggie and Luke are both fighting colds – some junky plague that Adam brought home from school.

We left a note for Adam to see when he got home.

If Luke has a choice, he will always wear one blue shoe and one black one. I’m not sure why, but I don’t stop him.

Maggie stops to give the pretty little baby in the mirror a kiss each time she walks by it.

She think’s it’s hilarious.

I think it’s adorable.

And that the mirror will probably never stay clean.

Ready to start another week!

After visiting with Thomas on Saturday, we got lunch and went home for a couple of hours of rest time. Then we packed up the kids and the van again and headed out to a food festival and rubber duck regatta.

That crane is getting ready to dump 20,000 rubber duckies in to the river.

We had 6 ducks in the race, sadly none of them were winners. Adam says that next year we need to get at least 20 ducks.

Maggie fell asleep on the way there, slept through the entire thing, and didn’t wake up again until we were home.

Adam insisted I get this picture of Batman, but didn’t want to get any closer to him. Robin was there too (he’s actually standing behind Batman there).

Luke passed out shortly after the race too.

So, since Adam was the only kid awake, we let him have ice cream for dinner. Later, he asked for a hot dog for dessert. Silly kid.

We spent yesterday morning with Thomas the Train.

Luke was so excited to see a real, big Thomas and getting to ride in a “freight car” (as Luke called it) pulled by Thomas, was the highlight of his day.

I had picked up two engineer hats, Thomas wristbands, and some balloons at the party supply store a couple of days ago (much cheaper than buying them at the event). I surprised the kids with them at different times during the day. Luke wore his hat the entire time. Adam wasn’t as crazy about it (he had a hard time seeing past the brim).

They had a bunch of different things set up to do after the train ride. All three of our kids loved the bubble machine (Maggie especially).

She liked to stand right in front of it and laugh as the bubbles attacked her.

Adam and Luke really enjoyed the hay bale maze.

These next three pictures are some of my favorites from the day.

We watched the group after us leave for their ride and were surprised to see that Thomas talked as he was leaving (his mouth and eyes moved too).

They also had a bounce house, train tables set up to play at, a tent where they play Thomas movies and read stories, live children’s music (the same guy we saw at the mall a few weeks ago actually), and performers on stilts (sorry Stacy) that juggled and made balloon animals.

We had a great time. All three kids enjoyed it and were really, really well behaved. It was a fantastic start to a fabulous family fun day.

Maggie and Luke had story time today at the library. We went last week for the first time and I wasn’t sure how Luke would like it.

He loved it.

They do a really good job of gearing it toward active little kids – lots of moving around and making noise. Maggie really liked all of the clapping. Afterward we explored some of the other fun parts of the library.

Luke really liked the Lego wall and coloring. He drew me a butterfly, which showed me that he paid at least a little bit of attention to the books that were read, since one of them involved a caterpillar changing into a butterfly.

Maggie liked running away from me whenever she could and grabbing books off of the shelves. She and Luke are a force, I tell you what.

Maggie and Luke each picked two books and I picked out a few for Adam too. I found books about soccer, learning to ride a bike, and a couple about going to kindergarten (and missing your mom while you’re there). All things that are very relevant to Adam’s world right now.

I’m really happy with the library here. It’s very close to our house and they have a lot of fun events for the kids. I am especially happy that the story time we go to is so wild-child friendly.

Luke got a new (to him) big boy bike tonight. It didn’t take him long to figure out how the pedals work and he’s actually pretty good on it. He’s pretty proud of himself. I’m pretty proud of him too.

And, since Adam passed on his bike and helmet to his brother, we needed new ones for him (both in Ninja Turtle green).

This is Adam’s first time without training wheels. He is very nervous about it all. He has a tendency to hit the brakes when he thinks things are going too fast (literally and figuratively).

Dave worked with him for a little while tonight. He didn’t let go, yet, but he’ll get there.

These two, oh, they make me so happy.

Maggie is crazy about Adam. When I tell her it’s time to go get him, she runs and grabs her shoes right away. She watches for the bus and when she sees it come around the corner she claps and yells.

And Adam is so patient with her. He can get her laughing like no one else (though Luke is getting pretty good at making her giggle lately too).

We really lucked out with these amazing kids of ours.

Saturday was a busy day for us. We started our morning with a trip to Home Depot to build some birdhouses. We’ve decided to start letting Luke make his own projects. He really likes using the hammer.

Then we went to the Popcorn Festival.

The kids got their faces painted (Maggie – a sun, Luke – a dinosaur, and Adam – Captain America’s shield).

Luke, in particular, really enjoyed the festival. The activities, the booths, the games, the food – Luke loved it all. 

Maggie was popcorn’d out by the end of it.

It was a lot of fun though and we’ll definitely be putting it on our calendar for next year.

Adam had soccer tonight for the first time. He put on his shirt from t-ball and told me it was going to be his soccer shirt too. I thought he would be excited when I told him that he would be getting a new shirt tonight. I was wrong. He told me that he was hoping his t-ball shirt would be his “professional sports shirt” and that he would wear it for all the sports he played.

Luke was very disappointed that he didn’t get to play soccer too. Dave said there was another boy there named Luke and the coach kept using him as an example. So every time the coach would point to that Luke and say something like “Now, if Luke has the ball…” – our Luke would get all excited and say, “Luke’s turn?!”

They actually had two different groups, one for 3 and 4 year old kids and the other for ages 5 and 6. If Adam and Luke had been in the same group, we would have signed them both up. But since they’d be going at different times we didn’t think Luke was quite ready to go alone (next year Luke Luke). He did have fun cheering Adam on though. We’re going to get a ball this week though, so Dave and Luke can play soccer while Adam is practicing.

There were a total of sixteen kids and they were split in to four groups. Adam’s favorite part was trying to steal the ball from the other “team”.

He told me that, “If the person is wearing a different colored shirt than you, you don’t have to say please or be polite. You can just try to take the ball from them.”

I think he had a good time, even without his “professional sports shirt”.