Birthday Boy!!!

Today we celebrated Andrew's birthday...

he's THREE YEARS OLD!!!

It was a day full of presents, family, his favorite foods, and relatively few tantrums (he IS three afterall, that's about the best we can expect!)

Since Joe's parents live in VA we got on the webcam with them so that they could watch Andrew open the presents that they sent him. It was very fun!



The hardest part was that because of the time change, we had to do it just a little while before church started (that's when they'd be available) so we had to take Andrew away from his fun new toys right after he'd opened them. Cruel, I know. We only had time to get the tracks put together, and then we drug him away, literally!

These next pictures were taken later that night at my parent's house at his "party". My mom made pizza and I provided the cake and ice cream.

As he opened this space shuttle from my mom he said, "It's just what I always wanted!" He was so excited, it was very cute.Here's this year's masterpiece (A.K.A the birthday cake), a special request from the birthday boy, of course!

Of course, Joe had take him to the backyard and try out the new toys! Ela gave it a shot, too!

It was a very fun day and he seemed to enjoy all of the attention. He cried and cried at bedtime because he just didn't want to stop playing! Life is hard when you are three!

Here are a few fun facts about Andrew:

• his favorite color is red and he likes to point out red things everywhere we go (cars, signs, flowers, strangers clothes in the grocery store...you get the idea!)
• he LOVES Little Einsteins and would watch the same DVD over and over again all day if I let him!
• he is a whiz at puzzles
• he is very fiesty, he may be small but watch out if you get on his bad side!
• his favorite foods are hot dogs, grapes, turkey sandwiches and bacon
• he loves to help me do just about anything (cooking, cleaning, yardwork, you name it) as long as we can be doing it together
• he is our little athlete, very agile and quick on his feet...he loves to tackle Sam, but Sam doesn't always think that it is such a fun game!
• he is very affectionate and loves to snuggle with me still, lately he's been coming to snuggle with me each morning before I get up, and I can't say that I mind!

The Great Outdoors

We went camping last weekend with my family and had a blast! It was a campground that we hadn't been to before and it was great! I don't have much time to write about it, but here are a bunch of pictures!

Waiting out the rain...Joe took the kids to the tent to play Uno!

They did their best to canoe down the river...

...but there was a lot of this in the shallow parts...

...and then they'd be off again!

Joe wanted to play volleyball so bad, so we made it happen! (It wasn't as dark as these pictures make it look...)

The creation of "Andrew Rock". Joe started making this rock sculpture and since it was the same size as Andrew, they put a face on it and gave it a name!

Abby and Grandpa, she loves a good fistful of hair to yank on!

(Side note: that sweatshirt is one that all three kids have worn and we have almost identical pics of all three on Grandpa's shoulders wearing it. I have to do a double take everytime I see this picture to tell if it's Andrew or Abby!)

"Don't even think about touching my chips!"

Even though we woke up to rain both mornings, it was great trip! There's just something magical about taking the kids camping, I'm glad we got to do it and I was glad to come home!