Three Years Old!

On July 24th Madison and Jonathon turned THREE!!!  We can’t believe how quickly this milestone crept up on us.  We celebrated their birthday that next weekend with Joe’s parents and aunt and uncle. 

Both kids LOVE Caillou so Myra decided to make them a Caillou cake.  Little did she anticipate how out of practice she was with cake decorating so this took until 2:30 in the morning and she still wasn’t happy with the writing!

Our big gift to the kids was a bounce house.  We decided to put balloons in the bounce house to add to it’s ‘fun’. 

Madison and Jonathon quickly discovered that if the hit the balloons up the wind would take them over our fence into the alley. They found out that this resulted in a very fun game of ‘Papa fetch’.  This picture is from the alley (where Papa (Joe’s dad) was waiting to retrieve balloons).  Joe, his mom and his uncle are playing defense to keep the balloons  in the bounce house.

Madison first checking out what this ‘thing’ was in the back yard and Jonathon laying on the comfy bounce house floor.

       

 

Below is a family picture after singing Happy Birthday and revealing the Caillou cake.  Madison was thrilled at the cake right away, Jonathon was not so sure about it.  Once he had a slice of cake though he proudly announced “I EAT CAILLOU!”.

A horse is HOW big? No really…how big?

One morning we decided to go to Joe’s aunt and uncle’s farm where they board horses (and have many of their own).  First things first though – Joe’s mom decided that Mimosas were in order for breakfast.  Only Myra and her partook though – mmmmmmmm.

Our first horse was one of the mini horses (just perfect Madison and Jonathon size).  This was actually a baby – but the mother is in the background (not much bigger).  Madison wasted no time trying to make friends (she is very good about going slow and being gentle with animals).

Jonathon was  a bit more unsure so Joe coaxed over the baby by being a human salt lick (yummm). 

         

Next we went down to the main barns and Joe’s aunt Sandy introduced us to ALL the horses (we seriously lost tracked).  There were more mini horses, and lots of full sized as well. It was really neat to see the kids finally see a horse in person (they are always pretending to be horses or riding their stick horses).  Jonathon really was here too, but he was a bit busier trying to talk to the dog (aka puppy) that was running around the barn.

Tractors for Jonathon; Swimming for Madison

Jonathon just LOVES tractors.  The word ‘tractor’ immediately invokes a smile and laughter.  Good thing Joe’s dad has a couple tractors so we could make a family ‘ride’ out of it.  We followed Papa out to the field to watch him load hay.  Jonathon helped Daddy steer, but Madison wasn’t so sure this tractor thing was so great and sat on Mama’s lap.  Myra was a bit unsure about sitting on a tractor fender while holding an almost 3 year old (call her an old fashion car-with-seatbelts type of gal) – but everyone was just fine!

 

Madison MUCH preferred the pool, every day she wakes up (even at home) and says “swimming, okay?”; “beach, okay?”.  She has the cutest ‘okay’ with a head nod too, as if as soon as she says ‘okay’ at the end of sentence it has been written in stone as what will come to be.  She says ‘okay’ a lot….determined little girl!  Here are some pics of the favorite activities (swimming with Daddy, kicking the ball back and worth, and of course jumping!):

         

One day Joe just took Jonathon out on the tractor since he loved it so much.   Madison was once again content to just go ‘swimming’:

Down on the Farm…

The kids woke up bright and early our first day at Nana and Papa’s house (despite not getting to bed until 10pm!).  One of Madison’s first activities was to help Nana make blueberry pancakes (she LOVES to help and is always asking to help make meals…she’s a great stirrer!):

         

Jonathon went right to playing with car toys and a rocking horse:

           

The kids also wanted to see Papa’s cows.  Jonathon was a bit scared so didn’t stay in the barn long, but Madison was very excited to be near the cows:

          

Running down the hill and looking for cows in the field (Here Jonathon is saying “COME ON MAMA!!”, i.e, stop taking so many pictures and play!):

          

Papa made a play-set for all the grandkids – he was smart and put up 4 swings so when all the kids were there they wouldn’t fight (well, not over the swings anyway…)! 

 

The kids also enjoyed riding on a couple different kid bikes (although Daddy’s old bike was a favorite despite being a bit too big!):

 

Four generations:

Airplanes, Airports and Delays–OH MY!

 

For the July 4th week we took a trip up to Joe’s parents house (aka, Nana and Papa) to combine a visit with attending one of Joe’s high school friend’s wedding.  We decided to fly out of Orlando (about 1.5 hours away) because it was much, much cheaper.  The day started out great and the kids were so excited to get on a plane (we’ve talked about it for the last two months and about how they needed to buckle their seat belts – a big issue during our Christmas flight).  Madison had decided that she would not only buckle her seat belt, but also help Daddy and Mama buckle theirs!

Joe and Myra were upgraded to First Class (yeah), but Myra found out the day before the kids were still back in coach.  Although perhaps a more relaxing arrangement, we decided it was probably not the best…After a long time on the phone we got it worked out and there happened to be lots of extra space so we were all upgraded!  Madison and Jonathon in their big seats:

            

Once at the Newark airport our 3 hour layover turned into 4, then turned into a cancelled flight!  As many of you know, there isn’t much to entertain an adult in an airport for more than an hour, let alone two almost 3-year olds for 4 hours!  Jonathon started this game of climbing through the beams and we didn’t really care how many strange looks we got – they were entertained (the people movers were also quite entertaining):

                           

It’s a long, LONG story, but after lots of phone calls and standing at the customer service counter for over an hour (with only one big meltdown – this may have been an combination child/adult meltdown…) we ended up rushed to a plane into Baltimore instead of Harrisburg.  Jonathon managed to get about 15 minutes of sleep (finally) on this flight:

After 14 hours of travel (btw – it only takes 17 hours to DRIVE) we were at Nana and Papa’s house – phew!

Artwork and Trucks

It’s amazing to us how both kids have the same toys and we haven’t pushed ‘gender’ toys on either one, but still Madison has been really into artwork (Jonathon tolerates it) and Jonathon has been obsessed with trucks/cars.  He can spend 30 minutes or more just playing with the same truck/car trying to figure out all the different ways he can drive it/move it.

Our cloth line of artwork:

                 

Paper plates are better then paper!

The newest truck:

                

Playtime

 

We are lucky enough to live two blocks from a great park with a playground and a walking path around a lake.  The kids love all the birds at the lake and of course the playground  .     

                      

                 

Inside the kids have lately been into this little puppy that walks and barks (remember those?  Myra came across one in Singapore a couple weeks ago) and LOVE getting chased/tickled.  They are even starting to learn how to ‘hide’: