Pals!

Just some cute pictures of our adorable kids.

Updates on words by Nathan:

driveway for Nathan is drivebrary....rhymes with library.
yellow is now yellow! He occasionally will same lellow to make me smile.
glove is still glub.
I can't even write how he says marathon. He loves big words and then I marvel at me being able to translate from Nathanize.

The boys told me to take a picture of them on the rocking horse together....this was just before they both fell off. very funny! We spent the day in Westwood yesterday and the second picture shows them digging in our old garden. That soil was absolutely beautiful. We brought the boys bikes with us. They've never actually biked on blacktop so this was a new experience. We took them around the block. At one point, Nathan held out his hand to me and told me to feel. It was all sweaty. I asked him if he was nervous and he said yes! There was much to process during the bike ride....not hit Thomas or us, stay on the side, keep pedaling, etc.

Tuesday we went to a Wild west magic show at the library. It was very cute for the kids and the humor was well suited for them. At the end the boys got up and very purposefully walked to the front, Nathan in front of Thomas with Thomas' hand on Nathan's back. I followed wondering what they were up to. I couldn't hear what Thomas said to the man, but the man said "thank you" . I listened closer to Nathan and he told the magician, "good job!". It was so cute. I didn't tell them to do this, it was totally spontaneous.

Patriot's Day....a Massachusetts thing!

Yesterday was a full day--starting with the Boston marathon in the morning and the Lexington parade at 2pm. We froze most of the day but had such a neat time. It was tough getting close enough to the marathon and I was even to the point of telling the boys that maybe next year we would see it! But we were able to park about 1 mile away and we walked up to the route. It was dizzying (is this a word?) watching the runners pass us. We saw numbers as high as 26,000 so wonder if that means there are that many runners? Some interesting sights among the runners! One guy was juggling, another lady looked about 5 months pregnant with her belly hanging out (most disturbing!), one guy had a suit coat with tails and a top hat with a fake beard, two ladies all dressed in pink with crowns on, one guy with rabbit ears, one guy all dressed up as batman (that looked hot!) and so on. We had a blast and definitely hope to see it again next year. We watched it with Tara and Jesse as they live right on the route. We missed the girls and the handicap racers as they started before 10AM. Around 10, we saw two jets zoom through the sky (not sure what they were) but I heard they signal the beginning of the race. I'm wondering who won. There are lots of police escorts and at the start of the racers drives a truck with a big timer mounted to the top of it. Just behind it was a tight group of males, one white guy at the very front and just behind him 7 or 8 Kenyans (I'm assuming). The face on the guy in the front was incredible, wish I had gotten a picture of it.

After the race, we drove over to Lexington to watch the parade. What a long parade. It started at 2 and was still going strong at 3:20. Didn't notice when it actually ended....we were shivering to hard to notice much! It was 50, overcast and very windy. Much of the parade was people dressed in revolution costumes, playing fifes and drums. Very cool!

The first picture is our little celebration of Matt's birthday on April 16. The boys were dead-set on returning the birthday spankings that they endured only weeks before! We did manage to get in a few but we had to be pretty sneaky to catch him! The other three pictures were from Sunday afternoon at Clem and Isobel's in NH. It was beautiful out and the boys took a comic book and found a sunny spot to look at it. The puppies are 5 weeks and are the Caviler breed. The boys found them fascinating especially when the mom came in to nurse them.

Sunday morning, Matt picked up his cereal bowl to drink of the milk and it slipped from his fingers. The milk spilled all over and the boys thought it hilarious that Daddy should have an accident! Thomas told Matt that he should put it on facebook!

Totally Thomas' idea to climb into a clean trash bag! Too cute to miss getting a picture!

The boys love going to restaurants! If Thomas gets any wind of us going, he starts very nicely asking...if anyone can get me to do anything (or spend money), my kids can! Sure, sweetie! Sometimes at dinner, the boys adjust the dining room light to dim and pretend that we are at a restaurant.

Thomas has discovered the satisfaction of sticking his tongue out at the disagreeable party. He told me last night when I caught him doing it that he was sticking it out at himself. Then today, he told me he was sticking it out at Nathan....I just happened to be on the other side of Nathan.

Visits!

The first picture is from the boys birthday weekend. My father has stopped by the last two Wednesdays to do tree work here. It's been a real mid-week treat for us! The boys eyes just light up when I tell them the night before. After lunch we've been having tea-parties...who says tea parties are just for ladies? We all enjoy tea. When we were out shopping one blustery early-April day, Nathan turned to me and said "I want a cup of tea and a gingerbread cookie in front of the fire." As soon as we got home, that's just what we did.

They are such good boys. Yesterday, they were really hankering to go to a museum but it was so beautiful out I couldn't bring myself to go. They enjoy going out whatever it may be. Often though, once we are out for say more than an hour or two, Thomas will tell me he wants to go home. There really is nothing like just puttering around at home.

I love to see the boys being nice to each other. I see them giving things to each other when the other really wants it from food to toys to seats/places. I'll have to write here an example the next time I see it happen. I can remember them doing it recently but don't remember what it was Nathan really wanted and Thomas so nicely gave right over to him. It wasn't even that Nathan was asking Thomas specifically for it but Thomas knew what was going on and readily handed to him.

Birthday #4!! How can this be?

Our sweet boys are now 4 years old! Here a few pictures from their day. Many a good night snuggle was spent planning this cake. They each got a costume from their Rider grandparents...I think they lived in them the first 3 days or so....especially the police man. They are ready to play go-fish, so we're off!