Party on

Due to illness we stayed at home during spring break. Eric's parents came up on Saturday bringing gifts and ribs for dinner. We got to have another small party with family. Matthew got another knight & horse, as well as a foot solider.

Aunt Dee and family also sent Matthew a knight armor set which all the boys love. Thanks Dee! I told Papa that next year he needs a live horse to make him a real knight.


Matthew wanted a "Buzz" birthday so I got some cake toppers and a banner.




Samuel got a hunter set and some big cats. He loves animals especially ones that roar.
This is Samuel's new "cheese" face. Silly huh?

Samuel's party isn't til next week. He wanted a "Mickey" party. We'll see how that turns out.
Thank you to all our family for the wonderful gifts! The boys love everyone of them.
(Can't seem to upload videos. I'll try again later Mom.)

Matthew's 3rd birthday

Matthew is 3! Since Eric is still working on his finals, we had a family party at home with balloons and presents.



Matthew loves knights and horses. He calls knights "good knights." My mom bought him two knights and he loved playing with them all day. Even the next day he was still carrying around his "good knights." I've had to make a bed for his knights so that he'll put them down and go to sleep. He blows them kisses and says "good night, good knights."


Matthew stats:
-He is still a sweetheart. He loves his brothers and playing with them.
-Matthew is talking much more thanks to speech therapy. He still babbles but he does use a wider variety of words and we can understand him better
-He loves knights, hats, Buzz Lightyear, trains, Legos, Cars, just about anything "boy"
-Just started potty training
We love you Matthew!

New outfits

One of the things Eric and I wanted to get with our tax returns was some new clothes for the boys. They get lots of hand-me-downs, which I'm very grateful for, but there's nothing like brand new clothes to make them seem all grown up.
The boys picked their shirts and shorts and also got a pair of jeans.

Thinking of Matthew

I've been taking a lot of pictures of Matthew this month. Subconsciously I think this is due to his up coming birthday. He has been super silly lately, as these pictures illustrate.




We plan on having a small family party for him on his birthday then a bigger one once Eric is done with finals. I can't believe he's going to be 3! Then a few weeks later Samuel will be 2!!
Arugh will you boys stop growing up! :)

Micro machines

This and that

I've been spending some time (ok a lot of time) on Pinterest. I found an activity for the boys using marshmallows and toothpicks. The idea was to have them create shapes with them. I had some shape flash cards and I put those out for them to follow. As soon as the bowls were on the table the boys dug in! They would put one marshmallow in their mouth, then would put one on a toothpick. Matthew just stuck one marshmallow on each of his toothpicks, while William did his best to match the picture. Samuel, just wanted to eat the marshmallows. It was fun, but I need an outside activity to follow that since everyone was hyper.


(Oh and that paper next to William is a money song. We're also teaching him the value of coins)
Another activity that I found on Pinterest was a math game. Just needed egg carton, and two markers/beans/counters. For William I wrote the numbers 0-10 and a starting place for the counters, in our case buttons. Then you shake the carton and whatever numbers the buttons landed on he had to add them together. He loves it! He knows addition really well so this just gives him more practice. One thing I did find was that my egg carton had holes in the top, so when William shook it the buttons would fall out. I just put packing tape over the holes for now. Next time I'll get some egg cartons that are just flat tops.


Matthew loves his little brother. What we're trying to teach him now is personal space. Thankfully Samuel doesn't mind having Matthew ALL OVER him! We try to keep Matthew away but he always ends up right back with Samuel. Here they are watching TV. The whole couch was free but Matthew had to sit right behind Samuel.