A special day!

Today, Ben and I celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary!

We celebrated the evening at Lukas' cub scout meeting. I know, very romantic!

Ben always takes one of his vacation weeks during our anniversary week, which I think just so sweet and thoughtful of him. The other reason is because we both absolutely LOVE FALL... our favorite SEASON! This year, we are going to Erie for our anniversary weekend and will spend it with our two handsome boys. We are looking forward to a FUN WEEKEND!!

Happy Anniversary, Benjamin...I'm looking forward to the next 50+ years!

I love you!

Daddy's on vacation

Ben started his vacation on Saturday and has this whole week off!

The boys and I are so excited. The boys love when he is home in the evenings. He read to them tonight before they went to bed since he rarely gets the chance to. Landon's favorite book at this moment is

"Old McDonald had a Farm." He loves to read along and say "EiEiO!"

It's going to be a great week even though Lukas has school and I have to work Monday - Thursday.

We are looking forward to great family fun:-)

A wedding

Yesterday, we attended a wedding for our friends. Grandma took the boys for a sleep-over, so we had the day and evening to ourselves. It was so nice to have an adult weekend. It was extra special since our anniversary is this week. The wedding was at Lingrow Farm and was just absolutely gorgeous. The food, company and entertainment was wonderful. We really enjoyed ourselves!

Congratulations, to our good friends, Mark and Carol Williams!

Potty Time

Well, it's been a while since we've posted about Landon's progress on POTTY TRAINING. We are very happy to announce that he has been wearing big boy underwear for 2 weeks now!! We didn't really want to post anything about it and jinx ourselves.

The first go-around when he turned 2, (in February), was just plain awful. After the first two weeks, he lost interest. So we decide to go the pull-up route. Yes, they are more expensive than diapers, but we think that they do work better than the diaper when you are trying to potty train. When he turned 21/2 in late August, we decided to try the underwear during the day. Well, he did great with #1 and did want any parts with doing #2. So, we went back to the pull-up. Two weeks ago, we had enough. He's approaching 3 soon and we wanted him trained by then. So, we took the plunge and told him he was going to wear the big boy undies during the day. Our little baby is now wearing underwear all day with no accidents. He is great about telling us when he has to go and loves doing #2 now! We still keep a pull-up on him at night, but for the most part he usually wakes up dry. If that is the case, I re-use the pull-up. We know we will still have some occasional accidents, but we are so happy he finally caught on and is doing so well. We're also really enjoying the extra savings! We're so proud of our baby boy! Way-to-go LANDON:-)

Bye, Bye Baby Tooth!

Lukas lost his very 1st tooth this evening. To be exact, it was one of his lower central incisor (the one on his right). It was a little scary for him and I think he was a little surprised how much it hurt.

Well, it was Mommy's fault for falling out tonight. As I was giving them their bath, Landon was complaining that he had soap in his eyes. Lukas was sitting beside him with the wash cloth in his mouth. I just reacted and grabbed the wash cloth out of his mouth to wipe Landon's eyes. Well, when I grabbed it, Lukas' tooth popped right out into the bath water! Lukas started crying immediately. I think he was more upset about the blood. He kept asking "why is it bleeding and why is there so much blood?" I told him that is what happens when you lose your teeth. I didn't warn him about this part because I didn't want to scare him. Once Landon saw Lukas' mouth he was glued to his face. He kept pointing to his mouth saying "me next". Lukas thought he was so funny and quit crying. He calmed down quickly and once the bleeding stopped he was absolutely fine with his tooth falling out (technically pulled out). He couldn't wait to get out of the tub and check out his new smile in the mirror. After he checked it out for awhile, he ran upstairs and grabbed his tooth fairy bear and inserted the tooth. It definitely was a memorable way of losing his first tooth.

Here's a couple pics of our proud little man!

LOOSE Tooth!

After the boys brushed their teeth, I did my nightly examination check. While I was flossing Lukas' teeth, his bottom middle tooth shifted! To make sure I wasn't seeing things, I touched it with my finger and sure enough it's wiggling. I said "Lukas, you have a loose tooth!" His eyes got really big and a huge grin grew across his face and he immediately started jumping up and down with excitement. He said "YAY! I have a loose tooth." Landon was just standing there watching and taking all of this in. He then looked at me and said "Mommy, my toof is loose!" I started laughing because it was just so darn cute. Lukas quickly told him "No, No...you have to be six years old to lose a tooth." Once Lukas was finished looking at his tooth, he raced upstairs and dug his tooth fairy bear out of the toy box and had to put it on his dresser. He had to call my mom and sister to tell them about his tooth. They asked him what he thought the tooth fairy will leave and he said "$100.00!" Then said, no I mean "$1,600.00". He had me laughing so hard. It was a very eventful evening and many precious memories I'll always cherish! We shall see how long it will take before his tooth falls out. Lukas thinks 2 days! I never thought he'd be so excited about losing a tooth:-) Oh my, my baby is starting to lose his baby teeth! I must admit, I have mixed emotions at this point:-(

Dr. Landon

Dr. Landon made a house call today. He had a check-up with Cali. He's too funny:-) I'm surprised Cali was such a good patient!

Daddy & Boys

We don't get enough of these days:-(

Meet the teacher

This evening, the boys and I went to "meet the teacher night" at Lukas' school. Ben wasn't able to go because of his awful work schedule. Lukas was extremely excited to show us his classroom. He kept telling us before we got there "follow me when we get there and I'll show you to my room". Landon even wanted to hold his hand while we walked through the hallway of the school. It was so cute following behind them and listening to Lukas explain "his school" to his little brother. The very first thing he showed us was his desk. There was a packet of papers for us. It had an apple with his picture attached to a close pin holding everything together. I even got a sugar cookie with a note from his teacher. Of course, I didn't get to eat it:-( ! In the packet of papers contained a note from Lukas, a bunch of tests, and a note about the new online system. He is doing extremely well. We are super proud of him!! After we looked at his desk, he showed us where is cubby was, the computer station, reading station, Miss Ion's desk, and all his work around the room. He even let his little brother sit at his desk. Landon loved it. I think he's ready to start school! His teacher, Miss Ion, is extremely nice and has a lot planned for the year. We are very excited for this school year. We know he's in good hands and is going to be learning a lot. After we were done touring the school, they had an ice cream social by the PTA. The boys both had a bowl of vanilla ice cream with sprinkles. Here's a few pictures I took tonight. I also included a picture that Lukas drew in school that day that was sent home with him. I had a chance to look over everything before we went and was impressed with his drawing. It was pretty accurate. I'm very impressed with his progress in art!

Chocolate Syrup!

This is what I came home to today after a long day at work...chocolate syrup all over him! This is what happens when we tell Lukas to watch over his little brother for a couple minutes:-)

Nathan's 1st birthday!

This afternoon, we went to Uncle Clint and Aunt Sandy's to celebrate Nathan's 1st birthday. He did really well with all the people there and really enjoyed his first taste of cake. He did pretty well at opening gifts too! He is such a cutie pie:-) The boys love hanging out with Uncle Clint. They were riding quads with him, playing in the dirt and doing other "boy" stuff. It was great to spend the quality time with my family. Happy 1st Birthday Nathan!!

Homework

Today was the first day that Lukas got homework. We're back in full swing! The boys are adjusting to the school schedule/hours very nicely. We've picked-up the same habits as last year. Lukas does his homework and Landon "thinks" he does homework. Lukas had two sheets to do. One was practicing the distinction between sentences and the other was math. He read the directions and did it all by himself while I supervised. I have the tendency to hover and do too much for him. While Lukas was doing his homework, Landon worked on his watercolors! LOL. Landon is going to give me no problem when he starts school. He loves homework time!

Browniestache

We had to make an urgent run to Giant Eagle tonight for more turkey. The boys spotted delicious brownies in the bakery and I let them get some. They were topped with chocolate frosting. When we got home, I gave them each a brownie and they sat on the porch to eat them. Landon came to me and asked for a drink and this is what I turned to.... a browniestache! It really made me laugh hard and just had to take a picture. I love moments like these!

1st Day of School

Lukas started 1st grade today!

He woke up this morning with no problem or attitude. I was very impressed. Landon on the other hand, was a cranky pants. I made them blueberry eggos with a side of banana slices for breakfast. Lukas ate everything on his plate. After he finished breakfast, he brushed his teeth and got dressed with me only telling him ONE TIME! It was great:-) Lets hope this lasts the whole school year! We were even ready 15 minutes early and outside waiting for Daddy. He was running a little late and Lukas actually looked at me and said "Where's Daddy, I'm going to be late for school." It was so cute.

I would say he's pretty excited to start a new school year. Of course, I took pictures of him before he left for school. Also, Lukas wanted to pack his lunch again this year so I made him a special "star" sandwich. Well, I tried anyway! All that matters is that he loved it:-) I'm going to try to get away with this as long as possible. I know my years are limited!

When I got home from work, he told me all about his day. He likes his new teacher and he has his own desk! He is very excited about this. (In pre-school, pre-K, and Kindergarten they have the rooms set up with tables and chairs and you sit in a group.) Today, he had computer class and brought home a bunch of papers that they did in class and he did very well on them. He also told me right away that he didn't have any homework, but I did! I had a bunch of papers to fill out and return the next day. Oh how I love the first day of school!

Ben and I are so proud of our little first grader...he is growing up way too fast! Have a great year buddy:-)

Cannonball Splash!

We blew off all our plans and decided to stay home and let the boys play on their new slip n' slide. We wanted Lukas to enjoy his last day of Summer vacation. We grilled out, had raw veggies and dip and corn on the cob. It was a nice relaxing day! They had so much fun with this. We were surprised how well Landon did for his age. Hopefully we get to use it again before Fall:-)

End of Summer

This is Lukas' last weekend before he starts school on Monday. This means the end of Summer for us. Ben really wanted to do something special for him. After he came home from work Saturday afternoon, we all got ready and took him for an early surprise dinner at Red Lobster. He absolutely loves that place and believe it or not, he loves seafood! Ben always orders the ultimate feast which comes with snow crab legs, lobster tail, shrimp scampi and beer battered shrimp. Lukas had A Lot of his dinner. This time we got him to try the snow crab leg with the melted butter and he was in heaven. He said that was his new favorite! He ate so much:-) He has been eating more these days. He's been finishing everything on his plate and sometimes asks for seconds. Maybe he'll start putting some weight on those bones!

Since it has been getting cool in the evenings, we told the boys that we could build a fire and have smore's. They were absolutely delicious. We each had a few. We had a lovely evening hanging out as a family. Landon even rode the tire swing for the first time. He LOVED it! Lukas really enjoyed having Landon to ride with. Summer really flew by this year. We didn't get enough of these days in this year. We can't believe Lukas is going to 1st grade in two days. Where has the time gone? We just want it to slow down. Lukas shared his chair with Landon. He said "It's a half and half brother chair". We were both laughing! He says the funniest things.

Here's a few pics from the evening. We love having family nights:-)