Easter Weekend

We had a fun-filled Easter weekend! It kicked off with Duke AND Michigan wins in the Sweet Sixteen on Friday night. Saturday morning was soccer practice and good times at the church egg hunt extravaganza. Here's a video courtesy of Nana.



The Easter activities continued on Sunday with church followed by a ham & potato feast, another egg hunt, and Easter baskets at Nana & Pop-Pop's house.  The Easter bunny was very good to everyone, as usual, and JJ was quite excited about ripping open his presents and then enthusiastically helped Wesley open his gifts, too.  Another video shot by Nana:

JJ's 3rd Birthday!

Sooooey, JJ is THREE!

We started off JJ's actual birthday with some presents in the morning and, of course, a cup of chocolate milk.  Check him out here, drinking his milk all casual-like.  He already looks older!

Delighted by the Thomas card

Opening his gift from Great-Grandma and -Grandpa Anderson. A Toy Story plate and bowl, cool!
(JJ calls the guy "Buzz Lightbeer.")

Opening his gift from Grandpa Doug. Huge remote control truck!

He then spent much of the day with Ana, but Mommy and Daddo took JJ to lunch at Hat Creek Burgers where he once again enjoyed some chocolate milk along with his chicken nuggets. But his favorite part of lunch was the playground.  It was a nice warm day for February.

Nana and Pop-Pop came over for dinner, and Nana made a birthday apple pie.  Yum!  Dinner was followed up by more presents!

Cat keyboard from Nana and Pop-Pop.  Just like Fiona and Annabel's!

Opening the personalized Mickey CD from Mom & Dad.  He would really become obsessed with this one.

Fast-forward to Saturday, JJ's party.  He requested a pig theme, so his party was called "If You Give JJ a Pig Party" in the vein of the "If You Give A..." books.  Several of his little friends came over for a couple hours of fun & games & lunch & cupcakes.  JJ was very excited about pig cupcakes.

I found a tutorial for a watermelon pig and Andy implemented it with impressive artistry.

Nana contributed some really cute pig rolls.  

The main course was a big platter of nuggets from Chick-fil-A, one of JJ's favorite places to eat out.  Thanks to Pop-Pop for delivering the tasty tidbits.

The three musketeers: Cady, Wesley and JJ.

"Pin the Tail on the Pig" in the background (created by Nana)

Party favors (with pig bouncy ball, pig cup, pig snout, pig beanie and candy), and JJ's Pigu

"Toss A Pig A Pancake" game, created by Nana

Andy shows off his surprising skills once again, this time in pig balloon art.  He drew pig faces on almost a dozen balloons, a different variation for each one.  This one was my favorite.

Mantle decor.  The recycled football banner totally works, if you think of it as a pigskin :)

Party candids. (I was sort of overwhelmed during the party and didn't get many photos.)

Notice the custom "JJ is 3" pig shirt painted by, you guessed it, Nana!

Happy 3rd Birthday to our little Pook!

3-Year and 1-Year Checkups

With their birthdays quickly approaching, it was time for JJ and Wesley to visit the pediatrician for a checkup.  We scheduled the appointments together for efficiency's sake, but it ended up being a little challenging to keep both kids well-behaved while the doctor was examining them.

They both got a clean bill of health.  Wesley was due for some vaccines but because of an annoyingly rigid school requirement (as in kindergarten, yes - over 4 years away!) if he got the vaccines 5 days before his birthday they wouldn't "count."  So much for trying to be efficient with our doctor visits!  We'll head back in a couple days for those vaccines.

Here are the kids' stats:

JJ

Height - 38" (75th percentile)

Weight - 33.5 lbs (~50th percentile)

(Photo of JJ at the appointment, donning the exam gown)

Wesley

Height - 30.5" (75th percentile)

Weight - 21 lbs 10 oz (50-75th percentile)

Head circumference - 48.3 cm (90th percentile)

He's about an inch and a pound bigger than JJ was at one year.

(I didn't get a photo of Wesley at the doctor so here's a recent shot.)

We are looking forward to a fun birthday week ahead!!

Walking Wesley

Wesley took his first step on January 4th, and since then he has been taking a few more steps here and there.  We caught a nice little amble on video today.  He can't do more than ~6 steps yet, but I'm sure it won't be long until he's walking all over this joint!

It's that time of year: Pumpkin Farm!

Fall is upon us and we are ready for it!  We took the hour drive to Sweet Berry Farm on Sunday and had a fun time picking flowers, feeding the goats, going on a hayride and choosing pumpkins.  We got rained on a bit, and the muddy conditions meant the little train wasn't running, so we may be back before the season is over!

Arriving

So many pumpkins!

JJ was a little ball of energy the whole time

Cool hanging gourd thingies

Passing through the tunnel to get to the other side of the farm.  

The tunnel was one of the highlights for JJ.

Big field of pick-your-own zinnias

JJ was pretty bummed that the barrel train was down

Pigu!

Hay ride

Some of the stuffed scarecrow scenes on the hayride

Hungry goats!

I thought the white pumpkins were really cool

 Warty green pumpkins!