Big Boy Bike & Buzz

It was a pretty great weekend for Kae.

On Saturday he got a new big boy bike. Now he has a bike with a chain just like Mommy's and Daddy's. He is pretty fast already.
After Kae checked out his new bike he and Izee rode around in front of the house.

On Sunday we went to Nonna's and Poppi's house to visit. They had bought Kae Buzz Lightyear wings and gloves. (Kae LOVES Buzz right now.)

Kae decided to combine all this excitement and ride his bike in his new wings and gloves. He had so much fun riding up and down the street. He stopped to rest frequently and before restarting he would press the button on his wings that would say, "To Infinity and Beyond."

The tricycle has now been handed down to Izee. He really wants to ride it but he is still figuring out how the pedals work. He really loves it when someone pushes the bike for him while he rides it.

Sweet Izee

My sweet little fireman loves to drive his fire truck all over the house all the time. However, He has to have the hat before he can drive the truck. He will look all over the playroom to find his hat and then come up to one of us and sign hat so we will help him find it.

Izee also loves to help me in the kitchen. The other day I found him standing on his chair stirring the soapy water that was soaking in the dirty pot. It was so cute that I took a short video of his "cooking".

A Typical Evening

This is pretty typical for an evening at Casa de Howell:

After dinner the boys like to play. Kitchen is one of their favorite things to play. Kae really likes to make pudding and/or soup. Izee likes to carry his toys around in the shopping baskets.
They repeatedly bring us their creations for us to eat and drink. Eventually they boys usually end up tackling Daddy. If Daddy is on the floor then they all end up wrestling but if Daddy is on the sofa then it turns into a Daddy Pile.

Here is a short video of this evening's Daddy Pile:

I think the nightly pile-up might be starting to drive Daddy a little bit mad. :-)

Painting

I don't let the boys paint a lot since it can be so messy. Today I found some cute smocks at the store so I let Kae try his out with some painting. (I put plastic on the floor and table too.)
Izee saw Kae having so much fun so he wanted to paint too.
They did great! Izee painted one picture before he was distracted by other toys. Kae painted 4 pictures! They painted themselves a little, of course, but mostly they kept the paint on the paper.

Hiking

Today was another beautiful day. It was the kind of day where you have to do something outside. We decided to go hiking on a local trail. We picked a fairly flat and well traveled trail so we could bring the wagon in case the boys decided they didn't want to walk. They hiked some and rode in the wagon some.
We stopped along the way to play in the creek. The boys had a blast throwing rocks into the water.

Here is a short video of the rock throwing:

After hiking and playing for over an hour. We had a picnic lunch in the field along the path.On the walk back to the car the boys (all 3 of them) stopped to play in the ditch and the tall grass.By this point the boys were getting pretty tired so we decided to take the faster (concrete) path back to the car. The boys were very tired! The little one was asleep within a few minutes in the car. The big one doesn't sleep in the car very well but he was very quiet.

Sleepover

On Thursday night Kaleb had a friend over to spend the night. The boys slept on an inflatable mattress in the playroom. They had so much fun! It was really cute. They ate popcorn and watched movies until about 10:30pm. Then they decided they were tired and asked to have the TV turned off. After the TV was off they fell asleep within 5 minutes.

Ice Skating

Izee is in Florida with Poppi visiting family so Kae has been getting lots of mommy and daddy time. This evening we went ice skating.
Kae did great! Last year he only lasted 30 minutes or so and could barely stand up on his skates. What a difference a year makes! This year he was able to walk around in his skates off the rink. He still needed the walker to help balance on the ice but he could skate around by himself. He had so much fun and didn't want to leave. We stayed for 2 hours. We did snack and hot chocolate breaks but Kae kept wanting to go back out onto the ice.

Here is a video of Kae skating. You can see Daddy in the video too skating round Kae.

Spring Weather

This week has been wonderfully warm and sunny. Tuesday was one of the warmest days we have had in months. After I picked Kae up from school I decided we needed to go outside and enjoy the warmth.

We had a picnic with fried chicken,
played in the park,
and then took a walk around the park before reluctantly heading inside for naptime.The taste of warm weather really made me ready for Spring. It was nice just being able to walk outside without spending 15 minutes getting everyone bundled in their coats, boots, hats and gloves. I'm sure we're not done with snow for the season yet but this week has been a nice vacation from the cold.

Pretty, Yummy Cookies

We hosted a cookie decorating playdate. I had some frozen gingerbread cookie dough left over from Christmas so I decided the best way to use it up was to have some kids over and sugar them up. The kids decorated cookies with icing and sprinkles.

Decorating the Cookies:

Eating the Cookies:

(Kae)

(Izee)

(Friends)

My Birthday

I celebrated my birthday with a family dinner followed by cake and presents. Kae helped Nonna make my cake and he was the one who wanted me to have a brown cake with yellow icing. He is so sweet to make sure I have a yummy cake!

My boys got me a snuggie. I know it is dorky, but I really wanted one. My parents got me a tent. It is huge. They got it for me because they know we are taking the boys camping this summer. I am so excited to camp with the boys now that we have a nice big tent and we won't be stuffed in a tent like sardines.