Superman

When we came to Paducah for our preview weekend at Friendship we tried to drive around a bit and let Noah nap. He didn’t nap so since we were close to Metropolis we went to see the big Superman statue.

Summer Baths

Over the course of various Walmart sales we have collected a couple of inflatable swimming pools. Tonight we put the big one under the slide on the swing set and made bubbles in the other one. As you can see it was a big hit.

Geocaching: Daddy’s new “thing”

So I have been hearing about this thing called “geocaching” for a while and I thought it was just going to a spot and letting people know that you got there via the web. Basically some sort of foursquare for outdoors people. Recently I learned that there are actually little boxes hidden that you can go and discover. Some of them are small and just have a simple log book for you to sign. Others are big enough to place small items in.

The general idea for these items is if you want to take something then make sure that you leave something of equal or greater value. The items are small like toys, pencils, stickers, and sometimes a button or two. There are also these things called “travel bugs” that have a number on them. If you find one you are supposed to take it, go to the website and register that you have it, and then take it to a different box hidden in a different city.

So it is basically like a big treasure hunt. You go to the website, find some of the locations, then go out with the GPS in your phone and find their locations. For Nathan it is the coolest thing in the world, because he loves the little toys that he finds.

So on Monday I was feeling a little bored and decided to check this whole thing out. I took the boys and we went to a little place just off of the main road. When we were there we found our first travel bug and we were all hooked.

We went out again on Tuesday and then today we were in Columbus so we looked for a few more. We found a couple of cool ones as you can see from the pics.

This is the coolest cache we have found. The GPS lead us to this spot, but then we had to search for it. We found it underneath some concrete squares down in this retaining wall.

Noah sort of likes the idea of going treasure hunting, sort of, but he doesn’t get the whole leave something if you want to take something. He wants to take what we brought and all the stuff in the box too. But here he is with a gold coin.

  

This was a cool cache we found up in the woods off of a walking trail. The clue said that it was under an old paint can.

Nathan dug up the leaves under the can and found this little box. See it is full of little kid treasures, toys, play money, and stickers. 

Can’t beat a backyard pool

Parkview Water Party

Parkview had a young kids water party tonight and we had a blast! Nathan got a dragon tatoo since he was in the dragons group. A picnic with friends, octopus hot dogs and playing in the water. What more could a five year old ask for? Nathan went to bed willingly tonight, one tired happy kid!

Noah’s 2nd Birthday

It seems like we spent the whole day celebrating Noah’s Birthday. It started before I even woke up with some blueberry muffins.

The next stage was a card hand made by Nathan for Noah. He made Mommy write it, but the words were “I love you! You are my brother and my best friend” Nathan wrote his name, Noah’s name, and drew a picture on it. Noah was impressed, but ready to get back to his trains.

Early in the day Meredith and I had our typical Saturday morning conversation. It normally happens at about 10:00 when the boys have already been up for 3 hours and we are looking at a long, long time till bedtime. We will start trying to decide what we are going to do. Since there isn’t much to do that doesn’t involve driving for and hour this can be a long conversation. Today we decided to go play putt-putt in Columbus at an indoor place so we would be out of the heat.

We were proceeding on this plan when I decided that it would be better just to take that money and go buy an inflatable pool and new water hose (because ours was shredded and that miracle wrap around stuff didn’t fix it). So that is what we did.

After a trip to Dollar Tree for Mommy and Nathan and a trip to Walmart for Noah and I we had our next round of birthday surprises. Noah’s big present from us was a new powered riding toy. Noah is great at pushing the button and making it go, but not so great at steering. He pretty much drives straight until he hits a wall.

 

Noah also got a car and a book from Nathan. Nathan even wrapped the presents himself.

 

After a week of people with fever in our house we decided to have our party at Big Daddy’s instead. We called and reserved the party room and moved the festivities up there. There aren’t a whole lot of people Noah’s age around so we invited his babysitters and a few older friends to come hang out. Amber just got off work and brought him a snow cone.

 

I know Noah looks a little rough here, but he has a good excuse. You can’t tell because of the flash, but by this time we were sitting in a dark restaurant. There was a big storm (so big it was a little scary outside and the power went off. So we were all pretty hot from lack of air conditioning. Noah had a few mishaps starting with slipping in the water that was leaking in through the windows. He bumped his head and got the back of his clothes soaked. In this first picture he is just about ready to reach out and touch the candle. The scream that everyone made to try to get him not to scared him so that’s why he looks a little upset in the next picture.

 

But of course all of those mishaps were taken care of when he got to eat cake. Cake is what birthdays are all about to Noah. Every time he heard someone talking about his birthday party (for the past few weeks even) he would say “birthday cake” and start looking for a piece. So we let him have at it tonight.

 

Sometimes I get a bit carried away when buying stuff so when I got the plates and napkins I thought it would be fun to get some Mickey Mouse candy too. The three big kids were happy to fight for the whole bag

   

Noah got a few more presents (including a Cars DVD that he got with a Walmart card from Grandmother and a Thomas the Tank engine mega block set), fell down one more time and got soaking wet on the way to the car.

  

The evening ended with two very tired boys sitting on the couch eating popcorn and watching cars.

The other big event of the night is that I have decided that since he is 2 Noah no longer needs a pacifier. So tonight for the first time he is sleeping without one. It helps that he is exhausted.