Aidan's Birthday!

Aidan turned eight years old on April 14. What an exciting birthday! You can tell how excited he is in this picture.

 He wanted to light the candles on his cake all by himself.

 Oh baby. A skateboard.

 A remote control race car. Yay for birthdays!

2nd Grade Music Concert

Aidan had his music concert April 4. He got to be a part of a quartet singing extra verses of Yankee Doodle. Unfortunately, I didn't take any videos that are small enough to upload on to Blogger. So pictures will have to suffice.

Surprise, surprise, Christian's and my kids are always on the back row. Aidan currently has two best friends. Zak is three kids to the left of him, in the bright blue shirt. Abby is on the front row, in the white shirt with bright blue cardigan. He loves hanging out with both of them.

 Here he is as part of his quartet.

(Next would be Christian's birthday post. I didn't take any pictures. I suck.)

Helicopter

Did you know this is what a helicopter sounds like?

Easter

We went to Jeremy & Karla's house in Eagan, Minnesota for Easter weekend. It rained all weekend, which put a slight damper on our easter egg hunt plans. But we made it work anyway!

All the kids (Ethan, Nolan, Aidan, Macy, Kaitlyn, Linden)

 The little girls had so much fun finding eggs.

 We couldn't get the kids to sit still for one second to take a picture. It was a mad hunt for eggs!

We always have a great time when we visit Jeremy & Karla. They made us a great ham and funeral potato dinner, and as always, we laughed a lot, played pinochle, and had a great time.

Kate Shelley Bridge

We drove 20 minutes west of Gilbert to Boone, to visit the Kate Shelley bridge. It was a little bit of a fiasco because there are only two ways to get to it, and the one we chose was closed right before the bridge. So we had to drive all the way around (like 15 minutes) to the other road. But it was beautiful, and we were glad we took the time to go see it.

You can see how high the train tracks are, crossing over this great ravine and the river. The old bridge is in the foreground, and the new bridge behind it.

 Old, rickety bridge and new, concrete bridge.

 Up close and personal.

Here's the wiki page on the bridge itself, and here is the story of why it is named after Kate Shelley. She's a pretty awesome feminist, if I do say so myself.

Another One of the Cutest Videos You Have Ever Seen

Haircut

Kaitlyn's hair had grown really long, and really uneven.

Brushing her SpongeBob clock. She brushes everything except her hair with that brush.

 So I took her today to get her hair cut. She cried the whole time. It mostly involved snot and slobber, and no sudden movements or attempts to get out of the chair (unlike Aidan), so I was thankful for that.  As soon as she was done (less than 15 minutes), she got a mini chocolate bar, and the crying suddenly turned into smiles.

And now she looks like a big girl instead of a toddler. Sigh...

She's a Sick Kitty

Once There was a Snowman

Go Dog Go

This isn't the full version of her reading the book, but it's the last half of it. And she had just gotten out of the tub, but she is so cute reading the book I wanted to share it.

Tizza

Kaitlyn is talking A LOT now. Here is just a tiny sample, where she is busy being more adept at the iPad than I am, so she didn't talk much. I have a video recorded of her "reading" (reciting) one of her favorite books, Go Dog Go, while turning the pages, but it is too long to upload onto this blog. Bummer! It is so cute.

Letters

Kaitlyn can not only sing the Alphabet Song, but she also recognizes every letter and can say their sound. For dinner two nights ago, she found each letter on the fridge corresponding with the names of our family (M for Mommy, D for Daddy) and put them next to the place we were sitting at dinner. (The B for Boo was left there by Aidan; he didn't want Boo to feel left out of the picture. But Kaitlyn does know that B is for Boo.)

Kaitlyn thought Boo needed some friends.

Recorder

Today Ethan got a recorder for music class. The fourth grade will learn many songs this year on the recorders. (In fact, the teacher gives them all "belts" according to how well they play. Ethan hopes to become a black belt in recorder by the end of the year.) He has been practicing for a looong time today. He has already mastered two songs (here is one of them):

Tae Kwon Do

Ethan started tae kwon do about six weeks ago. He is really enjoying it. He attends class twice a week, and has been preparing hard for testing tomorrow. As you can see in the picture, he has received all of his stripes (each one represents one item he has passed off), and if/when he passes his test tomorrow, he will receive his yellow belt at a belt ceremony on Monday. Go Ethan!

Here he is, doing his form: