happy birthday, 8 yr old!

8 years old.
wow.
8 YEARS OLD!!!
unbelievable.

drew,
i already wrote a letter to your class with you in mind ...
BUT ...
i want to write this letter with only you in mind.
you are SO special to me and i want you to know how proud i am of you.
you add something to our family that i couldn't even begin to describe.
you are loving.
you are helpful.
you are confident.
and you are the best big brother ever.
you are SO good to ben and alex.
you are patient with them
and you teach them
(even when they don't want to be taught:))
you love school and you crave learning - which i love!
(well ... except when you ask me to describe things like electricity)
you are respectful and you are kind -
AND
most importantly, you love God.

i am so excited about the person that you are becoming!
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, DREW!

you are one special 8 year old
and
i hope you had the most fabulous birthday ever!

my letter to 2R

ok .. you guys are trouble makers ... the letter that i wrote was to 2nd graders ... but now i have the pressure of having you all read it ...

just know ... drew gave me some 'specifics' to include ... and that after much thought i decided to keep it fairly simple ...

class of 2R …
7 months ago you got to meet drew for the first time. BUT … it was 7 years, 364 days ago for us! On March 19th at 1:10 in the afternoon Drew was born. He was our first baby and we were so excited to meet him! Since then we have had 2 more baby boys. Drew has a little brother, Ben, who is 5 and is in Mrs. Underbakke’s class. He also has a little brother, Alex, who is 2.

We think Drew is SUCH a good big brother to Ben and to Alex. He is patient and is very helpful. We think he is a great example. He is polite and respectful – and shows them how to have fun. Drew is such a deep thinker. He loves school and does very well at it. We are so proud of him for that. He always has such fun and wacky ideas and he keeps us on our toes.

I could go on and on … but because you are still getting to know Drew, I thought it would be more fun for me to tell you a few things that you may not know. Did you know that when he was 18 months old he knocked out his front tooth while we were on vacation in Boston? AND … did you know the new one still isn’t there? Did you know that he LOVES to travel? He has been to Disney World 6 times! Last year we went to Hawaii too and since then he has decided that it would be fun to live there! Did you also know that he LOVES the Twins? At one of the games that we went to, he even caught a ball! Drew also likes to play baseball. He has been playing baseball and soccer since he was 3! Drew is very adventurous. He LOVES fast roller coasters and big waterslides. This winter he took snowboarding lessons and in the summer he loves to go tubing. When he isn’t doing something crazy … Drew loves to read, play video games, and sing. He is on the worship team for the kids at our church. AND ... did you know that he is in a kids DVD that was done by the group Go Fish?!

Drew loves a lot of different things. And there are a lot of different things we love about Drew. I just wanted to tell you about a few of them.

Have a fun day 2R!

2nd grade homework

funny how i can sit down here on any night of the week and write -
i don't spend too much time thinking about it ...
and i don't get concerned about what people reading it will think.

BUT ...
i get asked to write something for a group of 2nd graders and i spend hours stressing about making it 'just right'.

with his birthday a few days away,
drew is the celebrity of the week in his class starting tomorrow.
being the celebrity of the week means that we have to put a poster board together of pictures
AND
i have to write a letter - to the class - telling them about drew.
sounds easy initially, right?
ya. not so much.

i want to fully describe drew -
but i want to do it in a way that interests 2nd graders.
i want to let drew know how proud i am of him (because that is the foundation of the assignment) -
but i don't want the class to break into giggles.
fine line here, people.

i have started ... and restarted ... and stared at my computer screen.
i have gone through my blog posts about drew
i have looked over my 'things i hope i never forget about drew'.
i have so many things i'd LOVE to say -yet here i sit concerned about my audience.

2nd grade homework, i tell ya.
i'd rather be doing algebra.

COME ONE COME ALL ...

yesterday was the school carnival.

all 3 boys got in on the action.
we didn't win much of anything ...
(some nice teeth .. and a BEAUTY of a bling necklace, as you can see)

but they saw friends ... had fun ...
and got a good reminder that we were there to support the school ... not win.
IN ADDITION ... i'm hoping ...
think love n logic with me here ...
it was a good example that not many fair/carnival games are EVER set up so that you can frequently win big :) if 25 cent tickets were hard for them to lose ... maybe they'll understand now why EVERY time we are at the MOA i tell them the games are a joke.

we ended the morning with snowcones for lunch
(once again ... our healthy parenting shining through)



AND ...
stacey even managed to capture alex having a brain freeze.



after he had taken about 5 bites he wouldn't eat any more because he kept getting brain freezes and couldn't figure out what was going on!
:)

my heartbreaker

ben and drew both have a special 'love' for their first preschool teacher.
although she has moved to texas :( (poor alex)
they occasionally send her notes -and she sends notes to them

so ...
today i got an email from her and ben saw that.
he told me that he wanted to write her back.
i figured he would talk about what he did today ...
or the snow ...
BUT ...
i watched as he typed and i did everything i could to keep my composure:)



mrs. levere (remember he writes phonetically)
i am busy. i can't come to the prom.
love ben

while still trying not to laugh i asked why he wrote that.
'ah ... just wanted to send her a joke'

ha!
ben, can i just say how much i love you ...
AND
that i CANNOT wait to meet the girl you end up with!

some cocoa puffs for your milk?

note to self:

don't leave alex alone with open milk and a box of cocoa puffs.

swim. play. sleep. repeat.

last night we spent the night at a waterpark hotel.

with the hotel being in the city where we are from -
my family was able to come visit us and swim for a bit
alex LOVED having aiden
and drew and ben loved having the ability to just do their thing.

considering the how right the price was-
and that it was a great size for the age of our kids -
it was the perfect little getaway!

as you can imagine i took plenty of pictures ...
so ...
enjoy a recap of our past 24 hours ;)

adventure park

we spent a few hours of this afternoon at an indoor play park.

thankfully it wasn't very busy -
so drew and ben were able to burn a lot of energy
and alex got the chance to be really brave and do a lot of things on his own ;)



including ...
getting drinks from the drinking fountain ...
which i'm PRETTY sure is where he would have spent the entire time, had i let him :)

fun, friends, and factories

today we went to the children's museum ...
garrett and gordy were along

and we met up with deby, katherine, and oliver ...



the boys (and katherine - lucky girl) had a lot of fun ...
and used up a LOT of energy!
(these are always my 2 goals when we go someplace. i am SO not above wearing my kids out in hopes of an earlier bedtime)

after spending the majority of our time in 'the factory' - both deby and i decided that we need to install shipping/receiving block lines in our homes.
i'm pretty sure the kids would have stayed all afternoon moving blocks and calling out orders had we let them!

(this was alex's section of the factory. he took his job VERY serious and anytime someone tried to do it 'the wrong way' - he was quick to remind them to do it HIS way and that he was the boss ... in 2 yr old fashion of course.)

spring break kickoff

today was the first day of the boys' spring break.

we started it off with a few hours at the mall of america ...
shopping and riding some rides
(drew's response to this was ... why do we go shopping EVERY day that i have off?! ...
7 yr olds .... they're such exaggerators .. ha ha)



after the mall we met up with stacey and hit the zoo.
(well .. the warmer parts of the zoo anyway)



highlights of the day -
i got some returns made ...
the boys got to ride on some rides ...
the zoo was absolutely empty and it was WONDERFUL to walk around alone!
AND
we got to spend time doing things with drew that normally he misses out on because of school.

disappointments -
the monkey exhibit is closed for the next few weeks - so alex's favorite screeching monkeys were nowhere to be seen
AND
the dolphin didn't have her baby at the EXACT second that we happened to be there. :)
i know ... high hopes ... but seriously ... how cool would that be!!!

now ...
we're finishing the day off with a few friends sleeping over ... (for them)
the bachelor ... (for me)
and chocolate chip cookies (for everyone)
MMMMmmm!