Vacation: Part One

We were in Canada last week and had an awesome time. We stayed with Matt's younger brother Greg in Toronto. Greg and Ange have a beautiful house with a swimming pool. The kids couldn't get enough of swimming. Jon and Allie came down from Ottawa with their four girls and we had everybody at Greg's one afternoon. It was so much fun. There are nine cousins now. Jon and Allie have 4 girls: Talia is 9, Claire is 6, Jacinta is 3 and Maeve is 7 months. Then there's our three. And Greg and Ange have 4 month old twins Kayla and Kyan. Chris and Katie don't have any kids yet, but there were plenty of neices and nephews for them to borrow.

In the pool, the 3-year-olds were all about the gear. Check out Michael with Uncle Chris and Jacinta with Allie--they are sitting in rafts wearing water wings. Jacinta has goggles and an inflatable killer whale and Michael has a water blaster. Too funny.

Ange was more low key with Kayla, although I got her to try on the water sling I borrowed later. Someone probably has a picture of me wearing Justin in the pink camo water carrier--it was surprisingly useful and I think Ange will be buying one. I'll get some more use out of mine this summer, although pink is not Justin's color.

Inside was Babies Central. Here are Kayla, Kyan, Justin and Maeve.

Tummy Time x 4 or How to Make 4 Babies Cry:

I love these last two pictures. It's not that they're great quality or anything, but they totally capture what it was like in the kitchen with brothers and cousins galore:

Proper Attire

for viewing the local fireworks show. For the record, I made Michael wear jammies because I suspect he'll fall asleep on the way home. Luke, however, chose to wear his all on his own. He also added the sparkly thumb ring and suggested they bring the stuffed dragons. Some days Luke seems like he's on his way to adolescence and some days he's just a silly little five year old boy! Thank goodness.

The J-man

Flirtin' with the camera and hangin' with the ladies.

Saucer Babies

Well, technically, Justin is in a jumperoo, not a saucer and the only picture I could find of Michael is blurry, but aren't they cute?

Safety City

For the past two weeks, Luke has attended Westerville's Safety City every afternoon. They rode around a miniture town on tricycles to learn the rules of the road. They also learned about fire safety, 911, poison control, gun safety, water safety and they memorized their addresses and phone numbers. Luke absolutely loved the program even though he didn't know any other kids there. On Friday, Luke graduated along with 180 other children! I can't believe that they called every child's name, but they did. Here is Luke getting his Safety City diploma.

Swimming lessons

Both Luke and Michael finished two weeks of swimming lessons today. I have to say that I am impressed with both of them. They were both the smallest and youngest in their classes. Neither one of them passed their level, but both made amazing progress. Luke went from not even wanting to put his head under last week to doggie paddling, back floating and tooling around underwater by the end of this week. Michael finally learned how to blow bubbles and was the hit of his class. He had all of the instructors wrapped around his finger and just had a great time. Michael even went down the slide by himself, which I somehow missed on video, but I did get Luke on the slide and Michael fetching dive sticks without actually dunking his head under.

A boy and his monster trucks

Same Outfit Pic

Justin's Baptism

Justin was baptized today by Deacon Campbell at Immaculate Conception parish. Our good friends Mike and Michelle Dougherty are Justin's godparents. We're godparents to their youngest son Benedict. Larry and Joyce Masek also came to the baptism to help wrangle the rest of the kids. We're godparents to Larry and Joyce's son Mark and they're godparents to Mike and Michelle's son Thomas. And Mike and Michelle are godparents to Larry and Joyce's daughter Maria. Confused yet? I think that it's easiest just to say that we're all family. Justin slept through the baptism and all of the other kids were great. We came back to our house where we joined by yet more godparents (Michael's godfather, Manuel) and friends and had a lovely afternoon that I somehow didn't get any pictures of.

Justin getting ready to get dressed.

I think the seventy dollar outfit has finally paid for itself after thee baptisms.

Larry with Mark and Thomas. Joyce was busy taking pictures and holding the partially sucked lollipops of Luke, Michael and Maria.

Justin didn't even wake up when the water was poured over his head.

Mike, Michelle, Thomas, Benedict and Justin.

Four of the godsiblings: Luke, Maria, Thomas and Michael

Our first family photo.

Happy baby.

Luke and Caleb's Birthday Party

Luke's birthday is May 28th and his best friend Caleb's birthday is May 30th, so Caleb's mom Ali (knowing that we would have a newborn) generously suggested that we throw a joint party this year. I'm so glad she did! Ali is a spectacular planner and has such amazing ideas. She took care of almost everything. All Matt and I had to do was buy the food! The party's theme was knights and dragons. We rented a shelter house at Blendon Woods Metropark--which I highly recommend. It was a great set-up. Every kid got a cape and real wooden sword. There was a dragon hunt and a castle cake and loads of fun! Here are some of the pictures, most of them taken by Ali.

The shelter house.

Sir Luke .

Sir Caleb and Lady Daniela.

Lady Jaden.

Even Little Lady Lola wore a cape.

The fearsome dragon.

Sir Luke attacks the dragon.

Sir Michael takes his turn.

But the dragon was resilient. It took whack from David, Caleb's dad, to sever the dragon's head. His body went flying---right into Alyssa. Still looking for a picture of that!

How Justin spent the party.

Cake time!

Perhaps the green icing was a mistake.

A pair of happy five-year-old knights.

Thanks Graham Family for helping us to throw a fantastic party!

Luke is 5!

Yesterday was Luke's fifth birthday. His party was today and I'll post about that once I've begged some pictures off my friends because I didn't get very many! Yesterday was pretty low key by comparison. Luke got some prehistoric animal figures, a lunchbox and swim goggles from mommy and daddy, a razor scooter from Grandma Carole and these from Poppy and Nan:
Poppy made the wand himself from a branch off the tree in his yard! Thanks Poppy, we love it!

Justin smiles.

At the Beach

It was hot today, so we went to Delaware State Park and hung out at the beach.

How Justin spent the afternoon.