Happy Birthday Nate!

Four years ago God delivered us our beautiful son Nate and we celebrated his existence this past weekend! (The first of two birthday parties, this one being held at Grammy and PopPop's, and next weekend we will celebrate again at Nana and Pa's - believe me, he is worth at least two celebrations.) :) It was a pirate party as Nate is THE pirate expert, and thanks to friends and family, he had a fantastic time. Check out the action below.

Here with his homemade Backyardigans birthday cake. That blue icing was mighty tasty!

Argh!
Check out those pirates. There was quite a battle with those foam swords!

Make a wish!

Welcome Albert!

We welcomed our new baby, Albert, the labradoodle, this last weekend. He was introduced to the kids with a little romping in the yard. Both Nate and MariCagle are very excited though a little skittish. Skittish because they quickly found out exactly how pups like to play...nipping at moving objects especially little toes that run away from them. :) So we will be working on breaking Albert of that habit, encouraging him to chew his toys not Nate and MariCagle. In the meantime, we're working on building up the kids' courage with supervised playtime with Albert. MariCagle is taking it pretty hard. She says she is very frustrated with herself for being scared because she loves Albert. So sweet! We are trying to assure her that we will teach Albert not to nip at her. She still loves him though and we're looking forward to many more romps with the little pup. You can check out more about Albert on his blog. Yes, Brandon has created Albert's very own blog as a sort of scrapbook for our new pooch. The link can be found in our favorite blogs list. Enjoy the video and pictures!

Meet Albert!

Nate is able to match Albert's energy. They are great chase partners.

Albert loves his stuffed platypus. So far it's his favorite toy that Nate and MariCagle have picked out for him.

Video experiments...

Brandon has been fooling with our video camera - trying to learn how to edit some of our film. Here is his first try...a some clips of the kids playing at the UF water fountain this past Saturday.

And a shorter one of Nate getting soaked.

Our Weekend

Can you tell that we're busy around here? It seems like I have something new to post every other day!! I am getting much quicker at posting too. :)

We had a great weekend! Brandon and the kids made Mother's Day very special - I was completely spoiled! MariCagle said she had a fun Mother's Day too. :)

The kids also got to participate in another kid's race. This one was called the HERO Run. We fibbed a little putting Nate in the big kid race for K-8th grades since he wasn't satisfied with just the sprint last race. They both ran a 2K route with MariCagle finishing a couple minutes ahead of Nate. (We'll chalk it up to shorter legs.) Despite efforts to point out the importance of doing your best and having fun, their competitive natures still played important motivating roles. MariCagle ran most of the way with her eye on passing the people in front of her. Nate walked a little more but became motivated to run as soon as he noticed someone coming up from behind him. After the race, we took the kids to a fountain on campus to play in. They had a blast cooling off as you can see.

Hope all of you had a great weekend too! Enjoy the pictures!

Check out those pink faces! They were ready for some Gatorade and a cooling off surprise...

Happy Mother's Day!

To all mothers out there, especially our grandmas and aunts...Happy Mother's Day! Nate had a sweet Mother's Day program yesterday at school, and I thought I'd share one of the songs he and his class performed to wish you the very best!

Another Giggler

This video clip features Nate a month or two ago. He and Brandon got guitars and this is their debut performance of an original blues tune. I'm not sure if this foreshadows his future as a musician or a comedian, you be the judge.

Counting down....

Hi everyone. We haven't been up to much of anything in particular these days. Mostly we're counting down...counting down until we get to bring the new puppy home and counting down to Nate's birthday. Both are keeping us busy with preparations, and Nate and MariCagle can hardly contain themselves.

May also marks the winding down of the school year for Nate, MariCagle and me. We all finish up around Memorial day and are looking forward to a lazy summer with many trips to visit family. With the end of the school year approaching, particularly MariCagle's kindergarten graduation, we have become a little nostalgic. Brandon found this video clip from when MariCagle was about 2 years old. It has had us laughing all weekend. Hope it makes you giggle too!