Play Ball!

Aidan had his first T-Ball game today. He got a hat and shirt with the logo of his team (the "Sounds" after Nashville's local Triple-A club) :)

Aidan was first up to bat and got a clean single in his first go. Then, despite some good coaching from one of the other dads down the first base line, on the next hit, he ran straight for the rolling ball, hoping to field it. That ball was called foul, so he went back to first. With the next crack of the bat, he ran straight for third.

Well, it was just the first game. :)

He was more disappointed with his performance in the field-- he wasn't able to field any of the balls that were batted his way. But then, every ball was basically followed by a brigade of kids chasing after it, falling on top of it, all in a cloud of dust and dirt. He'll get the hang of it.. and his coach, Doug, mentioned that they'd have to work on keeping everyone in position so everyone has a fair shot at fielding a ball.

Oh, and he's wearing #3-- we explained to him after the game that #3 is a pretty auspicious number to wear...






Here are a few more pictures from the ballgame:

Dad, it's hot out here.

Aidan's first hit!

Dad gives some fielding advice.

Visiting Cousins!

Aidan and Bryce got to spend a few days playing with their cousins, Conor and Megan, visiting from Minnesota for a long weekend:

T-Ball

Aidan had his first T-Ball practice this afternoon.
Some of the kids clearly understand what the game is all about.
And, this being 4 and 5 year olds, a great many of them don't have any idea!

Aidan was, naturally, in the latter group.
He did a pretty good job of hitting the ball of the tee...
and then, instead of running to first, he ran toward the shortstop.
Beautiful!

Coming home, climbing out of the van, he proclaimed to his Mama,
"Oh yeah, I'm a good baseball player."

Broccoli!

Tonight at dinner, Bryce asked for some Broccoli (yes, I know; I can't explain it either; the boy will eat just about anything!).

When we asked Aidan if he'd like some Broccoli, he launched into a protracted explanation of why he would not be having any broccoli tonight. This main points were:

1) "I don't like Broccoli."

2) "I'm allergic to it." (I think someone at school may be allergic to milk or peanut butter or something, so now he's decided that the allergy ploy is a good way to explain why he won't eat something.)

and last, but not least:

3) "If I eat Broccoli, it'll make me turn all green!"

Easy Riders

See Bird City

Aunt Patty took the boys on an outing to Cheekwood yesterday-- it was a regular 'Birdhouse Bonanza'!

"Don't I look cool in my booster?"

As promised, here's that photo of Aidan's first ride in his new booster seat.

(photo taken on 5/20/2006)

Graduation

"It's my graduation day" Aidan said to me when he got up and started getting ready to go to school this morning.
Today was the last day of pre-school for Aidan and Bryce. But for Aidan, this was the last day at the little YMCA pre-school in Brentwood before he heads off to Kindergarten in the fall, so they had a little ceremony today for all the "Giraffe's" (young 5's) and "Gecko's" (the older 4's-- Aidan's class)...

Booster!

Well, Aidan has graduated from his car seat to a Booster seat! And no one was more excited about this than the man, himself.
Last night, we were talking to Aidan about wishes. His mom plucked a fallen eyelash from his cheek and asked him to make a wish. He asked, "What's a wish, Mama?"

After his mom explained, he said, sheepishly "I wish for a Booster".

Yeah, that about had me in tears, too.

So what did we do this morning-- make plans to go to the store. Armed with a little research from Consumer Reports, Mama had positively identified the make and model that we had to have. So we all piled into the car and headed to Target.

Thankfully, they had one in stock-- we had been working on him a little bit as we made our way through the store, to prepare him in case there were none to be had. But sure enough, there it was.. and Aidan couldnt' get us out of that store fast enough once we had that thing in our hot little hands!

So there I am in the Target parking lot, pulling the booster out of the box-- I practically had to box-out to keep Aidan from grabbing it from me-- and putting it together (some very minor assembly required, but thankfully, no tools). And in no time flat, Aidan had himself setup on his new booster in the way-back seat of the van, all buckled in himself and grinning from ear to ear.

And on the ride home, he asked us repeatedly "Don't I look cool in my new booster?"

[I snapped a picture with my camera phone-- so now if I can just figure out how to get that picture from the phone to my computer, I'll post it here..]

Happy 2nd Birthday, Bryce!

Spring Sing

A few pictures from the "Silly Spring Clean" program at Aidan's and Bryce's pre-school last week...


Aidan's class (the "Geckos") played recorders (and Aidan got a little stage fright and asked for his Mama to come sit nearby)


















... but he had a good time in the end.













Then Aidan and the rest of the Geckos looked on while the other classes came up to the stage...













including Bryce's class, the "Crickets," who sang "Rubber Duckie"

Fun at the Zoo

A couple of pictures from Aidan's class trip to the Nashville Zoo..

Note from Mama

Attention! Attention!

OK, folks. Here are some upcoming dates for our little stars that you might want to know about.

THIS Saturday, May 6--
Spring program at school. Starts at 9:30 a.m. Come see Aidan sing "Heigh-ho, It's Off to Work We Go"--OK, well, come see him look freaked out, put his fingers in his ears, and yell for me. It's still cute! And Bryce's class will come tearing in in their cribs as usual.

Wednesday, May 24--
Aidan will have his Pre-K Graduation. Starts at 1:00 pm. I don't think this is a gowned pomp and circumstance, but it will probably still make me wretched and weepy. Come bolster my spirits and bring booze. (Just kidding.)

Love,
Mama

Oh brother...

The Easter Bunny-- he's very smart!-- he brought Aidan and Bryce Buzz and Woody dolls!

Happy Easter!

The Back Yard

More House pics

More pictures from our tour of the new house:

The Family Room (with Charlotte, our realtor)














More Family Room














Breakfast 'nook' (but it's a nook in name only)














The Kitchen (with me, impatiently waiting for the picture-taking to end and the contract-writing to begin!)














From the kitchen

Here comes Peter Cottontail!

Bryce and Aidan had a good time dying Easter Eggs this afternoon!

More House Stuff

Still house-obsessed this morning.. so here's a good picture of the exterior:



And here are the floor plans (thanks to the Beazer website)...

The View from the Chopper

In case you're wondering, from looking at this picture, if we just bought an empty lot.. you can rest easy, friends.. obviously this satellite image was taken before the new house was even built. The sellers built the place in April 2004, so it's truly just a couple of years old...
And despite my best intentions, as you can see I am, in fact, buying another house with a drainage ditch running across the back of the property.. but this one is much more scenic than our current one.

House news!

We've got some big news this morning..

We put an offer on a new house yesterday evening and this morning, it was accepted! So, if all goes well, we'll be moving into the new house in mid-July (the seller's are building a new house, hence the lenthy wait before closing-- but that's fine with us.. gives us plenty of time to work on selling our current house.

Pros-- about 700 more square feet, a great floor-plan, and an awesome yard just a short walk away from the neighborhood pool-- and best of all-- neighbors with TONS of kids Aidan's and Bryce's ages!

Cons-- Aidan had his heart set on a house with "two garages" (i.e. two garage doors).. this house has a garage built for two, but alas only one door. This afternoon, when we were showing him pictures of the house, he saw the door and said "But I told you that I wanted two garages!"

8 1/2 minutes of downpour

This just to let everyone out there know that, after about 8 1/2 minutes of torrential downpour today-- with reported tornadoes spotted in various spots around Middle Tennessee-- we've checked in with members of the family here in the area and all are safe and sound.

It was an unfortunate way to end an otherwise sunny and warm (in the mid-70's) afternoon in downtown Nashville.

The Great House Project

Today, it was books, books, books!
As some of you may know, we're preparing to move.
Haven't found a new house yet, but we put our current house on the market yesterday and have been, over the course of the last few weeks, going room to room, clearing and cleaning out closets, bookshelves, the garage, the back-yard.. the works.

Today, with many thanks to Aunt Patty for coming and keeping the boys busy, we made progress on the last major milestone of the project-- the downstairs bookshelves. We're sending out 5 boxes of books to a local used bookstore. Any that they don't take are going straight to Goodwill. And what remains on the shelves will be packed away to move with us to the new house...

Outer Space

The other night, at bedtime:

Aidan: Mama, have you ever been in outer space?
Mama: No.
Aidan: Me neither.
(silence)
Aidan: I don't want to wear a helmet when I go.

Crawlin' Tall Revisited..

A little blast from early last year... hopefully, we'll be able to put together some more of these little videos...
[Note: the video is pretty large (about 20MB), so depending on your network connection where you are, it may take a while to load)...

New Gadgets

Because it's really all about the pictures....

a little evidence of Aidan's handiwork with the 'PhotoBooth' effects on Gramma and Grampa's new computer...


And Mama and Daddy got a new little digital camera, a Canon SD450, and Bryce was very interested to see how he looked in the viewfinder..

See me in the camera!

Gramma and Grampa got a fancy new computer this week-- an iMac with a little camera planted in it (see diagram at left).
Aidan spent a good portion of this afternoon taking pictures of himself on it and laughing endlessly while we were trying to figure out how to start a video chat with Mama who was back at our house...
Photobooth, a seemingly trivial little program that lets you use fun-house effects on the pictures while you're snapping them... well, I think we got Dad's money's worth out of it just in the couple of hours that Aidan spent howling with laughter at images of himself with an elongated head or psychedelic rainbow colors...

"Bice"

Bryce started saying his own name last week...
I ask him "Who am I?" and he gets a big grin and says, with a bounce, "Dadd-ie!"

Then I ask him, "Who are you?" and he thinks for a second... and then he says "Ice!"
That was last week.
In the time since then, he's added the 'B'.. so now he answers, with puffed out chest and a giant smile "Bice!"

Roll-on!

Aunt Patty and Gramma took Aidan roller-skating this afternoon. Aidan really enjoyed it... he got some bright yellow skates and he did really well, even skating by himself on the carpet by the end of the afternoon!

Pancakes!

Well, it's Monday, but Daddy's home from work today, so we made pancakes this morning, and Bryce helped with the stirring...

Sheriff Bryce

Bryce put on the cowboy outfit this afternoon, pretending to be Woody from Toy Story, and galloped around the downstairs on his trusty steed, bulls-eye...

More snowman...

A few more pictures from this afternoon with the snowman.
(Bryce got pretty fussy and decided to go inside after we took the first picture, but Aidan decided to stay out a bit longer and take a few more):

Snowman Saturday!

After a couple of false-alarms regarding snow storms here the last few weeks (the boys have had TWO snowless snow-days from school so far this winter), we finally got about an inch of snow here in middle Tennessee this morning... so the boys got up, ran right out and we made a snowman... then, all wet and cold, we went back inside to have some lunch and hot cocoa!