Jedi.. the artistic renderings..

Household Jedi

Saturday mornings are the best...

Two boys, two flashlights and a pair of Boom Whackers (educational music toys) fashioned into DIY lightsabers... let the battles begin...

Jedi Bryce

Darth Meanie

Force Push..
and so it begins....

2nd grade is serious business..

Homework gets a little more serious in 2nd grade....

Visiting Vandy..

It's Labor Day, but Amanda still had classes to teach today, and it was such a beautiful day, so we all went over to campus to drop her off and then wander a bit...

Labor Day-- last rites of Summer...

We threw a Labor Day weekend block party with our neighbors yesterday afternoon.. a water slide, some lots of bikes and tricycles in the cul-de-sac and lots and lots and LOTS of good food.. all a combination for a great time with good friends..

Clone Wars!

The kids were full of pizza and got their popcorn and were all ready to see Clone Wars, the new Star Wars movie!



As a sidenote: our grownup review of the movie-- pretty good! In fact, we're impressed that the computer animated groupings of pixels on the screen were able to make us care more about those characters than the actual flesh and blood actors (namely Hayden Christiansen and Natalie Portman) in the prequels..

A good question...

Watching Attack of the Clones with the boys this morning, in preparation for tonight's Clone Wars movie (they'll be going as part of friend Jake's Birthday party), when Aidan and I had the following conversation:

Me: See, Anakin and Amidala are falling in love.
Aidan: Why?
Me: That's a really good question.

A few standards...

A few standards of life in a house with two growing boys:
1) we're always out of something in the fridge or pantry
2) there's always a potty that needs unclogging
3) Jango Fett is always missing one of his guns (and sometimes his head)...

Star Wars Crazy..

We're a little obsessed with Star Wars around here lately...

First Day of School

I know I've got lots of updating to do from all the fun an frolic of the summer, but I just wanted to get a few of these pictures up from today, the first day of school.. Aidan starts 2nd grade and Bryce kicks off his career with the first day of Pre-K.
For the record, Aidan's an old pro at this First Day thing by now, and Bryce was a trooper. He went right into his classroom, met all his classmates, and had a great day. When it was time for pick-up-- they had just a brief half-day today-- he really didnt' want to leave.
So I think we'll be alright on the school front.

Here are a selection of the pictures.
For a limited time, you can get the full photo-set here

Boys of Summer

With the start of the new school year just a few days away, Aidan and Bryce are soaking up as much of the last bits of summertime fun as they can...

Party all the time..

Aidan turned 7 this week, and the parties seemed to be never ending.. it was more a birthday festival than a singular event. We had a little gathering on the 31st to commemorate his actual birthday.. but the real celebration didn't kick off until the weekend.. first with a visit to Chuck E. Cheese with his good friend Jake and Uncle Ross on Friday..

Playing some skee-ball..
Playing the Firefighter videogame...
Then the big Superman Pool Party bash with all the neighbor and school friends on Saturday..

Followed with a sleepover.. (which mostly just translated to a late night staying up watching Star Wars and eating popcorn)...
Meanwhile... yours truly set to work on the Lego City Police Station.. all 1000 pieces of it..

Happy Birthday, Aidan!

Aidan turns 7 today!
We had a little party for him-- the bigger parties will be this weekend-- but wanted to squeeze in this shot of Aidan with his HUGE new basketball hoop!
Yeah, Daddy will be working on setting that one up for a few hours tomorrow!

If Michael Bay did Disney...

Dispatch from SleepyMama:

Overheard conversation between Bryce and his buddy Zoe, age 5, as they were acting out The Little Mermaid with dolls:

Zoe (in her Ursula voice): "You have THREE DAYS to kiss your true love. Got that? THREE DAYS."

Bryce: "What happens then?"

Zoe: "If you don't kiss in three days, then Ariel comes back to being a mermaid and Ursula catches her."

::slight pause::

Bryce: "Why don't we just blow up Ursula?"

Handsome Guy

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, Aidan said he wants to come to work with me sometime this week. And he mentioned that he wanted to wear a tie when he goes.
Bryce: "Why do you want to wear a tie?"
Aidan: "Because I like to be a handsome guy, Bryce."

Visiting the Garnett Farm

My good friend Bob invited us up to his wife's family farm for the day yesterday. Garnett Farm is in Kentucky, only about 2 hours from Nashville. Bob and his wife Rebecca are living in Virginia these days but they make annual pilgrimages to the family ground during the summer.

So we drove up with the boys and got to spend the day wandering around the farm, seeing and doing lots of cool stuff like riding on the Gator, playing chase with Gus the German Shepherd, picking beans, throwing "Cow Candy" (overripe squash) to the cows, and even feeding some calves.
The boys had a blast! Thanks to Bob, Rebecca and all the family up there for giving us a great day!

feel the rain?

feel the rain?
Originally uploaded by sleepydad

It must be summertime..

Does anything say summertime like this...?

Indiana Bryce

You may remember that earlier in the spring, we mentioned how Bryce has discovered Indiana Jones... well, here's a little photographic evidence.. (notice the bullwhip coiled in his belt)..

Like we said, we've been trying to shield our kids from these pop culture references and iconography.. really!

Happy 4th!

We celebrated the 4th on the 5th, actually, with our friends John and Christie and their kids. The evening was capped off with sparklers and firecrackers in the driveway. The kids were nervous about the loud bangs and sparks at first, so they hid out in the back of John's car.