Food.

I was preparing all these photos I realized most of them were centered around my kids stuffing their faces.

First off though! James took Evan fishing for the first time a few weeks ago. Evan LOVED it. I can't wait until James stops working so much by the end of this month, so they can go more often. I can't take him b/c Drew near a large body of water is uh uh.

When James took Evan to Walmart to get his fishing pole, Evan stopped everyone he passed to tell them, "My Daddy's buying me a fishing pole!"



We got together with my friend Elisabeth. She is Evan's godmother and I was excited because we don't see each other that often. Her son, Alex, is already almost 7 months old. He is so adorable, the eyelashes, the cheeks, oy vey!



Evan yelling "Blast off!" and riding with Ryan into outer space.



Home made pizza night. I promise you that Evan wanted to do this, he just takes it VERY seriously.



Drew wanted in on the olive oil brushing too.



Tomato sauce, maybe Evan IS having flashbacks to his days as a child laborer in a Naples frozen pizza factory.



Drew doesn't quite get what we are doing here, and starts sampling some tomato sauce.



Bring on the cheese.



Bring it.



Bring it!



"Scattering" the pepperoni.






Drew kept making a topping hole in the same spot.




Oh the baby anger that I took the pizza away to put it in the oven!




Here is their pizza! I threw some more veggies on ours.



As a consequence of this now, Evan doesn't like taking a bite of pizza if there isn't pepperoni on it. I finally had to tell him to eat his way to the next pepperoni. He also doesn't accept anything but completely circular pepperonis on his pizza slices. Forget any that were sliced!

James' birthday presents with the card Evan picked out. Notice our lazy, er, Earth-Friendly wrapping. Happy Birthday James! The big 3-8.







Make a wish!

Visit to Virginia and Welcome Noah!

Hello all! Sorry it has been so long for an update. We have been up in Virginia and then all last week we had swim lessons. Life in general has just been very busy. We are enjoying summer though we are stuck inside a little more than we would like due to the heat. James is still working 6 days a week and 12 hour days during the week, but he was able to join us for a few days up in Virginia, which was nice.

I was watching my friend Angie's daughter Aiden a couple of weeks ago. She is 4, but very tall! And very sweet. Here is everyone waiting for the garbage truck.



Drew's new hobby his hitching his shirt up over his head like a hood. He loves walking around like this. He ends up looking quite like a Zombie, walking around with his arms out straight in front of him.





More fun trike time together. Evan was hamming it up, kissing Drew of his own accord.









Drew is very into what goes on with the potty now that Evan is almost completely potty trained. He insisted on wearing underwear a few weeks ago, and I put them over his diaper. He also sits on the potty waiting for things to magically appear in the bowl.





Up in Virginia I had the opportunity to meet Noah, my friend Tina's second son. He was so adorable. There is just something about holding a new baby. So still, so quiet, smelling so sweet.



Welcome to Earth, Noah!



Nate was a good playmate and host.



Butterfly on my Mom's back deck.



Evan enjoying a cup cake.



My cousin Tracy and her kids were here from the Netherlands for the summer and it was great to see them again, if only we could have seen more of them.

Will, center, with his friends.



Sean and Maryn.





The most stunning milestone of the visit, (besides some #2's on the potty,) was Evan finally driving the Jeep. Drew rode along, loving every second of it.



Drew also had fun with a dump truck down the driveway, and he was making noises imitating the Jeep.



Dad put off a trip for a day to enjoy time with the boys. They loved it.



We got back into Raleigh late Sunday night, and the kids were troopers and went right to sleep from the car to their beds. Still being tired the next day of course, Evan fell asleep, which is RARE. I had to wake him up for swim lessons. He was not pleased.