Happy 7th Anniversary to us!

Today marks our 7th wedding anniversary (and this fall will mark 10 years since we have been together). Here are two photos from June 29, 2001 -- perhaps some of you in the bridal party are reading the blog...

Connell Meets MN Twins Pitcher Scott Baker

Ok, so Ray got to meet him, too. Ray and Connell went to the Twins Pro Shop this noon to get a couple of baseballs autographed by Scott and Ray took this photo with his phone. It was just by chance that I had dressed Connell in a "baseball" shirt this morning since I had no inkling of their plans. Scott Baker is having a great year as a starting pitcher this year (according to Ray since I have yet to actually watch a game!)

At the Mall With Gavin

We had plans today to meet our friends Rachel (mom) and Gavin (son) at a park in Edina. Unfortunately, it rained and so we opted to go to Southdale instead. The boys stomped on the Reactrix screen and played on the merry-go-round, had snacks and played at the arcade for a while. Here are a couple of cute photos of the three of them..

(birthdays --- Connell - Aug '04, Gavin - Sept '05, Liam - June '06)

Connell's Room Make-Over

I finally got to redoing Connell's bedroom and he decided he wanted a music theme (it took weeks to land on one although we discussed different sports and wild animals, etc). He has always been somewhat fascinated with music (two of his favorite shows over the years have been Little Einsteins and the Backyardigans both which focus on music). I finally got to painting the walls yesterday while the boys went to the zoo and played outside with daddy. You can see that I framed sheet music from some old piano books I had for the walls. I used music fabric to make pillows. I got some little fake statues of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, etc. from a thrift store for his dresser and I painted his lamp shade with music notes (that lamp was a thrift store find as well as some other decorations such as the bugles, violin, candle holder). I even made his black clock look like a music note! I sewed the curtains from a twin-sized sheet that has a stripe that matches the burgundy walls. Sorry that the lighting is bad in the photos, but the darkness you see behind the curtains is some cardboard that we use to help keep out some of the light since he has a window facing straight west (you can imagine how hot it gets in there on summer nights!)

Chalk Obsession

The boys adore coloring with chalk on the driveway. While Liam was napping this afternoon, I drew a wheel/pie and I kept dividing it into more and more pieces and then Connell wanted to color each section a different color. It turned out very pretty. It is the most gorgeous day here today -- high 70s and not humid at all and very sunny.

Connell had his first visit to the dentist today and he did really well although he has a cavity in one of the back molars. We need to go back next week "to get his tooth fixed" and I am a little nervous to see how that goes. We aren't sure if it is just something that happened by chance or if I have let the kids have too many suckers in their lives (the thing is that given all of Connell's allergies, the only real sweet besides Oreos and frozen soy dessert he can have are suckers and so it isn't strange to have one a day or sometimes two - I'm hoping that isn't the culprit and maybe with a little better brushing that we can avoid future cavities.)

On the phone with daddy

While Ray is in Las Vegas for a trade show Tues-Fri this week, we are trying to keep busy and yet stay sane. Last night Liam wanted to talk to daddy when he called, but ended up listening more than talking. Connell refuses to talk on the phone to this day.

Scooter --- Times Two

Our birthday presents to the boys this year were scooters (even though Connell's birthday isn't until Aug 6th, we gave it to him early so that he can get some use out of it this summer). The boys love riding them although Connell isn't loving his particular model quite yet. Connell likes the simplicity of riding the ones with the two wheels in the back for balance. Since those models say through age 4 and he is almost 4, I decided to get the one for ages 5 and up for him. It only has one wheel in front and one in back which requires a bit more balance. I think that he is improving and will love it before long!

A New Look

I painted an accent wall midnight blue in our master bedroom and then bought a new comforter set to match. I made the curtains out of the sheet set in the comforter set as you can see from the picture -- I love the pattern although each swag was a little putsy to cut out and sew the lining, etc (there are 5 swags across the window). I made the front 5 pillows, too. (the others were the pillow shams from the set and the pillow cases from the set!) A few thrift store finds for the wall and voila!

Our Baby Is Two Years Old!

Liam turned two today! Keeping with our tradition to not have birthday parties for our children (past their first birthday), we simply got a little cake at Target and found some old party hats from a past celebration and voila! He was so proud to have blown out his candles by himself.

Liam is just starting to really talk (same age that Connell did) and so he constantly analyzes whether people are girls or boys and has to tell Connell when he is doing something that he shouldn't be doing. We realized that when Connell was this age we had a 2 month old and so we really didn't get to enjoy what a fun, cute age it is. When the true "terrible twos" set in, it won't be quite as cute!

Preschool Program

The preschool kids ended the year with a short singing program yesterday morning. Since there are about 160 kids in the preschool, they create 6 different program times so that only about 32 kids are involved in each. We watched both Connell's class and one other class sing. Then there was a picnic afterwards (although we had to eat indoors due to rain). (Connell is the third from the left in the official St. John Neumann preschool t-shirt which we thought that all the boys would be wearing -- not a single other child worn his/hers! And of course all the girls were decked out in their spring/summer dresses. Sorry the lighting was bad and the picture ended up pretty dark although with Connell's pasty white complexion, he almost glows in the dark! Of the 16 in Connell's class, only the girl in the white dress is younger than Connell and there are some very large gaps in the ages of the kids -- for instance several of these kids are 10 months older than Connell is. With Connell's size, he really does fit right in though so we are happy about that.)

Ahoy Mate!

So I painted our master bathroom and decorated it in a maritime theme. As usual, I bought all the decorations at thrift stores and dollar stores. I especially liked the little caddy that I put above the toilet and put the extra toilet paper rolls and kleenex into. A few of the lighthouses didn't end up getting into the photos, but there are several in there. I know you are getting sick of the style of valance, but at least the different fabric combos makes it look a little different from bathroom to bathroom. I have now completed the bathroom redecorating project as our fourth bathroom was newly sponge painted by Ray the summer before Connell was born.

Happy Boys

The boys are enjoying the nicer weather. Here is a photo from Sunday as they are ready to play outside!