Birthday Week Recap

Grant's week of celebration started last Sunday when the grandparents came over for dinner and cake after his soccer game.

It was a dinosaur cake, of course.

Miles was happy to get into the spirit.

On birthday day Tuesday, we had birthday waffles and opened more presents, including a dinosaur shirt and lots of new dinosaurs. 

On Saturday, G celebrated with his friends at a gymnastics place.

Stomping like a dinosaur:

This giant inflatable mat was a huge hit.

Cake topped off the celebration.

And everyone slept incredibly well. It was a successful week of celebrating G!

Happy Mother's Day

My first handwritten Mother's Day card. Melt my heart.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in our life!

Train Boy

While Grant is off playing with dinosaurs, we often find Miles playing quietly on his own with his trains. He builds elaborate tracks and imagines stories of his trains braving wobbly bridges or crashing into rivers. He can do this for hours.

As passionate as Grant is about his dinosaurs, Miles is equally as passionate about his trains. At the library, he goes straight for the train books and chooses train movies and shows, when given the chance. Usually his big brother controls the TV. Thank God for Dinosaur Train, the ingenious PBS show, clearly written by someone trying make peace with a 2- and 5-year-old.

Grant Is 5!

The anticipation has been high for months for Grant's big birthday. "Will I talk different?" he wondered. "Maybe when I'm 5 I'll weigh 50 pounds!" (He currently weighs just shy of 40.) Other than dramatic changes, he is also expectantly awaiting birthday presents -- dinosaurs, what else? And he can't wait to "walk around the sun" five times at school (a Montessori tradition).

He has changed dramatically in the past year, growing into a talkative, imaginative little boy who can write his own name and tell long, detailed stories with an impressive vocabulary. This year, he made his first best friend at school, has started playing soccer and has developed a complete and total devotion to learning everything about dinosaurs.

Meanwhile, we are wondering what happened to our tiny baby boy, born just yesterday.

Easter

We couldn't have had better weather for our Easter weekend. With temps in the 70s and everything starting to turn green, it finally feels like spring. We have been sleeping with our windows open and enjoying many afternoons outside.

On Saturday, the boys dyed Easter eggs for the first time. 

The Easter Bunny also visited our house for the first time on Sunday morning, bringing books, chocolate...and more chocolate.

After the boys explored their baskets, I went into the kitchen to make something for Easter lunch while Kent ran out to get bagels--our weekend morning tradition. After a few minutes, I realized that Miles was way too quiet in the living room. 

Lesson learned: Never leave Miles alone with a giant chocolate chicken. It was half gone by the time I found him.

Picture time. This was how Miles felt about wearing a tie. It didn't last.

Too much love from brother.

Much better.

 We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for lunch and an Easter egg hunt.

The boys gave lots of love and snuggles to cousin Theo.

After lunch and an outfit change, it was time to hunt for eggs.

 

After the Easter egg hunt, Miles found a quiet spot to eat some jelly beans, which eventually had to be taken away from him. I think it is safe to say that Easter is his favorite holiday.

Dino-Boy

Ever since our visit to the Field Museum in Chicago last December, Grant has been absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs. "I'm really into dinosaurs," he tells us. He talks about them from the time he wakes in the morning until he goes to bed at night. He draws pictures of them and creates elaborate dino dioramas. He only wants to read dinosaur books and watch dinosaur movies.

A recent conversation:
G: "Mom, there's an iguanadon in the house!"
Me: "Oh no, is he going to eat me?"
G: "No, silly, iguanadons are herbivores."

His favorite dinosaurs, like a typical boy, are the scary carnivores like T-rex. But he recently told me that he also like maiasaurus because "she takes good care of her babies."

Swinging