the mandel 5

After my sessions and the boys' tee-ball game, we headed to Norwalk to Matthew's 8th birthday party at Boomers. Turns out the boys were too little for the batting cages but golf was good enough. Logan LOVED golf. They refused to take off their new baseball "jerseys." Here are the boys with Cindy. Then after the party we went to the Avengers game. Rob and Nathan have season tickets (and have since before Nathan was 2). Rob's friends couldn't use theirs so we all went to the game. We didn't last till the end (and probably missed their biggest comeback victory ever). Today we got free tattoos outside of a local restaurant that was celebrating the opening of a new road that is going to cut our time to Nathan's pre-school, Logan's daycare, Rob's work, and family and friends' houses in HALF. Yay!

Nathan's pre-school had open house tonight. They did a circle time for us and then Nathan showed us all his projects..... Giving Daddy a hug after circle time Can you read his heart? It says, "I love Rob and Daddy." Always a daddy's boy. Nathan's very patient teachers.

Had dinner at Brady's tonight. Yesterday was Jennifer's birthday and Thursday is Kris'. Today is my mom's. She would have been 64 today. Isn't it weird to think that a year ago today, we were sitting at her memorial service? When you have 3 kids and a crazy-busy life, the time just goes by so quickly. Happy birthday Mom! And happy birthday to my current and future sisters-in-law. I love you all!! They KNEW this was going on the blog!! Ha Ha!

I don't normally walk into the camera shop and buy a lens I don't need but on Friday, I did. I really wanted a macro lens for close-ups. I brought it home and as I was putting it on the camera, Rob said, "New lens?" and I said, "Yup." and he said, "Well, you need it for the business." Not really, I need it for the blog! Maybe I'll use it for newborn close-ups. Anywhoo, I got this one. LOVE IT so far. Megan and Nathan wanted to ride their bikes while Logan took a nap so I took it along. And these are some of the macros I took:

You may remember from last year that April is the big birthday month around here - Alex, Blake, Matthew, Kris, Jen.....lots of parties! Today was Blake and Kayla's combined party with their new pool. Yes, it was like 60 degrees out, if that, tonight but it never stops the kids! Nathan and Tommy Kayla - almost 4! Blake and Megan Kari and Lo Tommy being silly for me...he was one of my very first little models when he was 6 months old! birthday cake

Yeah, so it's REALLY windy here this week. And when I went to pick up Megan yesterday, right ahead of me, about 1/4 mile from our house was a FIRE on the hill! At first the flames were huge. I may have overreacted a little. I called Rob to ask him what he wanted me to grab for him if the house was going to, oh, I don't know, BURN DOWN! I gathered the computer hard drives, baby books, cameras, cats, and daughter and headed to the car. I told Megan to go to her room and choose two things. She came downstairs with this: We dove around and took some pictures of the excitement and went home once the flames were gone. Because of the wind, those firefighters were ON it. I've never seen so many in my entire life. They must have called every unit. There are so many houses near where it was. Thank goodness for those firefighters! Here is our neighborhood and the hill that was on fire behind it to show you how close it was. Our closest fire yet. Poor cats....

When I got home from picking up Logan today, Rob was packing a picnic dinner and all the baseball stuff in the car so we could all go to the lake. First we played on the playground (well, the big kids did - Logan and Rob played ball). Then Megan and I went on a "photo walk" while the boys played more baseball. We had to walk down by the water to visit my favorite lifeguard tower. This is how Megan really feels about group shots with her brothers. Here, she is putting up a "shield" so they don't touch her. Poor, poor kids had to pose a little more.... WHAT are my boys wearing, you ask? Baseball pants. We bought them last night. They wore them to bed and wore them all day today. Nice. Thanks, Daddy, for a fun day at the lake!