Alexander's 3rd Birthday

Today was Alex's, or Dr. Alexander, or "The Flash's" 3rd Birthday!  Alex goes by several names, and really you never know "who" is going to show up in the moment.  He had a wonderful birthday and said his favorite part of the day was "having my friends come play."

Preschool ended last week, so I decided to have a very small get-together with a few of his preschool friends.  They came over to play and have lunch today.  On a normal summer day here, the kids would have played outside on our swingset, BUT we had our lovely tropical storm blowing through, or I guess by now, a tropical depression, so we had rain, rain, rain (about three inches total they say).

Our party-goers didn't seem to mind, but my playroom did  :)  The kids had a balst.

 The dining room is all ready for the "Cars" birthday lunch bash.

 The Birthday Boy, complete with the same birthday shirt Luke wore LAST year.  Alex has almost caught Luke in clothing.  The hat is from his preschool teacher, Ms. Amanda.  All the preschoolers received birthday hats on their birthdays.  Well, last week, on the last day of preschool, Ms. Amanda had the hats all ready for all the summer birthday babies.  Alex was so excited to FINALLY get his birthday hat.  It's a miracle, and a testament to how much he likes it, that it survived until today.

Lunch, sub sandwiches, pasta salad, Cheetos, and fruit...all of Alex's, I mean Flash's, lunchtime favorites.

 We had two moms cancel, but with the rainy weather, the small group was perfect. 

 Sure, let's put swords down our shirts...

 Luke really enjoyed the party.  There was one other boy his age (there were supposed to have been five five-year-olds), and they had a blast with the Nerf guns.

Waiting for his cake...

 Alex LOVED his cake.

Adeline and Becca...Becca is one of our neighbors, and ironically, we knew them last time we lived here (went to church together).  Another random tidbit is that Becca's dad and Edward happen to be in the same unit.

 This is Alex's favorite friend, Adeline. He talks about her ALL the time, and apparently at preschool, they are quite the pair. He could not wait for her to come to the party. Luckily, he'll see here again soon, as her birthday is next week.

A big bucket of bugs

 

The older boys having a blast,but notice Flash was at the party the whole time.

Thanks for coming to Alex's party...he was one VERY happy little boy.

The Tasmanian Devil Project

Madison worked really hard on her project.  I helped her collect the information, but otherwise, she did the whole project herself.  She learned a lot and did a presentation for Edward and me last night.

Veggies

Well, things are starting to mature in the vegetable garden.

 These beans were ready yesterday.  There are a lot more that will be ready in a few days.

 I staked the beans and planted okra in between rows.

 I still need to get a couple more cages for the tomatoes and peppers. The peas are climbing the trellis.

The cantaloupe need another tall cage to climb.  Bugs always seem to get to these, so I did a lot of research about keeping them off the ground.

 This bed was a mess, but it's looking much better.  Caging the tomatoes and cantaloupe will help a lot.

 The cucumbers are finally starting to grow.  They took a long time this year.

 Cantaloupe

There will be a lot of tomatoes ready this week.

The Tasmanian Devil

Madison has to do an end-of-the-year project to finish first grade.  Her school is a new public school with an international focus.  Each grade level studies an area of the world in addition to all of their regular curriculum, Mandarin Chinese, and general social studies.  First grade studies Australia and New Zealand.  To finish the year, each student has to do a project and presentation.  The topic is of the student's choosing, anything on the area that was studied. When Madison brought this information home, I asked her what she wanted to learn about, and she immediately (without hesitation) said the Tasmanian Devil.  With my master's in library science, she's come to the right person to help with research  :)  She has really, really enjoyed researching the devil, and she's really coming along with her project.  She worked on it quite a bit today.

We found a very cute picture of the Tasmanian Devil, so she printed it and is cutting it out.

This room is the kids' "library."  They have all of their books, art supplies, etc. in here, along with two matching desks.  One desk has their computer, and the other desk has room to do artwork and homework.  She LOVED researching this project...sounds way too much like me  :)

Our kitchen table has become posterboard central.  Stay tuned for the finished project...

Summer

Well, school isn't out yet for Madison, but the kids are pretty sure summer has arrived.

About ten minutes after this, it started to rain, and the kids just kept playing.  It was a nice, gentle rain, and it only did so for about three minutes.  At first, the kids didn't even notice it was raining.

The Garden

We planted our garden about two months ago, and this is how it's coming along so far...

Camping

Edward has been wanting to take the kids camping for a long time, really since he returned from Afghanistan.  The kids and I have plenty of adventures, and he wanted to take them on one too.  Every single weekend he has been able to go, it has been raining. Well, he finally took them last weekend. He did have to switch locations because it was raining in Wilmington where he wanted to go.  He and the kids ended up going near Raleigh.

They told me how much they enjoyed the campfire.

They went fishing, and Alex was the only one to catch a fish.

They had a great time and want to do it again.  Madison said her favorite part was having s'mores.  She was disappointed she couldn't have them for breakfast.  Alex wanted to wear his Flash cape to bed.  Luke just enjoyed throwing rocks into the water.