Jake's a DAD!

Okay, he's not in the Guiness Book of Records for youngest dad officially, but Jake's pet snail, the ever-popular Snaily, had babies! The cuteness! We were away for the weekend and when we came home, 3 baby snails were crawling around. Snails have both male and female reproductive parts but, according to our internet research, couldn't fertilize their own eggs. Snaily had been laying eggs like crazy and Spike and I spent quite a while looking for snails outside to make mommies and daddies, but no luck. So unless Snaily had a mullosk booty call, Snaily changed sexes over the weekend and voila--baby snails. They are about a centimeter big and just so cute! I hope they all make it. I thought triplets would be a lot of hard work, but these are okay!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

I believe the word of the day yesterday was "Serendipity". It's one of my favorite words anyway, meaning 'a happy accident'. We were visiting Lainie and Bavan saturday in Connecticut. Weather-wise the week had progressed from from a tornado on wednesday, drenching rain on friday, to a beautiful, warm sunny day on saturday. Bavan has lake rights, which we believed included access to several canoes visible from his house. Long story short, we didn't, but a neighbor drove by seeing our troubles (kids suited up with life jackets and oars, no boat) and lent us his boat for the day! Yahoo. Jake absolutely LOVED rowing, being in the boat, everything. There were a million dragonflies around, which he was trying to catch. Aidan gave it a try (he is a brave guy) and when we got home he said his favorite parts of the day were: When the nice guy let us use his boat, running up and down the stairs and jumping on the bed.
Jake said: THE BOAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In a tragic remark, Aidan said he did not like holding onto the silver bar in the boat when it was hot. So sad. The kid speaks non stop, but he couldn't mention that he was scalding his hands. Poor guy.

Even though Aidan looks 100% miserable in the pictures, he said he really liked being in the boat.

First Lost TOOTH!

FINALLY! Jake's tooth had been wiggling for more than a month when it finally came out in his sleep last week (who knew it could do that?). LUCKILY the tooth fairy caught wind of the event and swung in for a late-night job. In speaking with Ms. Fairy last night we learned that her job is a lot easier these days. She used to suffer quite a bit of back pain back in the day when one tooth=one quarter, but with inflation, she has switched over to single dollars. She's more productive and the back pain is gone! We were even able to talk her into leaving the tooth behind for scrapbooking purposes. What a kind woman! What she wouldn't answer though is what she does with all the teeth that she's collected? Is there a black market for children's used teeth?

Rain, Rain, Tornado, Go Away

What an adventure the last week has been. This summer has been drenched in rain, so when yet another thunderstorm started up last wednesday, I didn't think anything of it. For about an hour or so there was a lot of thunder and lightning (and OH the humidity!) but really, that was it. I even told the boys, "See the storm can't be that bad, the wind isn't even blowing!" Oh how wrong I can be!

Once the wind started picking up and the sky turned black, I got a little freaked out. I was trying desperately to keep my cool so the kids didn't get scared. The wind continued and stronger and stronger and I actually worried that something might fly through the window so I calmly asked the kids to 'hang out' in the windowless hallway. They looked at me a little strange. Sweet Corinna was asleep in her crib this whole time completely unffected by the raging storm outside. It was so strange! Hail had started at this point and I kinda noticed smoke in the yard. I went to check on things and I noticed a lot of downed trees! BIG ones, totally uprooted. Our tent was fine.

This part of the storm was quick, maybe 15 minutes in total. Then everything just stopped and went to survey the damage. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The tent had blown down the birch path (it had been set up since the weekend when a thunderstorm had soaked it and we were trying to let it dry out!) Many, many trees down. Luckily, and strangely, no damage to the house though. When Spike got home from work we all walked around outside. We discovered a sinkhole in the pavement in the driveway, the tent ripped out of the ground with the stakes still in it, and just tons of branches down and many trees sideways. I learned later that a tornado had touched down in Wantage, NJ about 10 miles from here.

Super Sesame Vacation

What a blast we had last week! Such adventure (sorta)! We spent 2 days at Sesame Place (near Philadelphia) then drove up to Tom's River, New Jersey to a little museum called Insectropolis. Holy bugs, batman. After resting for a day we went to the Palisades Center mall for a day of shopping and fun.

The kids were awesome. I think we only had to threaten to "leave the park right now" one time, which is pretty good considering! Corinna was an angel. It's like she was reading the 'How To Be a Good Baby While on Vacation" manual. While at Sesame we splurged on a private cabana...it's $130 of awesomeness. It's private, you get a refrigerator filled with 10 waters, 6 beach towels, a fan, and a safe. Just a nice place to go to change into bathing suits, eat in the shade, etc.... It was crowded compared to last year, but from the word on the street, it's because it has been so very rainy, that the first nice day or so in ages, people just came out in droves. even with the crowds though, I doubt we waited more than 15 minutes for the longest ride line. The water was cold. Poor Jake wanted to go on so many more water rides than he did, but he was just shivering. And Aidan wasn't affected by the cold, which kind of just got Jake jealous or angry or something. Aidan was hesitant to ride the roller coaster at first, but he eventually gave it a try and LOVED it. The smile on his face said it all. And for some reason, the hotel decided to upgrade (FOR FREE!) our reservation from a typical suite to the Deluxe King suite. OMG, it was INCREDIBLE. There was a full dining room table with buffet, pull out couch, kitcheonette, etc...it was so cool. The first night there we actually had friends over who live down that way...with their 2 kids ...the four kids were playing freeze tag in the hotel room and not bothering us..that's how big it was! We all slept pretty well, too. A first. you know what a rotten traveller I am, but I did good! So did Corinna. Really--best-baby-ever!!!

We went to Insectropolis the next day. I earned many mommy points by actually going inside. I thought Jake's head would explode. Within 10 minutes of being there he was holding a tarantula (which they don't usually let you do, but they let Jake--I guess they could read it in his face). So what do they do after he holds a million other creepies? They give us--for free--a shedded tarantula exoskeleton, a live catepillar, and a moth sack that will grow into this giant white moth for us to set free. Apparently Jake made quite the impression on them. You can't imagine his face during the whole thing. My chatty patty was speechless. Aidan hung in there, too. He was creeped out by touching anything, but the rest of it was cool enough for him.

I *love* this vacation!

Corinna turned 6 months old while we were away. Poor girl also got an ear infection and fluid in one ear in combination with teething. So that explains a wee bit of the fussiness since we've been home.

more pictures to come!

Family Portraits

We finally got our family portraits done professionally. Now I usually am 100% anti-Wal-Mart, but we gave them a shot and I'm really happy with the results. I got a CD with the images so that is cool as anything. I can't wait to get scrapping! But here's the 'highlights reel'. The boys were good, Corinna wasn't her smiliest, but I think she was still adorable.

Birthday Boy Turns 6!

Oh my goodness. Mr. Jakey Man turned 6. It's unreal. How did this happen so fast? How did our little baby chunky monkey turn into a 6 year old string bean with loose teeth and kindergarten under his belt!!?? When asked, Jake's 6 favorite things about being six are:

1) Building Martian Matter aliens by myself

2) Just being able to look for bugs by myself

3) I like to draw bugs

4) I like my bug sticker book

5) "You (mom) finding a spider on my rope swing and being brave and taking it off"

6) I got toys

We celebrated by opening presents in the morning while Spike was still home. Heading off to toys r us with Grandpa and siblings to pick out a toy with his gift card and coupon. He got to wear the crown and hold the balloon around the store and LOVED it. A few Burger King happy meals and the afternoon was a hit. His bug bash is being held next weekend.

Aidan did really well yesterday with Jake getting all the attention. We had gotten him a few little gifts so he could open something also. For being 3, I think he did great. Corinna is on her way to crawling! She's mastered the butt in the air and wiggling part...it's just the moving forward part that's tricky for her...But probably won't be long now.