5!

It's hard to believe that Rudy is FIVE! He's been counting down until his birthday for months and was so excited that his party finally came. I think he'd almost forgotten that he wasn't actually five until his birthday day, rather than his party day!

As requested, we had birthday pancakes and a special birthday donut from Duck Donuts.

Legos from Cooper:

A fancy new suitcase from Nana and Popsie:

And a 7" tablet from James and I! Rudy calls it his "touch screen" and LOVES it! We loaded it with about a dozen free apps, and managed a good combination of reading/math activities and fun games (Angry Birds)!

Fathers Day Surprise

The boys worked very hard on their fathers day gifts this year. We made book ends for the grandfathers and for James. I cut the wood (using power tools, and without any injury to anyone!) and the boys nailed them together and painted them. They also came up with these poses for the frames, to look as if they're holding up the books!

The first two are the ones we used for the gifts, but the other ones make me laugh too!

The dads getting new shirts that say "I flew Jockeys Ridge," after a successful hang gliding lesson.

Brady and Rudy picked out their own cards for James this year. (We spent a loong time looking at cards!)

Happy guys!

Beach

We went to the beach late in the afternoon on Friday and Saturday. The timing was beautiful - after the hottest part of the day, with plenty of ocean breezes. The boys are starting to warm up to the water again; it always takes them a few visits every year. They still don't actually want to get all the way in, but we managed to convince them to 'let' us pull them on the boogie boards, which is a short step from getting them to actually ride in some of the waves...

I guess I remember loving this as a kid too. I don't mind being sandy, but this is just too much for me to think about anymore!

Sleeping in the fort

After insisting on sleeping in their fort in Kathy's office:

the boys got some early morning snuggles with Nana:

Birthday eggs

We have a family tradition of birthday pancakes (pancakes with sprinkles and food coloring of the birthday person's choice) around here. Since James' birthday was on Friday and Rudy's on Sunday, we decided to mix it up and have sausage and eggs on Friday. Rudy still wanted to make them special, so we made birthday eggs. Wow - those are some bright eggs!

We picked up Brady and Oma and Papa's and then headed down to the OBX that afternoon. We had a good time at the beach and a great steak dinner before James got to open his presents.

That's a lot of candles!