4th Birthday Boy

Ready to open his gifts

He looks so old right here!

A new glove from Erin and Todd (he took it to bed with him that night)

Enjoying his birthday song

Twinsies

Sambo had a great birthday all-around.  On his actual birthday he went mini-golfing and bowling with a few of his friends and had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  It was a boys-only night--Sam and 2 of his football-coach friends came with their sons and partied together.  The following day we had his family party.  Sambo's custom menu of hot dogs and chips was pretty easy to put together :)

As a newly-minted 4-year-old, Sammy is just great.  He is still a sweet, sensitive boy.  He likes to hug as much as he likes to play rough.  He'll hockey-fight one minute and the next stop and say, "I just love you, Mom."  He reads everything and makes up what he can't figure out.  He counts to 100 and can count by twos and tens.  His aptitude for sports trivia is becoming evident--not sure if I should credit that to Daddy or Opa in the gene pool!  He is pretty patient with his assertive older sister and his rough-and-tumble baby brother.  Since Sam and I are both 2nd in birth order, it doesn't surprise us that Sammy is pretty mellow and easy to get along with.  We 2nd children are like that :)

This fall he'll be busy with preschool, Sunday school, and AWANA.  Life really opens up when you are four!

Heights and Weights for Westie Boys

I must record this somewhere so I can reference it again someday.

The boys both went to the doctor on Friday.  Sambo had his 4-year visit, and Cal had his 15-month.  Sambo was 3 feet, 5 inches tall and weighed 40 lbs (almost 41).  Calvie was 32 inches tall and weighed 24 lbs (almost 25).  Big beefy boys :)

Sambo is 4!

Oh, my sweet Sammy boy...where does the time go?

Just a few weeks old

I am one!

Now 2...

and 3!

More to come about Sambo's birthday party and all the things he is doing these days :)

First Tooth

I have kids losing teeth AND kids teething...

Anne learned at her last dental check-up that she had 2 loose teeth.  I had no idea.  She has talked about wanting to lose a tooth for the past year, so any time she told me something was wiggly, I was not inclined to believe her.  Guess that backfired.

She spent the afternoon at Oma's today.  As Anne tells it, she was playing horses with her friends Nic and Lucy.  She had a jump rope in her mouth as her bridle.  When Lucy came to remove the bridle, the tooth came out with the rope and promptly fell in the grass, never to be seen again.  Oma says Anne was not sad or upset about this.  Anne matter-of-factly told me that the Tooth Fairy is not coming tonight because she does not have the tooth to give her, "but she will come next time when I lose my other tooth."

Eeeeew, bloody socket!

Getting that scraggly, big-kid smile

Horse Racing and Your Five-Year-Old

I feel the need to explain why we would take our 3 young children to a race track for "family time". 

Anne has been interested in horses for over a year now.  It started as a "My Little Pony" and unicorn thing, but she quickly moved to real horses as her main interest.  We get horse books from the library and point out horses when we are in rural areas, but the real boost came in May with the running of the Kentucky Derby.

In preparation for the race, Opa had told the kids a bit about the Derby and some of the things they would see.  Anne knew there would be horses and the crowd would sing a song.  They looked at the list of horses and each picked one.  Anne chose Golden Soul, Opa chose Revolutionary, and Sambo chose Orb.  We watched as the horses went to the starting gate, everyone sang "My Old Kentucky Home" and the race began.  To our amazement, the kids and Opa had picked the top 3 finishers!  This helped seal the deal on horse racing being a fun, exciting thing for the kids.

In the following weeks, as we waited for the Preakness and Belmont Stakes, Opa took it upon himself to teach Anne about the Triple Crown.  She was enamored with the idea, and most enchanted with the legendary Secretariat.  All of a sudden she's watching black and white YouTube clips of the 1973 Belmont Stakes and learning all kinds of facts about "Sec" (as she lovingly calls him).

She has now read several Secretariat books, seen the feature film about his life, and sleeps every night with a plush Secretariat, complete with blue-and-white checkered racing hood.  She calls herself Ron Turcotte (the jockey) when she rides her bike and is secretly glad that the horse who always came in second was named Sham, which conveniently sounds like Sam. :)

So all of this led to us spending a Sunday afternoon at the racetrack.  The kids were excited to pick their horse in each race, stand close to the track, watch the "winner's circle", and just be around a lot of animals.  They don't know anything about gambling or betting--just that it is fun to watch those big horses run!

And they're racing!  Sam, Cal, Anne, and Secretariat

What, your horse doesn't eat Kix with you?

June Catch-Up

Anne started t-ball.  It was SO COLD on the first night!  The boys wore winter hats.

Calvin was super-excited to watch Sam mow the lawn.  He climbed up there all on his own.  Yeah.

Workin' with the boys on fielding ground balls.  I would guess there were 50 kids playing t-ball, but Anne was one of only 10 girls or so.  She held her own, though!

Silly boys in matching shorts

Playing "pony wash" and "car wash" with soapy water

Baby bed-head

We spent Father's Day with Oma and Opa at Canterbury Park watching the horses race.

Cal was there, too.  He has a love/hate relationship with that hat.

Big kids got pony rides

Plod, plod, plod in a circle....

They got their faces painted

They watched the "call to the post" up close and personal.  Two months later and they still talk about that day and ask when we can go back.  We highly recommend it!

Big kids and Daddy slept in a tent in the backyard.  If a thunderstorm hadn't come through, they would've made it all night.

The excitement of city workers painting the crosswalk on our corner!

Our furry cousin visited for a day while Will and Adrienne were on vacation.  Anne was psyched to have someone to boss around all day.

Sambo all set for roller hockey.  I could die from the cuteness.