Halloween 2k12

For Halloween the Moons dressed up as Angry Birds.  I know it's not Halloween yet, but our Ward's Halloween Party was Saturday night, and with a hurricane coming straight at us it's unlikely that we're going to go out trick or treating on Halloween night.  Here are our pictures.  

I asked the missionaries to take a picture of the whole family at the start of the night.  I wish they would have noticed that I had my eyes closed.  Oh well.  

As you can see, we are ANGRY Angry Birds.  Even King Pig daddy.

This is Aidric.

 Mommy and Aidric, two of the three blue birds.

Ciaran thought it would be a good idea to be an Angry Bird Vampire.

We made the twins dress up with bird hair also.  Here's Lachlan with his spiky 'do.

And Aidric with his not-so-spiky 'do.

Beckett and Ciaran at the end of the night.  They were begging to take off their heat trapping costumes ten seconds after this picture, but we had a lot of fun.  No award was given for best costume, but in my professional opinion we would have won.  Thanks to Mom and Grandma Elaine for all the hard work in putting together the costumes!

Dispatches from Utah

Like half of our ward here in New York, Dawnell has escaped New York for the summer to visit family in Utah. Given that I can't take off that long, Dawnell provides me with constant updates on the cuteness that is My Four Sons.  It sounds like they are all having lots of fun. The big guys are having lots of fun taking advantage of all Utah has to offer, like cousins and Mexican food (FYI, my Mexican food cravings are satisfied by El Charrito in Greenwich, CT.  Spectacular stuff)

And rock walls...  There's Beckett above and Ciaran below....

But don't worry, Ciaran quickly got the hang of things and switched it around.  Fearless little dude, considering he's 3 years old and barely fits in the harness.  

Aidric and Lachlan were unable to go rock climbing, because they can't even walk yet, but they are getting there.  Up above is Aidric already hooping it up.  Hey, maybe one of the four will make the NBA yet (um, yea, probably not, but still cute to see them play ball).  

And then Dawnell and the babies played a rollicking game of Peek a Dric!  

So now you've seen the boys just as much as I have lately, give or take a Skype chat or two.  Hope you enjoyed!

Beckett's Birthday (and 1st Soccer Game)

Although I am not much of a player myself, we are an Angry Birds household.  When it came time for Beckett to choose the theme of his 5th birthday party there was no hesitation.  In fact I was emailing with the mother of one of his classmates, giving her save the date information because there were going out of town for a while, when she told me her daughter couldn't wait to join in the Angry Birds fun.  I never mentioned it was an Angry Birds party.  However, Beckett was clearly talking it up at school.

Here is where Chris takes over the talking.  

Here is one of the centerpieces of our party, the "pigyata."  Get it, it's a pinata that is an Angry Bird Pig.

Dawnell went all out with an Angry Birds Cake that looked like a level of the game.  Everything on the entire cake is edible, including the fondant Angry Birds on the side and the walls made of graham cracker cookies.

For Beckett's birthday party at school a couple days later, Dawnell also went all out, making Angry Birds cupcakes.  Pretty awesome looking.

But anyway, back to Beckett's party. Here's Beckett with the Angry Birds blindfold, getting ready to whack the pigyata.  

 And here he is with his awesome balloons.  You'll notice the Angry Birds shirt as well.

Ciaran was also excited for the party.

 

Part of the festivities at Beckett's birthday party was actually playing Angry Birds.  No, not on the phone or the iPad, but in the front yard.  We all had lots of fun throwing Beckett's stuffed animal Angry Birds at the pigs that were set up on the numerous cardboard boxes that Dawnell had painted.  

At the end of the day, Beckett was proud that we were able to demolish his pigyata.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch house, Aidric and Lachlan are growing much quicker than this blog can update.  They are almost 11 months old and super cute.  In the pictures below, the one with the most teeth is Lachlan.  Okay, I'm just kidding.  I'm 90% certain that Aidric is on the right.  Which is confusing, because I usually put him on left.

This is also an edible Angry Bird cake.  Remarkably, this was not for Beckett's birthday party.  Rather, it was for a fundraiser that our church held for the young women's camp.  We didn't get to eat this one, but I'm sure that the auction winner who got this one had a delicious treat.

The day of Beckett's birthday was also his first soccer game ever!!!  Here he is with the guy who was running the show.  Beckett was the star of the week because it was his birthday.  Everyone sang happy birthday to him.

 Here's Beckett with a whole bunch of kids.

Here's Beckett running after the ball and getting pushed.  Most of the game is him running and getting pushed.  The first week they played 8 on 8 with two balls on the field at all times.  I was against this because it seemed a bit silly, but then they played 8 v. 8 with one ball this past week, and it's tough to maneuver the ball in a pack of 10 kids.  So, yea, I guess I'd rather see one ball, but maybe only 5 kids.  Also, they should explain that if you are wearing the same color then you are on the same team.  Beckett had a couple of goals the first week, and would have had about fifty more if one particular kid on his team hadn't kept playing defense on him. 

Here it may look like Beckett's wandering away, but this was actually when they were doing two vs. two practices and he ended up scoring the goal.  The other kids are still over there, but Beckett is celebrating.  Yea Beckett!

His league is preK and Kindergarten all together, so most of the kids are bigger than he is, but he's one of the only kids in the league who understands that passing might be fun, so he's well on his way to becoming the next Leo Messi.

Oh ya

This is why I thought it would be a good idea to have kids close together.

Stitches

Monday night I saw a horrible preview of what the rest of my life with 4 boys might be like.  We had our first stitches.

Beckett likes to help me cook although he won't ever eat any of the things we make.  So Monday night he was draining a can of olives for me for our chef salads.  I'm sure you can all see where this is going.  He asked if he could look inside the can.  I said yes, but hang on just a minute because I was stirring our homemade croutons on the stove.  Then I heard "Ow, Ow!!" and crying.  And I said, "Don't move I'm coming!"  And then there were a lot louder ows and screaming and blood dripping.  He pulled his finger out of the can slicing a nice flap open on the lid.  I rinsed his finger off in case salty olive juice was stinging him, grabbed a towel, started applying pressure and picked him to run over to our neighbors to see if any of them could sit with the other kids while I took him to the wonderful PM Pediatrics.  Just as I was running around the corner with Beckett in my arms our neighbor pulled up and asked if anything was wrong and could she help.  I said yes so she came over to my crazy house in disarray with a messy, blood spattered kitchen and two diaper clad babies roaming the living room floor.

Beckett only had shorts on (it was in the low 70's.  Hooray for spring.) so I grabbed a jacket to throw on him and we jumped in the car.  The nice lady in front of me at the pediatric instacare said we could go first since my shirt was smeared with blood and so was Beckett's chest.  However the receptionist kept trying to get me to put his jacket on him.  "He's freezing." she kept telling me.  I kept telling her, no he wasn't he was shaking because was scared and hurt because he just sliced the h#$l out of his finger.  And I could get one arm in, but it didn't seem worth it to take the pressure off his finger in order to smear the inside of his jacket sleeve with blood when I could just drape it around his shoulder.  Luckily about 20 minutes after the cut we were with a nurse who was irrigating the wound and promising Beckett he got to keep the squirt gun she was cleaning him with.

Beckett did really great.  He cried of course, because it hurt, but he only tried to pull his hand away once. Watching them wiggle the syringe around his finger trying to numb it up looked agonizing so I don't blame him.  We kept him home from school on Tuesday, but he was back today and going strong.  Now if I can just keep him from doing things like making mud and sticking his hand in it, which he thought was a good idea yesterday.  Maybe this springlike weather is a bad idea.  He keeps wanting to go outside and dirty up his bandages.  We'll go back on Tuesday and have the stitches taken out.  And I hope that it is many years before I have to deal with this again.

Resting at home after the ordeal.

Displaying his bandage hand.

Beckett's attempt to take a picture of his blood smeared all over my shirt.

Displaying his wound as he specifically asked for a picture of his stitches.

Here's a nice, gross pricture.

9 Month Appointment

Aidric

Lachlan

The Twinners had their 9 month appointment today.  They were declared, "Very healthy" and also "so cute".  The babies did a size flip flop.  Aidric is the top photo.  He weighs 3 oz more and he was 27 3/4" tall.  Lachlan was 28" tall.  He used to be shorter and heavier.  (No, I didn't mix them up.)  This may be a little deceptive because I did nurse Aidric right before he got weighed and he honestly could have had 3 oz or more of milk in him tummy which increased his weight.  Lachlan had to wait to eat until after his check up so he didn't get an increase in time of weighing.  It was also a good visit because they didn't have to get any shots.

In other baby news, Lachlan has FIVE teeth and I think another one is going to pop through in the next few days.  Poor Aidric has no teeth, but he does have more hair.  They both are crawling great and sitting up.  They are learning to feed themselves and frequently try and steal the puffs off each other's tray even if their own is full.  Aidric is starting to pull up on things so he had to have a bed demotion.

Look, I can stand.....kind of.

The man is always trying to keep you down

Lachlan happily crawling.

 Beckett was happy because he got to bring home Pondus, the penguin from school.  He fed him herring, shared his juice, and snuggled with him in bed.  We also played, "Pondus Away" which consisted of throwing Pondus at someone's head while screaming, "Pondus away!" while the other person tried to punch Pondus out of the air.  I'm sure his teacher would have been thrilled.

Are you enjoying your herring, Pondus?

Ciaran is excitedly planning his 3rd birthday party.  The poor kid got the shaft on 1 and 2 so we're going to do 3 up right.  Even though its not until June he loves to talk about how he wants "a dreamlight, and cake and Thomas".

Get well, Honey

The sign says it all!