The Nut House

For Josh's final birthday hurrah, we took the kids to this crazy place called Monkey Joe's after we'd all recovered from the Bug Ball. Monkey Joe's is filled with huge inflatable slides and bounce houses, and as you can imagine, Josh loves it. I max out after about an hour of Monkey Joe's, and thankfully on Saturday the kids were exhausted at that point too.

Monkey Joe's also has a few inflatable things for little kids, although Molly liked the big slides.

Here's Chris being a good parent. It wasn't easy to wade through the swarm of kids and climb up to the top of the slide holding Molly.

The Bug Ball

We celebrated Josh's birthday tonight at the much-anticipated "Bug Ball" at the botanical gardens. The "bug party," as Josh calls it, was really a fundraiser for the gardens that was a great time for kids and adults. The kids were all dressed up like bugs, hence the ladybug and grasshopper. Molly refused to wear the antennae.

Both kids seemed enthralled with the dancing (complete with a DJ and colored lights) but weren't interested in dancing themselves. Here's Josh watching the scene and Molly running away from it. I think the girls dressed up like bugs must have reminder her of those women dressed up like bunnies at the botanical gardens' Easter party.

We got to the party too late for the butterfly release, but we did find some butterflies in the orchid conservatory.
The kids were up so late we decided it wouldn't matter if we had a drink while the kids watched some of "A Bug's Life." A great ending to the party!

Let the Birthday Begin

We kicked off Josh's big 5th birthday celebration today with his cake, which we ate with our church community group. Because we're all attending the "Bug Ball" (more on that on Friday) on his actual birthday rather than have a party, we decided to have the cake early with his friends from church.

Josh loves The Cat in the Hat right now, and when he saw the cake this morning he asked, "Mommy, did you make this for me while I was sleeping?" I felt like Santa Claus. He then spent most of the afternoon after school sitting in a chair next to the cake, which was on the dining table. It was well worth the effort and the late night to make it.

Festivals=Food

Today we took the kids to Festival in the Park, which is one of the city's best annual festivals that we've somehow neglected to attend before. We had a little over an hour to spend at the festival, and I realized as our time was drawing to a close that we could be perfectly happy skipping everything these festivals have to offer except the food. We walked by a ton of kiddie rides, a huge playground and lots of people selling art before stopping at the food stalls. Then we spent most of our time eating and waiting while Chris went back to buy more food.

Molly especially enjoys festival food, and today her favorite was Chicken on a Stick (we're pathetic, I know). She also had a great time feeding leftover french fries to the ducks.

This is Josh's version of a "nice smile."

Windows and doors

Our contractors installed the windows and doors in our addition this week and replaced the sliding door in our dining room with a door that matches the new one in the addition. We've also got wiring and our new closet framed in. It's been quite exciting, although Molly gets crankier by the day because her naps are interrupted by power tools and people walking around in the attic.

Here are a few shots of Molly in the addition.

Steph Rocks

I'm detouring from my regular Josh and Molly chatter to congratulate Steph on completing her first triathlon today. Emily, Vivy and I got up at the crack of dawn to make it to the course to cheer Steph on this morning, and we were amazed and inspired by how well she did. Steph has been training for months, and she finished strong.

This triathlon was called SheROX and was all-women. Each athlete had her age written in marker on her calf, and it was amazing to watch women in their forties and fifties compete with the young 'uns. Here's Steph nearing the finish line:
The next athletic fete in our crowd will be Chris and Randy competing in Charlotte's Thurnder Road marathon in December. Stay tuned!

More house progress

Things are moving quickly right now on the addition, so here's the latest. I think we get doors tomorrow and windows early next week. The kids are enjoying playing in the new rooms, and Josh asks me every day if he can sleep in the new room and use the Porta-Jon. So much for civilization.
While the house addition is certainly exciting, stay tuned for even more thrills. Today we enrolled Josh in the "Little Ninjas" Tae Kwon Do class at a studio near our house. He has a uniform and everything! All four of us attended a Little Ninjas class today, and Josh was very excited to see that it involved a lot of yelling, kicking and punching. He even told us toward the end that he was "ready to learn." I was glad to see that the instructors allow parents with cameras watch the class.

We have part of a roof

Here's the latest on the addition and some pictures of the kids in the backyard this afternoon. If anyone's wondering, that's chocolate on Molly's face.

Opa!

We joined the Sunday night crew for dinner at the annual Greek Festival tonight, and we pretty much gorged ourselves on every Greek dish we could. We're partial to the Greeks and their food because we honeymooned there, so we're always glad to attend any celebration of the country.

Josh and Molly enjoyed the food too, especially the ice cream covered with crumbled baklava, and the rides. Now I've got my fingers crossed that we'll win the raffle for two plane tickets to Greece.
Josh was underwhelmed with the Greek music and dancing we could watch from our table. I'm sure he's telling Auntie Em here he's ready to go on the rides.

Molly checks out the underside of the table.

Here's Josh on the helicopter ride, which unfortunately was not nearly as exciting as it looked!

Auntie Steph took Molly on her first carnival ride.

Story time

Molly decided to join in on Josh's nightly story reading tonight. After a day of craziness, it's always nice to end with a sweet moment!

The terrible pre-twos

We were fortunate with Josh in that he never threw many full-out tantrums. Molly is a different story. In the past few days, she has taken to lying on the floor face-down and screaming, often for reasons I can't figure out. Today all I could do was laugh (and grab the camera) when she laid down under the dining room table and had a full-out tantrum. Here she is looking up for me; when she saw me she put her head back down and resumed the tantrum. I just had to laugh--I'm not THAT gullible, Molly!

She made a quick recovery when she realized she was being ignored.

On another note, here are some new pictures of the house addition. I told the contractors they are better than TV because Josh and Molly are plastered to the glass window watching them work every morning. The only thing more exciting for Josh is the Porta-John in our front yard. I have to watch him--he tells me he's going to the bathroom, then announces he'll be outside. The indoor toilet just can't compare.

She's off!

As you can see from the picture, Molly was less than enthused about her first day of nursery school. Molly had gotten used to sleeping in this summer, so the 7 a.m. wake-up call did not go over well today. She also seemed somewhat upset that she couldn't take the can of spray sunscreen to school, but her teacher said she made a quick recovery and didn't cry until the moms started coming to pick kids up at lunch.

The end of summer

We enjoyed a gorgeous, bug-free Labor Day with Steph and the Finks. The kids played kickball and Frisbee with Steph and Randy, and they entertained themselves well enough for us to enjoy a few hours of hanging out with our friends. Molly starts her four-day-a-week nursery school program tomorrow, so today was our last real day of summer.

Uncle Randy is very popular with the small set.

Auntie Steph volunteered to play kickball with the kids while Emily and I sat in lawn chairs.

It won't be long until Vivy is running around with Josh and Molly.