~ A Knighting We Will Go ~

Merrik & Jonah with the sheilds they made at Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester.

(And when I say "they" I mean "me".)
Merrik posing with a cool Knight who's getting ready to joust.

Taking lessons from the knight statues.

Of course Jonah wanted to spend the entire time in the dress-up area!

The kids could even put on the cool armor helmets but they had to wear the white gloves in order to touch them.

Merrik riding the knights into the castle.

This was a cool play area with costumes, a giant chess set & lots of stuff to look at.

This trip was intended to include Rachael, AJ & Alexis but they didn't make it back to Worcester in time. So it was just "me and the boys" on an outing for the afternoon. It was cool. Glad we went. But we really wanted to show it to our Virginian cousins! Oh well. Maybe next time, Rach!

Emma's Birthday Party (Jonah's preschool friend)

Merrik giving a ride to a mystery girl!
Jonah & Colleen - another preschool friend!
Looks like a date!

Singing "Happy Birthday" to Emma. Yay! Whoooo! (clap, clap, clap)

Merrik (Kayla in the blue dress - Emma's lil sis) & Jonah right after gathering their loot from the pinata. Although their bags were quite full, the looks on their faces seems like they feel they somehow got gypped!

Jonah pinning the tail on the donkey. ~Emma had gone first and got hers just in the right spot. (as you can see in the pic) Well, before he went, Jonah decided to peel Emma's tail sticker off because it was in the right place, and HIS was supposed to go there! Needless to say, the Birthday Girl's winning tail was replaced and the game continued!

Merrik taking a turn... if only the sticker were an ear instead of a tail. Would've been right on!

**Jonah & Emma will be in the same Kindergarten class! We're SO excited!!**

...More Than Meets the Eye!!

We've moved on from Superhero's to Transformers!

("Bumblebee", to be exact!)

Uh Oh -- caught them showing their true identity!

Our One Beach Day So Far...

Merrik & our friend Fiona! (they play so nicely together)

Watch out! Here comes Jonah with a water gun!

Merrik filling up his bucket.

Jonah & Fiona swimming on the pink floatie.

This was the day that I had my "incident" with the indoxicated 40-something year old guy.

This guy was sitting near us and he started going on and on and ON about how "absolutely beautiful!!" I was. He literally would not talk about anything else for the longest time. At one point, he even said that I was "finer than a frog hair!" (still not sure how that's supposed to be a compliment) OK, so it was definitely weird. But nevertheless, compliments are nice to hear. So later I was feeling pretty good until it occured to me about all the country songs that mention how being drunk makes even the ugliest girls look pretty. HA HA! It was a funny day.

Painters for Hire!

Jonah - painting Grandma & Grandpa Cowden's house (actually, this is the shed)
Merrik filling in the holes.

Grandma Dolores painted a message for Jonah!

Daddy had the good roller brush. Left just enough work for the lil' guys to fill in the middles.
(Dolores now earned the right to supervise - at this point, the big house was done.)

The boys admiring their hard work!

4th of JULY!!!

And here it is only July 6th & I'm posting pix from the 4th of July. So proud of myself!

(Love the new camera!!)

Not crystal clear but you get the idea -- this juggler/comedian was performing on the town common at OSV. They had quite a bit of activities & performers for the evening, before the fireworks began. This guy was HILARIOUS... Lucky Bob was his name.

Merrik (w/ a slightly weird look on his face) & Jared - getting comfy to watch the fireworks.

Oh yeah, we'd been drinking blue slushies so Merrik's mouth was blue from that... :)

Bill & Dolores (Jared's dad & step-mom) came to celebrate w/ us -- Yay!!

Alli & Jonah - claiming our spot on the grass.

Merrik laid down his own blanket & got cozy. SO CUTE!!

These drummers & militia men marched thru the Common at OSV to begin the festivities.

Happy Birthday To Me! A day with the fam at OSV - what could be better?!?

LOVE the fireworks at Old Sturbridge Village!

Jonah & his lights-up sword at the festivities.

Merrik visiting the oxen.

At first he didn't want to even get close to the fence cuz these guys are enormous.

In this photo, the ox is probably sitting 15 feet from the fence.

But finally he got over his nerves & smiled for this very cute pic!! :)

Soccer man

Getting warmed up! Soccer begins in August & we can't wait.

Jonah finally "earned" his soccer gear and we cannot get him out of it! :)

Jonah's Preschool Graduation!

Jonah's "puzzle person" & star pic. on the preK graduation board.

Jonah & Mrs. Campbell. We LOVE her!

And Jonah is very upset that he'll have a different teacher for Kindergarten... :(

Jonah (back, left - of course, the tallest one) & his class singing "Zip-a-Dee Doo Dah".
They had it choreographed w/ hand movements & little actions. SO cute!

A very excited Jonah!!! Smiling for the camera! :)

We absolutely loved preschool. The teachers & staff were GREAT and they did SO many fun and creative things with the kids. Merrik is signed up to begin in the fall w/ Mrs. Campbell. Yay!