Cedric loses his first tooth

Jan 11th at approximately 8:30pm, Cedric's wiggley, wobbley tooth came out.  Cedric has been eagerly awaiting his first wiggley, wobbley tooth for the last year at least.  Every day he'd say, my tooth is wiggley.  After I while, we just said, "yea...yea".  Then one week before it came out, it really was wiggley and Cedric had a hard time eating certain foods.  I was amazed at how fast the tooth went from wiggley to out!  

Here are a couple of pictures of proud Cedric.  The tooth fairy brought Cedric one dollar.  Cedric was so excited.  He couldn't wait to put it in his piggy bank.  :-)    

Cedric and Blake...busy busy busy

Last weekend was extremely busy between Blake's invitation to a birthday party at a gymnastics place and Cedric's first soccer game.  It took Blake a while to get warmed up and do the trampoline by himself, but once he got going, he didn't want to stop.  Here is video of Blake enjoying his jumping experience.  

Here is Blake crawling under the balance beams. He was also very good at walking on them carefully placing each foot in front of the other. Blake held my hands, but really, I didn't need to help him balance.

Here is a picture of the happy jumper. He insisted I jump with him for almost the whole party, then when he finally figured out how much fun it was to jump alone, he didn't want to stop. Figures, huh?

Climb Blake climb. Blake's other favorite thing besides jumping is climbing. Of course, his favorite thing of all is to climb something and jump off. Aaaack! LOL

Hmmmm....I wonder if I can jump from this?

Here is video from Cedric's first soccer game.  He had a blast of course.  He loves all kinds of sports.  Cedric is the child with his shin guards over his pants.  We did not know the fashion ettiquitte of pulling socks over the shin guards during this game.  LOL  Now we know.  LOL  

Here is a picture of Cedric during the practice portion of the game. The coach had them dribble the soccer ball, then drop and do 10 push ups. I'm not sure Cedric did even one complete push up because he was too busy chasing his soccer ball, then he'd see what everyone else was doing, get into position, then it was time to dribble the soccer ball. I'm sure he'll know the "drill" by next week. :-)

It is hard to take pictures of a 5 year old playing soccer. If you look closely, the soccer ball is behind his left foot, so he's stopping himself to turn around and get the ball.

Let's Go Bowling!

Ok...you'll have to turn your head sideways for this first picture. Santa bought us a new Macintosh and even though the picture is rotated and saved properly on the computer, it keeps defaulting back to the sideways position whenever I upload it. Weird. Anyway...Cedric went bowling for the first time a week ago. His friend Patrick had a birthday party at the Central Bowl. Bumpers kept bowling balls from going in the gutters and cool black lights and circulating laser lights made the experience fun, festive, and happy. I've never seen such happy and entertained little kids. At first I had to help Cedric, then he was off and running...literally. LOL Cedric bowled a 70 and a 68 and even "picked up" a spare. Watching all the kids bowl made me want to bowl again. Good family fun.

Winter Fun

Winter is fun and this is a post about winter fun. Ok...the ice skating rink is open all year long, but it's still a winter sport. ;-) This was the first time I had taken Cedric ice skating and the first time I'd been on been on skates in probably 20 years. It was the blind leading the blind. After a few laps around both Cedric and I were finding our balance and having fun. At one point Cedric had grown so confident that he actually jumped with both feet off the ground. Now you have to realize he was still holding my hand when he did this. Luckily, Cedric landed his "jump" with perfect balance, but I told him no more jumping until he can skate by himself. Needless to say, Cedric didn't want to leave the ice rink and even though my muscles had long past the point where they started screaming "STOP!" we kept skating until Cedric's legs were giving out. It was a good day. :-) No winter fun post is complete without posts of sledding. This year, we've graduated to the "big" sledding hill. Wow is it fun, fast, and wild! Grandma took the next few pictures. Blake wasn't wild about the snow in his face, but Cedric once again could have stayed forever just sledding down and climbing up and sledding down, etc etc. Ah to be a kid again. Here is Blake and me getting a face full of snow. Notice how my head is a little blurry. It's not the camera...that is powdery snow flying up from the sled. Here is a smiling Blake. Mainly he's happy because, he's no longer getting snow in his face. I'm sure next year he'll be like Cedric and then we'll have two boys that won't want to come off the sledding hill. This is the life, huh? Being pulled up the hill. In case you're wondering, Blake is in the sled. I'm the workhorse pulling him up. LOL

Yeeeeee haaaaaaaaw! Cedric speeds down the hill in his superfast red sled. Yipppppeeeeee! It's raining on the snow right now. I can only hope we get that some more snow. The only good thing about getting a January thaw with rain is you can actually build snowmen and snowballs now. Usually the snow is too powdery and dry. The neighborhood kids are working on a snowman outside right now. The middle part was too heavy for them to lift because of the water logged snow. They had to pare it down to get it on the base of their snowman. Ahhhh winter....it's just awesome!

Blake's catch up post

I'm really behind.  What else is new.  LOL  

This is a catch up post for Blake.  Blake is a never ending source of laughter and silliness.   So much so, he almost can't believe it when he gets disciplined.  He looks up at you with those wide eyed baby blues and laughs at you....saying, "Naaaaaa.  You're silly Mama".  It's hard not to laugh along with him.  He also has amazing awareness of his feet and a great sense of balance. What do these things have to do with each other?  Well...Blake loves wearing our shoes.  He proudly clomps around in Mama's and Dada's running shoes, dress shoes, slippers, work shoes, etc.  The only time Blake voluntarily looks at the camera is when he's wearing our shoes and being silly.  All the other times, he's shyly looking away.  

Here he is modeling Dada's shoes.  In the next picture, he's showing off his super large spongebob slippers.  Well...they were Cedric's and now Blake has adopted them.  Blake has also taken easily to the sport of snowshoeing.  Last year, he would take 2 steps then ask to be carried.  This year, he walked all the way to the "pond" and proceeded to attempt to scale every "hill" of snow.  He has such a good sense of balance even when wearing large shoes or snowshoes that he was mostly successful.....mostly.   ;-)  

Blake is THREE!  Ok...his birthday was Sept 24th, 2007.  We were really busy this fall and of course Christmas is just crazy isn't it?  So anyway....Blake is 3 and totally into anything related to cars and the cars movie.  He could play with his cars all day and all night....most nights he tries too.  We sometimes find him in the morning sleeping on the floor with the light on and his cars all around him.  

Blake's birthday party at school. 

Blake's car birthday cake.  His friend Ethan is in the picture.

Pop Pops put frosting on Blake's nose.  He doesn't know quite what to make of that.   Oh man...Blake finally looks right at the camera and smiles and my hand is in the way.  Ah well...you can still see him...mostly.  Isn't he beautiful...errr handsome.   Here is Blake testing out his cars umbrella.

Playing with one of his Cars cars....Mack. Hmmm.....playing with his Cars cars some more....

Here plays with his really big Lighting McQueen balloon from his birthday party.  

Here Blake is opening a present....cars theme, of course.  

Blake and me at Blake's birthday party.

Blake also has a strong shy side.  Awwww.   Here is a picture of the kids getting ready to race.  All the kids decorated their own car puppets, then we set up a race course in the backyard and timed how fast the kids could run around the course.  Some of the kids were really really fast.  Everyone loved this part of the party.  The parents (whom you can't see) lounged on the back deck, while their kids were totally run into the ground.  You're welcome!  :-)

Here is video of Blake being a coach.  We have no idea where it came from.  All of a sudden out came this deep, hard to hear voice telling everyone when to throw the ball and to whom.  LOL  He totally cracked us all up.  

Well...there you have it....Beautiful, Bouncey, Blake.  Oh yea....Blake's favorite sport is jumping on his bed, so we got a twin sized mattress and put on the floor.  Jump away Blake.  

Sometimes we parents have to know when we won't win the battle, how to cut our losses, and when to join em, etc etc etc .  At least I know they are safe now versus jumping on beds high off the ground.  Aaaack!   LOL