happy father's day!

"Any man can be a father, but it takes a special person to be a dad."

Here is Rob with Noah at about 6 weeks.

Rob with Caleb, just moments after his birth.

My Daddy and I on my wedding day.

Sharing a wonderful dance (to "The Way You Look Tonight") with my dear Grandpa, also at my wedding (did the dress give it away?)

My Dad with his first Grandson a few years ago.

And here's Rob's dad (did I mention he's also the best father-in-law ever?), on his first Father's Day as a grandpa, in 2007.

To all the wonderful dad's out there, especially my dad, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and my amazing and wonderful husband, Rob, thanks so much for all you do!

sweet emilia rose!

I took a trip to Illinois to visit with my grandparents, and got the pleasure of finally meeting Emilia Rose Viso. Her mommy, Carrie, and I have been best friends for the last 15 (!!!) years! I was so excited to be able to see her and snuggle up with a 3 month old again! She seems like such a good baby, and so gorgeous!

Smooches from her Aunt Laur

Looking very serious during her bath!

I got to "skype" with the boys while I was with Carrie, Mark, and Emilia. Caleb was so excited to see a baby on the screen! When I handed her back over to Carrie, Caleb started to cry, so she just sat with me, also fascinated with watching the boys. It was so cute! They're friends already!

mmm....

June 4th was National Doughnut Day! We celebrated with a special Krispy Kreme breakfast! Yummy!

pizza picnic and bmx

We went to Arvada to bring Noah to the "dirt jumps" that Rob grew up riding his bike on. But first, we stopped for our favorite pizza (in Colorado, that is), at Randi's. We decided to get it to go, and have a picnic in the back of Rob's truck. The boys thought that this was really cool. Noah has asked a few times since if we can have another "pizza picnic".

Getting ready to ride.

My biggest kid, catching some air!

A future BMX'er like his dad?

Of course he was upset that he couldn't get in on the action, but he was fairly content watching from the sidelines with another piece of pizza!

So proud of his bike skills!

I could kiss him all day long, he's so sweet!

"pie pie pilion"

We woke up to another rainy Colorado day. (Rare for sure, but 8 of the last 10 days or so have been rainy!). Staying in the house all day would have made us stir crazy, so we headed off to the butterfly pavilion (or the pie pie pilion) as Noah used to call it.

This is Caleb pointing at a "bird eating" tarantula!

Here's Noah pointing at some other creepy bugs!

Caleb touching the starfish

Noah is pretty timid, so he's always been too scared to touch the crabs and the starfish, etc. Today he wanted to do it all, and even talked to one of the volunteers for a bit about horse shoe crabs! It's really neat to see him coming out of his shell a bit!

Noah's favorite thing of the day was the beanbag game in the human maze. Caleb really liked it too, although he didn't exactly play by the rules...

Our clever little guy decided it would be much more effective to climb onto the game and just walk up to the hole and drop it in.

Is that a cocoon? No, it's just Noah!

don't wake the baby!

Daddy and Caleb decided to sleep in while Noah and I went to see the balloons. Caleb needs his 12 (!!!) hours of sleep, or he's a little grouchy. The boys were happy to have some breakfast brought back for them!

Caleb's pretty partial to cinnamon sugar bagels. Mmmm...

erie town fair

Each year the Erie Town Fair features hot air balloons. This year, they were taking off just a few minutes from my parents house. Noah and I got up at 5:45 to meet Grandma and Grandpa near the Erie Airport to see the balloons.

They're so pretty!

Noah was still in his pajamas, and snuggled up in his blanket. Grandma and Grandpa took turns holding him to keep him warm (spoiled!).

We counted about 30 balloons!

When Noah tired of standing outside, and most of the balloons were in the air, we went back to the car. Noah liked this a lot better because 1) the heat was on and 2) I let him stick his head out of the sunroof to see

sing a rainbow

This was the grand finale. You can't really see Noah, because he didn't stand up, but it's a very sweet song, nonetheless. He's been singing this one at home too!



We are really looking forward to the start of school in September. Noah misses his friends and teachers already!

down by the bay

where the watermelon grows...



This is Noah's favorite song, although you couldn't tell by his lack of singing during the show!

rainbow tree graduation

The last night of school, all the kids did a program and graduation for the big kids that will be going to kindergarten next year. Noah told me he didn't want to do it, and he didn't want to sing, and he wasn't going out there, etc., etc.

Here's Noah. He's holding the chick costume he made for his part in his song.

So far so good... he's waving to his other friends filing in.

Uh oh, we're losing him!
Noah did do better than he had promised... he went out there, he smiled, he waved. But, he stayed true to his word about one thing... NO SINGING! Turns out, he knows all the words to all the songs (he's been singing all 9 of them around the house since Thursday), but he didn't let out one peep during the big performance!

Here's Noah hugging his teacher and getting his certificate!

Proud of our boy for a good school year!

Here are the graduates!

Here's Noah and Mrs. Tunquist! She was the perfect teacher for him! We feel really blessed that Noah was in her class, and are hoping to have her again next year.

noah's first "last day of school"

After a little bit of a bumpy start (a little bit of separation anxiety), Noah had an amazing time at school this year. We feel so lucky that we found Rainbow Tree Preschool! We could not have asked for a better environment and more wonderful teachers for our little guy.

He was so proud to be heading off to school for the last time before summer

Noah wanted to model his backpack

arghhhh.... noah's 4th birthday

Noah turned 4 on April 18, and he requested (a few days after last year's robot party), a pirate party. I was so busy entertaining everyone at the kids party at two and then the family dinner at 5, that I didn't take any pictures. These are courtesy of Grandma.

Here are the invitations that went out to all of his classmates and friends. (I blurred out our personal info just in case there are any internet weirdos stalking my blog out there.)

These are some of the decorations I made for the party!

Pirate cupcakes for the kiddos party!

Devil's Food Cake with Raspberry Filling for the family party

Funfetti cake pops! (These were a labor of love, they took FOREVER!)

The kiddos got to "walk the plank" in the yard

We buried about 100 gold coins in the sandbox. This was the kids favorite!

Snack time (and tattoos!)

Our little pirate requested popcorn for the party too!

Here's Noah's friend Calder taking his "pirate's booty" on the way out!

Baby Ben got into the spirit with a pirate hat!

Here's the birthday boy ready to blow out his candles. Notice the sword from Grandma Kathy!

Noah had his special birthday shirt on!

Putting together his new play-doh puppy!

Caleb's favorite was the balloons!