at shriners hospital

simon posing with gracie,

the therapy dog at shriners'

limb difference clinic

toby and simon power rangers

does anyone know where my kids

have gone?

memorial day visit with aunt ann & uncle john

 

 

(that's "head, shoulders, knees and toes"

in case it wasn't patently obvious)

4th birthday celebration

while nani visited, we had an

early birthday celebration for simon.

 we made pizzas, per our usual.

 our friends laurie, mike, jayson and kayley

joined us.

 we decorated simon's

oreo flavor ice cream cake

with a miniature scoopie!

 then the kids ran the sugar off

and had a great time together.

thanks for coming, j & k!!!

april visit with nani

in april, nani came to visit.

we had a great time together and

are waiting for her to return...

...permanently!

our adorable fred

sporting his summer haircut...

 ...and resting peacefully on a sun-drenched couch.

vroom vroom...drivin' in my car

nothing more sleep-inducing

than a long car ride. ;-) 

 

interview with simon (VIDEO - blog only)

when i was young, my dad recorded 

semi-regular interviews with me called

"interviews with susie."

i have decided to begin a similar tradition

with my own kids.

my intention is to record them at least

every three months, using a script of questions.

here's simon's recording from yesterday.

this is what his expressive language is like

13 months after joining our family.

the boys' doppelgangers

found these dolls at the dollar store

and couldn't resist buying.

(they were easter gifts,

marked down to just $0.25 each,

making resistance completely futile)

bubbles! (need i say more?)

meeting the bunny

yesterday, we visited wickham farms

for a bunny hunt.

 unfortunately, the line for bunny hunt tickets was really long.

but we managed to see a bunny... 

\

...or two!

  we even milked a cow,

albeit a very 2-dimensional one...

...from whom we got only water.

(very skim milk?)

 some of pretended to drive a tractor.

(dig the expression on simon's face.)

so the excursion was far from

a total loss.

thanks, wickham farms!

pizza party

good friends of ours were over recently for dinner.

we made individual pizzas.

 the boys enjoyed kneading their dough

and covering it with toppings.

 while our guests were here,

it was noted that our friends' preteen daughter

is nearly as tall as rick now!

 not quite, courtney, but almost there!

 we had a great time with our friends here

and hope we will visit together again really soon.

(a definite advantage to our having

moved back to rochester!)

lego punk face

a year ago, when simon first came home,

friends of ours sent our boys

wonderful lego sets.

toby, in particular, has been having fun with them.

(don't you want to just kiss that punk face?)