I think I owe you some pictures:

Ben put up an awesome backsplash while I was out of town.
We had a little fine tuning to do when I got back.
You can see my piping skills came in handy.

These boys got to go shoot each other with paintballs the day before Father's Day. Ben came home the most abused. Apparently he ran out of ammo and made a run for it. He looked like he had 5 nipples and he had some awesomely colorful bruises on his legs, too. Then there was a nice gash on his knee... my fault - I put him in holy jeans for his "surprise."

Summertime is awesome. Lucas is working on mastering the cannon ball.

Evan loves the water, too.

I made this shirt for Lucas to wear to school today for their 4th of July party.
Also, Lucas likes chocolate ice cream.

Evan was pleasantly surprised by some bubbles the other day.
He also thinks it's perfectly acceptable to sit on the table.

Our summer break is almost over. Lucas starts Kindergarten in three weeks. I can't believe it. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. We're going to have to start waking up earlier, going to bed earlier, and being organized. Ugh. Plus, I'll miss that kid like crazy!

The Big Reveal

We finished the room last night after Lucas went to bed. This morning before Ben went to work we had the big reveal to Lucas. He had no clue we had been working on a room for 2 weeks - he just knew that for a couple weeks his house was full of cardboard boxes, clutter, and that there had been some drilling/hammering last night. Here's the video from this morning:

All we wanted was for Lucas to say, "Oh my GOODNESS," which he says so sweetly. Instead he got hung up on the idea of a present he saw downstairs... It was actually a present from Ben's parent's last year, that we hid for a year b/c he wasn't quite old enough yet (very cool cars).

Anyhow, Lucas seems to like his new room. He thinks the bed is "cool." Ben did such an awesome job working his bum off on this room. I worked really hard at trying to help a little.

We let Lucas open the cars from last year after the big reveal. I had been saving them for a big potty training reward, but when he saw the present last night Ben told him he could open it. And guess what, Nana and Grandpa Pat? You got an "Oh my GOODNESS!" Congratulations.

Quote of the Day

"Being bad is FUN."

Lucas then expressed the joys of running away, hitting, pushing, being mean, and making messes. Ben and I were both kind of dumb founded for a minute because yes, being bad is fun. We eventually tried to talk about the consequences/rewards of our actions, blah, blah, blah.... Then we let him eat ice cream, watch a movie, pop popcorn - all so we could try to finish up his big boy room.

This was after a nightmarish experience at target this evening, where Lucas took some scarfs off the display and ran around the store with them trailing behind, me chasing him. Such a pill... but I did refuse to buy the pool toys we already had in the cart.

B-day Prep

Lucas's birthday is on Saturday and I'm not so ready. There will be some sort of festivity involving cake at some point, but I'm waiting to hear back from the Parks dept about a park rental. We might just end up at our house...

As far as presents for a 3 year old, does anyone have any favorites, besides cars and trucks? Any good learning toys? A Leap Frog?

On another note, we have started the Big Boy room. We want to get it done by Saturday, but probably won't have it 100% completed. Here's a look at the disaster area in which we currently reside. Notice the styrofoam all over the floor and in Lucas's hair. Nice: