Max's 8th Birthday

It was a hot one out there yesterday (yes, actually it really was yesterday, Oct. 6 -- this blog post is actually on time) as we had a party to celebrate Max's 8th birthday (Tues., Oct. 2) with some of his friends at the Lake Ridge Nursery Pumpkin Patch. Hot -- 90 degrees or more -- with high humidity.

The birthday boy

But the boys spent well over two hours running around and playing on the various bounces, swings, slides, rides and other paraphenalia, like motorized toilets (more on that below). It's quite the pumpkin fest:

William at the wheel of the fire engine

Myles keeping cool, poses with pumpkins

One of the spooky moon bounces

Max comes bounding out of the Batman slide

Jackson, one of the friends who came

Jackson's brother, Alex

William -- king of the castle

Max pulling in after riding one of the toilets, believe it or not, around the hay bales ... guess you have to live here to understand that!

Told you it was hot ...

"Mr. Lake Ridge Nursery" himself

We gathered for the celebratorial cutting of the cake and opening of presents:

Happy Birthday, Max!

Prince William County Fair

It was a hot one the day we went to the Prince William County Fair. But the boys were looking for fun.

There were a ton of rides, and it helped to cool the boys off. I just couldn't help myself shooting photos of the boys on the roller coaster:

It was just too colorful to pass up.

Another ride the boys enjoyed was a tilt-a-whirl type ride. You can tell they were enjoying it, even tho they looked like they might be getting a little dizzy.

The boys had a bunch of fun. We'll be back next year to see more of what's happening there.

William's 5th Birthday

This is the first of many overdue blog/photo posts ... more to come over the next days and week.

We travelled back from the Warm Springs/Hot Springs area of Virginia from our vacation (more to come on that beautiful area in another post) to get back to Woodbridge just in time to grab William's birthday stuff and head over to Chuck-e-Cheese! Yea! :-)

William was ready for the party, all right, even after a nearly four-hour car ride. All his "buds" were there, including Nathan, one of our family's long-time friends. We've known Nathan since he was born, just a few months after Max. He's become a buddy of all the boys.

Here's most of the rest of the gang:

And the birthday boy with his cake:

No, William's not smoking a meershaum pipe -- that's his special Chuck-e-Cheese cup and straw:

And -- the big moment: William gets a hug from Chuck-e-Cheese himself!

Happy 5th William!

Max's First Step to Stardom

Ok, this is it: Max's first commercial. It's his first step on the path to celebrity and stardom!

You saw it here first. Update, 8/7: Check out the video, just uploaded to YouTube:

(Yes, that's Melissa doing the voice-over in the commercial.)

Melissa's work with the water Service Authority here in Prince William County gave us the opportunity to have Max star in a water Service Authority commercial. It just so happened that the location where the crew was going to shoot at fell through, and the crew decided to shoot it at our house. And they wanted to use Max as "the young boy" in the commercial. It's going to run throughout Prince William County (hey -- another PW!), which just happens to be one of the top-ten fastest growing counties in the country. It will air on Fox News, the Weather Channel (apparently two of the most-watched cable channels), as well as other select channels on Comcast cable here. We'll have to record it and link it up on YouTube so you all can see it when it's finished. But here's an out-take still photo from the shoot today:

The scenario is that someone from PWCSA (the Prince William County Service Authority) comes up to deliver a Consumer Confidence Report to the homeowner, which documents the quality of the water they're getting. So that's "Mom" at the door (really a water authority engineer) with Max, the water authority guy at left in the blue shirt and cameraman at right. We'll link the video up on our blog as soon as we can. 

More T-ball Photos

I found these photos that I shot a few weeks ago during a Saturday T-ball game at Lake Ridge. Just had to post them. I love that intensity with Max batting:

Max gets ready to tear into a pitch ...

He crosses the plate after rounding the bases.

William climbing the dugout fence ... ya gotta do something while you're in the dugout, right?

William in the field ...

... and in the trees:

And, I'm playing around with a new AOL product called Bluestring (http://bluestring.aol.com), which allows you to mix your digital files together and string photos in a gallery format with music. This is my first, quick foray into this, although I see the sound is not working:

Check out our other T-ball entry below: T-ball Time.

Sunday Swim

Max, the monster from the deep, emerges ...

We headed over to the local pool today. It was the only thing to do, really. Just way too hot for much of anything else, except maybe going to the movies -- which we did a little later in the day. We saw the animated film, "Ratatouille." Very cute. The boys laughed. So did Melissa and I. It was a good way to cool off, other than being at the pool.

It got up to 99 degrees today, according to our outdoor thermometer. So a movie and the pool were really the only way to go.

Max chills

That's William behind those goggles!

Myles is ready for his closeup

I mean, REALLY closeup

A fun way to spend a hot day.

Independence Day

Happy Fourth of July!" yells William.

We had a "blast" on the 4th -- traveling up to our friends the McCune's to have a cookout and set off some fireworks.

One of the many fireworks displays

Myles, Max and their friend, Caroline were just too mesmerized by the fireworks display

 

Trip to Skippack, Pa.

On June 30, we took a trip up to Skippack, Pa., where Aunt Gail lives. We went there for a sad occasion: a memorial service for my Aunt Ginny Mahoney -- the boys' great aunt. There was a service for her a couple months back in Indianapolis, where she lived. But not everyone was able to make it out there, so we decided to have another one in Skippack -- not too far from where she was born and raised, in Chestnut Hill, Pa. We got a chance to visit with both sides of the family -- Jarvis (Mahoney) and Hopkins, and the boys saw their Aunt Beth again and met Uncle Steve, Ginny's daughter and son.

We spent Saturday and Sunday there, and on Sunday visited the very quaint town of Skippack with aunts Gail and Beth and Uncle Steve. We had breakfast at a great place, Grandma Brenna's. Wonderful breakfast sweets, like coffee cake and chocolate chip scones, all made from scratch as well as the frittatas and other breakfast goodies. Great lattes, too. We'll head back there again for sure.

We sat out on the wraparound porch of Grandma Brenna's, sipping our lattes (and milks) and had a very enjoyable time just passing the morning and chatting.

Then we wandered through the various shops in town. I had to shoot a couple of pictures of things that caught my eye -- the peak of a roof, a bright red rose outside a shop entrance:

The boys got a bit tired of all the walking around and chilled out on a bench while Mom did a little wardrobe shopping.

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil -- right? :-)

 

Myles' 6th Birthday

We had a low-key birthday for Myles on Saturday, June 23 -- the day before his actual birth date. A handful of friends and his brothers, some hot dogs, pizza, cake, presents and a new waterslide (unfortunately it was kind of cold that day and the slide didn't get used too much), and, as Myles says, "wah-lah." I have no idea how to actually spell that -- it's gotta be French, right?

We had an ice cream cake made up -- the boys loved it, perhaps better than a reak cake:

Myles got a lot of cool stuff -- airplanes, toy guns, TMNT (that's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for you uninitiated) action figures, a sleeping bag, etc. Not a bad haul for a 6-year-old. And, as a special bonus, one of his friends stayed overnight for a sleepover.

Happy Birthday, Myles!