Nap Protest

Poor second children...unlike their first-born siblings, naps are definitely more hit-or-miss. Ellie has almost given up her morning nap, but if we're out and about she usually crashes in her carseat around noon. However, when we are home, it doesn't necessarily mean that she will take a nap. Today this is what I found:


She had dumped out all her blankets, binks, and friends AND taken off her shirt and threw it out of the crib for good measure!

I guess she didn't want to take a nap today! :)

Also, Lincoln drew his first real (ie: recognizable) picture yesterday. Can you guess what it is??


(Maybe it's only recognizable to his mom, but I'm curious what you think) :)

First Day of Pre-School!

A group of us from church organized an at-home pre-school this year. The kids are all close in age and each of us moms takes a turn to teach a week at a time. We ordered the curriculum from Mother Goose Time, and it comes with lesson plans and basically all the materials you need. It seems like it will be a great first-school experience!

Lincoln is all ready with his backpack:


Ellie wanted to wear a backpack just like big brother:



The pre-school class!



They were all so proud to wear their backpacks - so cute!

NYC - Visit to the Intrepid

As another portion of our stay-cation, we went into New York City. It was the first time we drove in, and it only took about 45 minutes - not bad. Lincoln really loves jets and has his own aircraft carrier, so we thought we'd take him to a real aircraft carrier, the USS Intrepid. It was a great museum, and he really loved everything!






Ellie checks out the upper flight deck:




Linc really has a thing for the "space shuttle Discovery" - he loves it! I think he learned about it from an astronomy book he has, but I'm not quite sure.


I don't think I'd want these little rascals flying my helicopter!


We rounded out the visit with H&H Bagels, a little shopping, a walk through Times Square, and some Tasti-D-Lite. What a day!

Jersey Shore - Giles Style

Ryan has this week off work (he's done with his 2 year rotation and starting his *real* job at AmEx next week - hooray!), so we decided to take a stay-cation! At the top of our list was "The Shore" - we've never been, even after living in NJ for 2 summers. [I think having two little kids has something to do with that :) ]

It was a beautiful, hot day at the shore.




Ellie liked chasing the seagulls:


Lincoln liked digging in the sand:


But they both LOVED the splash pad on the boardwalk!




We all had a great time and enjoyed some cotton candy afterwards. It almost felt like being back in Brighton!