What's Up With the Pomeroy's: May 2010

The days and weeks are certainly filling up with activities - a sure sign the weather is turning nicer since most of them involve doing something outside. The boys are spending lots of time outside with their friends, riding bikes, running through sprinklers and all sorts of other imaginative projects they dream up. We are very fortunate to live in a neighborhood with an abundance of kids - nice kids, nice families! In our cul-de-sac there are ours plus three other houses where the 'gang' can be found at on any given afternoon. The group ranges in age from 4-7 years old and for the most part get along really well. All the parents got together to discuss the kids hanging out and we're all fine with the kids going between the houses to play. There is anywhere from three to seven kids in the little group. The other nice part is since we do live in the circle it is not very busy (and everyone in the circle has kids) so the traffic isn't a big concern.

A few weeks ago the kids decided to make a river in our play area. They worked on it off and on over a week and a half. Here they are busy scooping out the caved in areas and making sure the water was flowing fast enough. They decided it was the Mississippi River - very appropriate for our location :)

The basement play area is back together again - finally! A friend of mine knew of a guy to install the carpet for us off the books and he was able to do it quickly so we're back in business. I found an awesome deal on brand new bars to extend our existing monkey bars. We needed to move them anyway since they were close to the gas line so we raised them up a few inches and went from 5 bars to 10. The kids love it and it is very popular with their friends. Aiden has mastered going down them but is still working on turning around and going back.

Brendan, well, he just has them mastered - such a little monkey!

Last week Brendan had track and field day at school. It is always a busy day with the grades divided up by gender in color-coded t-shirts moving from event to event on the field. It was longer this year since they just do an abbreviated version for kindergarteners so they did part of the events in the morning and the others in the afternoon. Brendan is such a competitor and really tries his best - makes us so proud of him. He also is able to laugh at himself some and not be too upset when he doesn't win or if he makes a mistake, etc. He is really growing up... too fast for me! Going over the hurdles... he's toward the left of the video.

This is cute - if you listen you can hear the 1st grade girls start chanting 'Brendan!' over and over. It is picked up by the 1st grade boys that already ran. He is on the right side of the video.

We have some babies in the house! Actually, they are under the deck. A pair of purple finches have made a nest and are raising their little ones on top of the support beam of the deck. If you look between the cracks of the deck boards you can see them. Here is a photo of them shortly after they hatched. We don't go out and peek too often as it really upsets the mommy bird - she will sit in the birch tree next to the deck at eye level with us and raise quite a commotion.

Here is a random photo of Jag from this week. Always looking for a bag or box to climb into - and yes, he's still alive, just sleeping!

And a video of how he feels about living in the house. Little does he know just how lucky he is to have me and the kids in his corner ;) He should just sit down and enjoy the pampering!

The nice weather meant time for finishing up some outside projects as well. Wellyn finished cutting the wood for the trailer and it looks brand new! A huge difference from what it looked like this spring. Now it can move out of the garage - yeah!

And on to the next project on the list... there is certainly no shortage of things that need to be or we want to do!

Brendan started summer soccer last week and will begin games next week. We are so happy to be with our last coaches and many of Brendan's friends are on the team too. It will be such a fun season for all of the boys (and the families on the sidelines!). Aiden will be starting Jr. Kickers soccer the first Friday in June. All of his classes will be on Friday nights - how well they know the parents of preschoolers; nothing better to do on a Friday night! ;)

This will be a catch-up post since I've fallen behind once again. I anticipate this happening a little more with summer coming. Well, we hope summer is coming - it has been cool and rainy the past few weeks. Not quite the spring weather we're accustomed to!

Here is Jag outside on his harness and leash a couple weeks ago. He is always trying to sneak out the door since he had obviously been outside before we adopted him and the vet thought because of his laid back personality he would be a good candidate to try the leash out. He does really good on it and loves being outside. Unfortunately, the mommy and daddy ducks do not like him being out there! They swim back and forth along the backyard making a huge ruckus when he's out there and their babies are swimming around.

Two weekends ago our nephew Bryce came out for a visit and to pick up a ton of furniture for his new college apartment we'd collected for him. Since he was here, we put him to work too ;) Here he is helping to rinse off some rock that had been in our backyard. Nothing draws little hands to help like some dirt and a hose - stronger pull than a magnet!

Brendan is still very interested in science and has been looking through a kitchen experiment book for things to try out. The old vinegar and baking soda 'volcano' is a huge hit. Here they tried it out with some food coloring for an added effect.

Bryce terrorizing Diego!

Aiden having a turn at playing mad scientist ;)

That Saturday afternoon was Brendan's last indoor soccer game of the season. He always plays harder when there is a visitor there to watch him - he really liked having Bryce in the stands. Afterwards the kids all got medals. We're really excited to be on the same team for summer too - we have a great group of kids and awesome coaches!

The annual PTO Spring Carnival at Brendan's school was on Thursday so after a quick dinner we headed over to the school. The kids had fun in the inflatable jumper and obstacle course as well as playing some games for prizes. We waited in line forever for the lady who does face painting. She does a fantastic job, but the line is always long.

This past Saturday was Brendan's real birthday party with his friends. It was the first time we've had a party somewhere other than our house and I must say, it was kind of nice! There was a total of nine boys and they were busy swimming and playing water games where Brendan took swimming lessons. Unfortunately, the pictures never turn out that great at the pool, but you'll get the general idea!