Nicholas' first day of preschool!

Yea! It's finally here! I don't know who was more excited, me or Nicholas. We got up early so we could have a special pancake with sprinkles and watermelon breakfast before school. To every person he saw on the way to his class Nicholas said "Hi! It's my first day of school!" Class today was only for a half an hour so that the kids could meet the teachers and explore the classroom. He had a great time playing with all the toys and meeting friends. As we were leaving though he voiced his only complaint. "But mom! We didn't do any work today!" We have been practicing writing letters and coloring shapes to prepare for preschool, so he was very disappointed that we didn't do it at preschool. I promised him that he would get to do work tomorrow. All day long he made Christian play pretend preschool with him. I'm excited for him to go to preschool. I think he'll have a great time!

Hi! What's your name?

When Nicholas meets new kids he often times forgets to ask their name, and just calls them "boy" or "girl". In preparation for making friends at school, we have been practicing what to say when you meet someone new. Today Nicholas came up to me and said "Hi! My name is Nicholas Loren Brady (he's very into saying his full name right now), what is your name?" I said "My name is Natalie Dorsey Brady." He looked at me excited and said "Oh! My Name is Nicholas Grandpa Dorsey Brady too!"

Um, the boys are being awfully quiet.....

Sunday morning Sam and I were upstairs in our room talking while the boys were downstairs playing. Suddenly I realize they are being a little too quiet. My initial fear is always that they have gone out the back door to play, which happens more often than I would like. So I send Sam downstairs to check. He got halfway down and heard them talking. Satisfied that they were not outside, he came back up without checking what they were doing. A few more minutes went by and I still felt uneasy about how quiet they were being. My boys are almost never quiet when they play together. There is always screaming and yelling and laughing. So I send Sam down again. "Natalie! You have to come and see what they are doing!" So I go down. Now a few days ago I bought some candle holders that were white, and I let Nicholas help me paint them brown. Well he decided to climb to the top shelf of our linen closet, get the brown paint and paintbrushes and let Christian help him paint. Not only were the candle holders more brown, so were the candles, the buffet, the carpet, and my boys. Poor Christian must have been painted by Nicholas because he had it all over his back, and a big glob in his hair, which took 3 washes to get out! My main regret is that unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries before I could get very many pictures.

I was better off not knowing...

A tradition we have grown very fond of here in North Carolina is a pig picking. Basically they roast a pig and everyone eats it. Since it has been roasted for like a day or 2, the meat is VERY tender and juicy. We have been to several pig pickings since we moved here, and our ward has one every summer. I have to admit not having grown up on it, it is somewhat of an acquired taste since the sauce they use is tangy like vinegar, not sweet like the BBQ sauce I grew up with. But, by the time we had been here 2 years we found ourselves craving it, and we just couldn't get enough. Our ward had a pig picking today, and due to confusion in the food line, I ended up not getting any of the pig for myself, so I sent Sam to get me some. He brought back a plate full for us to share, and as I started eating it I noticed that this particular pig was incredibly tender and very tasty. When Sam noticed what I was eating he looked at me shocked and asked if I liked it. I said "Yeah, why?" He said "Well that part was the INTESTINE, and I didn't think you would eat it.". He was right, normally I wouldn't eat that part. EWEEEE! I was so grossed out by the fact that I had actually eaten pig intestine that I couldn't eat anything else, which is such a shame because there was a lot of good food there. I hope this doesn't sour my taste for pig picking forever!

Nicholas has been working hard to memorize his articles of faith for a program they were doing in his primary. So far he has #1-4 and #6, for what ever reason he can't do 5 yet. any way here is 1-3. I couldn't get the other videos to work, so I'll post them when I figure out what is wrong with them.
Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

Did I mention I LOVE Craigslist?

We got this swing-set for FREE on craigslist! All we had to do was take it down, load it in our minivan, buy a shovel to dig up the ground around it and secure it, and I had to make a new awning for it because the old one was sun-damaged to shreds. My boys LOVE it and want to play on it all day! It is a really fun set, just the right size for our backyard. You can't get a better deal than that!

6 AM.

Nicholas comes bursting into my bedroom. "Mommy! It's time to pick up my HOT WHEELS birthday cake!" He had been talking about it ALL week. It was all he could think about, thanks to my dear sister Michelle who told me about the hot wheels website where your kids can play car games for "free". I put that in parenthesis because if your kids browse the website they also discover a section where they can watch videos of other kids having a great time playing with all the toys they sell, which of course makes your kid want their stuff so you end up buying it. Not only was the hot wheels cake the only cake for him, but he also insisted that we take back the bike we bought him for his birthday so that we could buy him hot wheels trick tracks. Of course we couldn't take back the bike since it had already been assembled and ridden. But, lucky for Nicholas we had to make a pit stop at target on his birthday, and Sam couldn't turn down those big blue eyes telling him that trick tracks is the only thing in the world that he wanted for his birthday. He insisted on carrying the big box all through the store, and told everyone he saw "This is what I'm getting for my birthday!" With a huge smile on his face. Now that would be fine if that was all we ever had to buy. But hot wheels makers are not stupid. Of course they have other tricks that you can buy and add to the set, making one monster set. 1 week after his birthday Nicholas told me that he wanted to take back his trick tracks and get new ones because these ones are old now. He also informed me that Christian wants him to get trick tracks for his (Christian's) birthday. All in all he had a great birthday. He had a birthday party a few days before his birthday,combined with his friend Johnny who was turning 3 just a few days after Nicholas' birthday. We invited a bunch of friends and had pizza and cake at a park. It was a lot of fun. On his birthday we did all his favorite things. We went blueberry picking, played at the mall playground, the barnes and noble train table, got pizza at california pizza kitchen and ice cream at cold stone. What a day!

The birthday boys Nicholas and Johnny

What a party!

Each boy had a candle to blow out.

The infamous Trick Tracks, with new bike in background.