Happy Birthday, Michael!

My little baby is growing up!!!  I cannot believe how quickly Michael has grown.  I am so proud and blessed to be his Mom.  

Michael decided that he didn't want a party this year and would rather go out to dinner as a family.  So, we decided to let him have an entire day of fun... 

We went to a small farm (where this picture was taken).  They got to see goats, baby goats, sheep, baby sheep, and chicks.  They were able to pet the chicks and one of the adult goats.  The babies were mostly afraid of all the children, but one baby goat was bottle-fed, so was used to people.  The owners let the kids feed the baby, which was very cool!  

After the farm, Michael got to choose where we went for lunch.  He decided on Mei-Wei, an Asian place, where they got "chicken and rice."  Which is sesame chicken, carrots, broccoli, and brown rice.  

Next it was time to head home for naps for the babies.  Michael decided he would like to spend nap time playing Super Mario on the Nintendo with Dad.  So, they did that for about 2 hours.  (Meredith and Mom got to spend the time out front pulling weeds and riding bikes; we also enjoyed that!)

Once the boys woke up, it was time to decide on dinner... The Peanut Place (Logan's) won a closely debated contest.  

Back home again for presents and cake.  All-in-all, Michael decided that he had a great time, but next year, would like to have a party, "with all of my friends."  

In other news, I finally updated the rest of the Picasa albums, with the exception of this weekend's pictures, which are still on the camera/phone.  

Michael did finish 1st Grade, so he's on his end-of-year break... can't really call it a Summer Break, since we'll probably be starting back sometime beginning of summer.  :P  

Updates

So, Benjamin is definitely walking and running now.  :)  He hardly ever crawls anymore, which is great, but also a little sad.  He has 4 teeth now and is working on several more.
Jonathan is learning words like crazy.  He can talk super well and is getting better every day.  He's actually working on counting... apparently Michael and Meredith have been teaching him when I'm not looking because Chris and I heard him count, accurately, to 12!!!  Now, he can't do that every time or anything, but it was pretty exciting that day.  :)
Meredith is over a quarter through official Kindergarten (she's been calling her Pre-K, kindergarten) and is doing quite well too.  She can read anything with short vowels and most silent-e and "oo" words.  She has her addition facts through 5 memorized as well.
Michael finishes First Grade this week (wow, did I really just say that?!?!).  I am super pleased with how he's doing.  We'll be taking a pretty long break before starting 2nd... I did not push memorizing his math facts enough, so we'll be doing a review session and lots of flash cards.  He's also going to be re-reading the books he read this year both as practice and as a demonstration to himself as to how much he's improved.

If anyone is interested, here's a link to the curriculum company we use... Memoria Press.  I absolutely love it and the kids are doing so well with it.  Feel free to click through it to see what we're doing each year!  Note that we have not done their Pre-K package as it just came out, but we've used parts of it and are quite likely to use it with Jonathan/Benjamin.

Picasa has been updated for Michael, Meredith, and the All Kids folders.  Still working on Jonathan and Benjamin.  I think Picasa has changed to Google+, but it should still work the same.  Let me know if you run into any problems!