ALEXANDER AND BENJAMIN ARE 5!!

My how time flies....Alexander and Benjamin are 5 years old!
We had a great time celebrating, spreading the event out over an entire week. The festivities started off with a little family party with Shawn's mom and sister before they went back to Canada. Then the boys wanted to invite all the children in the neighborhood on their actual birthday so we had an outdoor party on that day. Finally, we had a smaller party for 10 friends on Saturday. I figure since I only have to do two birthdays for the four children, I can splurge a little!
So here are a few pictures from the festivities:

Here are the happy birthday boys with their cakes:

Shawn made some terrific pinatas for the birthday party on Saturday....I keep telling him he should make some money on the side with this little hobby....I really want to be able to come home next summer! Anyhow, he made 4 of them so each of the children got to pick which animal they wanted him to make. So to show off his handiwork, they posed with their favorite animal. Here is Jacob with his tiger:

Hannah with the elephant...for Grammy White and Mommy!

Benjamin and the lion

Alexander and the zebra

Shawn made some terrific pinatas and we are a little sad that they got bashed to bits after all that work! But the children all had a great time taking swings and, of course, collecting the sweeties that fell out!

Alexander getting ready to swing at the zebra

This one is a little fuzzy but I wanted to get Benjamin's pinata batting practice on here too.

The birthday boys having the first balloon race...it ended in a tie!

Jacob had a little difficulty with the balloon race but he did finish the course!

Hannah used her skirt to her advantage and won the race! There really is a balloon under there.

I know this a long post but I don't seem to post so often these days. So I have 3 more photos to share from the community birthday party after school on their actual birthday. There were alot of children who they invited so we just let them have a football match in the back garden, then played some water balloon games (thankfully it was about 20 degrees and sunny that day), and finished off with cupcakes and koolaid outside.

Here is a photo of some of the children in the midst of the football match...for all you Canadian folk, we mean soccer....yes, we have become accustomed to the Scottish lingo!

After the football match, we had a few water balloon toss games and then a "free for all" water balloon fight.

And here are the cupcakes, which were supposed to be in the shape of a football as well, but it didn't turn out so great in this photo....it's the smiling children you all want to see anyhow, right?

Alexander and Benjamin Go To School

Alexander and Benjamin started Primary School last Wednesday. They are loving it!
I have only a couple of pictures here as their uniforms have the school crest and name on them and so I don't want to post them here for the whole world to see and know where my boys go to school, so I will just post a couple with their coats on which is a little less "revealing". Their uniforms consist of a polo shirt (white, green, or blue), navy sweater, and they can choose their own pants....they look so cute!
Shawn's mom and sister were here for the first day so Shawn and I were both able to walk the boys to school and then we took the luxury of going for a cup of tea at a local cafe!

The boys continue to love school. They go from 850-1200 right now until mid-September when they will start 850-250. Should be interesting to see how tired they are when they go the whole day...I think that is why they ease them into it for the first month.

Posing with Dad in our car park

Walking up the path from our doorway.

More Scottish Fun with Canadian Visitor

Our second week with Cindy is almost over and we continue to have a great time showing her around our lovely city. Tonight she is actually out at the Military Tattoo....I am VERY jealous. The event has been sold out for quite some time but friends of ours were just given tickets. I was going to babysit for them while they attended but at the last minute the wife wasn't feeling well....so Cindy got to go instead! What an experience she will have....did I mention I am a little jealous??
Anyhow, here are a few pictures of what we have been doing here this last week:

Yesterday, Cindy and I got to travel to Dollar, Scotland to visit Campbell Castle. It was a great chance to spend time together as Shawn took care of all the children so we could go alone....very nice! Here is Cindy in front of her castle:

Here we are at the entrance to the castle
Cindy with a gorgeous view from the top of her castle
And another picture which just looks too good to be true. This was also taken from the top of the castle. Do you see why we love this country??
We took the children to a city farm this week as well. It was a great place to spend the day. Here are the children climbing on the tractor that is at the farm.
There are some indoor "exhibits" at the farm as well. So here are Cindy, Hannah, and the boys looking at the tropical fish.
And now....the cutest pictures I ever did see....but I am a little biased. We gave all the boys hair cuts again Tuesday night and Benjamin (quite out of the blue) said he wanted a strip of hair left in the middle of his head. So we gave him a little mohawk (temporarily...we cut it off after pictures) and took some pictures.
What is a mohawk without sunglasses and a guitar??

A close up of our cool dude!!

We also went to the beach this week but didn't take our cameras....what were we thinking???!! However, they probably would have gotten all covered in sand anyhow. The children LOVED the beach and had a great time playing in the waves and building sand castles. It really made me want to try to find a way to go back to Canada for a bit next summer to enjoy my mom's new beach house! Hope you are all enjoying your summers. We'd love to hear from you!