Spencer's Mother's Day Tea

A video from the last "event" of the year for Spencer in his 2 Year Old preschool class.  The teachers hosted a cute Mother's Day Tea and had all the kids sing a couple songs before sharing some treats.  Spencie breezed through his first year of preschool.  It will be exciting to see all 3 boys doing the "big" performances next year that were such a treat to see for the first time with the twins this year!

Spencie Joins the Club

This past Saturday Spencer decided he was ready to join the big boy bicycle club.  He's been quietly watching his older brothers over the last couple weeks from the driver seat of the police car.  But when Owen got his brand new Dusty bicycle on Friday, Spencer spoke up and said that he wanted to ride a big boy bike too!  So a day shy of 2 weeks from the day Owen started riding, Spencer proved to his brothers that he could hold his own.  It's funny because the night Owen learned to ride, I predicted Oliver and Spencer would learn in 2 weeks.  And without pushing, they naturally became interested, and then determined, on their own...exactly within 2 weeks!  For documentation sake, the official dates the boys each graduated to two-wheelers are Owen: May 3, Oliver: May 8, Spencer: May 16.  So proud of my big boys!!!

Oliver Riding Two-Wheel Bicycle!

Oliver wasn't going to let Owen be the only two-wheelin' West brother for long... Only 5 days after Owen mastered the two-wheel bicycle, Oliver wanted to prove he could do it too!  He followed Owen's recipe for success using the balance bike, then with little assistance hopped right on the big boy bicycle and was cruising up and down the driveway.  He was so proud of himself, and we were too!!

Spencer's Meow Meows

Spencie's so cute with his little cat obsession.  Actually, all the boys are - they each have a family of favorite pink, purple, sparkly animals that they oooh, ahhh, and squeal over like little girls, and take care of like a mommy (maybe I should invest in Michael's stock).  I've been thinking about how this phase will quickly fade and how I should document how cute they are carrying their baby animals around.  Spencer is full-on cat mommy and has his own collection of "Meow Meows".  He likes to take them places when I let him and sneak one or two into his preschool bag.  Oliver did this last week with "Penton" his purple spotted unicorn, and I found out later that he even offered to let one of his girlfriends take Penton home for a night!  Owen asks to bring his dolphins to school on a regular basis too.  His thing is to make up crazy nick names for the dolphins...he used to call them "dol-dol" and right now he calls them Bolsy??  Here's a couple pictures and a video of Spencie bringing his Meow Meows down to breakfast this week.  

Owen Goes Two-Wheelin'

On Sunday, Owen surprised us all and hopped on a big boy two-wheel bicycle and took off (4 years and two months old)!  He's been riding a 12" bicycle with training wheels for about a year now (not in the winter of course) and became interested when I brought home a 14" bike with a kickstand and no training wheels.  I found it at a sale and thought it might be handy to keep around until the day the boys might want to start learning, assuming it would get tossed around, dropped and generally beat up in the process.  For the last few weeks it's been sitting in the garage, looking way out of their league and had me thinking we should hang it up or at least move it out of the way.  But Owen started asking questions...and we told him he should practice more on his little orange balance bike first.  Wow - did this thing do wonders!  He rode the balance bike around for a couple days, until he was cruising all the way up and down our long driveway with his feet up.  Such determination, mixed with motivation - I told him he could have a new, orange "Dusty" (from Planes) big boy bicycle if he learned how to ride a two-wheeler!  He even put a miniature Dusty in the bike pouch of the balance bike as a reminder.  Well on Sunday he decided he'd practiced balancing enough, got on the two-wheeler, and nearly effortlessly took off!  It took minimal "holding his seat" while he rode as he had already pieced it all together between the training wheel bike and the balance bike.  After once or twice up and down the driveway, we were just jogging along side our new bicyclist.  He still isn't comfortable with stopping on his own and got a couple small knee scrapes that come with the territory the first day.  But that didn't stop him and he insisted on getting back on and trying again after falling.  We've never seen such looks of awe, amazement, and envy from Oliver and Spencer once they realized what Owen was doing!  Spencer even threw a tantrum because he wanted to be able to ride that same bike right after Owen.  I have a feeling we're going to have 3 new big boy bikes by mid-summer!

First W&OD Bike Ride

Today we took the boys out for their first ride on the W&OD bike trail.  We parked near a historic railroad car in Herndon that they called "The Little Red Caboose" and started on the trail from there.  We rode until we saw a playground and stopped for a snack.  Even though it was overcast and a bit cold, they didn't want stop riding when it was time to go back home.

Paw Patrol Party

Last weekend, the boys' friends Jakob and Joslyn celebrated their 5th birthday with a Paw Patrol themed party.  They had their faces painted the colors of their favorite pups, made Paw Patrol dog collars, and took pictures in the "dog house", and got to swing at the pup pinata.  Owen is crazy about everything pink right now and was very specific in his request to have his face painted pink with a little bit of orange in the middle.  He brought home a handful of laminated cutouts of "Skye" the girl dog that dresses in pink and taped them to his bed.  This past week he's spent time coloring, cutting, and painting pictures of Skye!