On Sunday we had the big combo bday party for Emily and Joshua at the Bridge (our youth building). We now are the parents of a 5 and 3 year old so we're getting used to that. We had around 25 or so kids running around between some inflatables we borrowed, to the digging in the sand for plastic gold coins, to the bubble station to chasing ping pong balls inside. We concluded the party with some cake walk (toys instead of cakes), songs and of course cake.

Emily's Care Bear Cake.

Joshua's Madagascar cake or as he says it 'Mad-a-ga-car'

Joshua blowing out all three of his candles.

Yesterday was Emily's actual birthday so we spent a family day together. We went to the mall and she got to ride the carrousell with mommy while Joshua and daddy watched from the sidelines as he was 'too tired' to ride (not really sure why a carrousel would require a lot of energy to ride but oh well. Then we went to Toys r us and Emily received her own special birthday hat and baloon which she wore for the next several hours. We then went to Incredible pizza company (which is like Chuck E Cheese on steroids) Emily and I raced on the go-carts together and we won 1st place and received an official ribbon (we were only racing one other guy who was one of the employees but hey it was still pretty exciting). Now for our final picture:

So we were doing the games and letting them play on the play ground and we stumble across this giant wheel that looked like something off of the price is right. So Emily steps up to the plate, swipes her card, and with a little help from mommy pulls back the lever. The big wheel starts turning and we notice that it's starting to slow down awfully close to the jack pot. It slows down, slows down and sure enough lands in this slim little area (who knows what the odds are) and stops right on '1000'. So next thing we know the machine is practically burying our daughter in a sea of tickets. It keeps going and going and going until finally it reaches 1000. So she was obviously pretty excited. 1000 is a number that she can't quite conceive so as she was telling people how many she won she told them 1 million tickets. Anyway it was a fun and memorable birthday.

The kids are wrapping up their introduction to the art of swimming. Each time it's a fight to get them to go but they usually end up having fun and feel very proud of themselves. Emily has been so proud of her overcoming her fear of the water that she has told everybody she knows and even instructed me to make sure I tell everybody at the office how she put her head under water and swam. Joshua put on Emily's goggles and thought he was pretty cool stuff in the water.

The kids started back at Mother's day out and they are doing a Rome theme. They had a chance to be a part of a parade through the church yesterday.

Pizza prayers, horses and cedar wood

I finally had a chance to stop and breathe this morning and I forgot about a couple of videos from our Georgia trip. Above is a shot of Emily, Joshua and cousin Allison doing their 'God our Father' prayer before devouring some pizza. Below is a clip of Josh riding the old horse on springs at Whitney's parents house. I distinctly remember riding one of those when I was about 5 years old as I got one for a Christmas present. That toy stands out to me more than any other toy as I had to have set some kind of world record for longest plastic spring supported horse ride (if they had such a category).
Brad, Jay and Katrina were over on Saturday as we continued the saga of swingset construction. Here is a clip of Joshua after Katrina taught him his new phrase of the week, "party time, excellent!"
Last night Whitney and I continued to work on the swingset together which is an interesting married couple activity. At times it brought us close together (like when we actually put a part together correctly) and at other times we we nagged at each other over things like 'oh, you split that piece of wood', 'you didn't tell me we were supposed to use a T1 screw instead of an S1 screw', and 'the window mesh is supposed to go on the inside and not the outside'. Yeah it's been the full experience for sure. In the midst of our drama the kid drama ensued as well as Josh pee peed in his swimsuit, tried to pretend the pull string for our blinds was a jungle vine for tarzan, and the frequent disagreement our squabble between the two. On top of this we also had a little Tom and Jerry action going on in our backyard as our stray cat that won't leave, Stripes, apparently has a friend that happens to be a mouse. I walked out and Stripes was carrying the mouse in his mouth. Then he would let the mouse down and would chase it around, then they would both take a break and sit together in the shade and play some more. It was kind of like the mouse was Stripe's little indentured servant that just accepted the fact that he couldn't outrun or escape the grip of this cat so he just endured this new lifestyle. Here are a few pics of our current state of construction and of Tom and Jerry aka Stripes and Mousey.

Well in between life in the Dunn house we are still in the midst of our swing set drama. I have become well aquainted with every hardware store in our surrounding area as I have made a ridiculous amount of trips looking for missing bolts, t-nuts, taking bolts back, getting the wrong bolts, not finding the right bolts, buying galvanized bolts when I should have bought zinc plated bolts and on and on. Joshua is now three and has not yet come through on his promise to be done with diapers and use the big boy potty. However the other day at swim practice we saw a glimmer of hope as Monica Binkley's (friend and swim instructor) son Matthew showed Joshua the sheer fun and delight of pee peeing on a rock near their pool. So Whitney asked Joshua if he wanted to experience this phenomonen and he agreed. So he walked over there and sure enough did his business. So we tried to bring the concept back to our house (as we have a pile of rocks in the back yard) but no luck so far on that. Joshua is also working on his new dance moves as you can see a quick glimpse of it here in this video.
Emily discovered the wonder of the 'roley poley' yesterday when we were outside the bank as it crawled around her hand and did it's signature turn into a ball move. Last night our neighbor's daughter, Kyra, said that she wanted to spend the night with Emily so she brought over her little suitcase and had her trusty stuffed animals. They had bath time together and story time and prayer time and tuck in time. She was a brave trooper but after a little while reality set in and we heard a little voice over the monitor indicating that she was ready to go see her mommy and daddy. So she made it till about 11:00 which I guess we can't quite call a successful sleep over. Oh well I'm sure they'll give it a go again soon.

1 million pieces

Well for Emily and Joshua's Bday this year we along with help from grandparents have bought a build it yourself swingset/fort. The purchasing of this wonderful collection of wood and bolts was dramatic in itself (purchased it on sale in Georgia, negotiated with Woodlands Toys r Us thus returing the Georgia one, arriving to pick it up in the Woodlands to find it incomplete, calling several stores in Houston area, locating one in Humble and borrowing neighbor's pick up truck with kids in back to pick it up late Saturday night). Whitney, Brad Dittoe and our neighbor Ted spent half the day simply trying to label and take inventory of the all the pieces only to discover that we are missing 4 different sets of bolts and screws (yeah!). Anyway exhibit one is the pile of pieces that are supposedly going to all fit together and form a swingset. Exhibit two is the what the final product is supposed to resemble. We will see how it goes.

Wrapping up the Georgia Visit

Emily and Joshua posed together for a second right after church on Sunday. We had fun just blending in at West Cobb Church on Sunday and not having any official responsibilities. It was a great service and it was really cool as the church's student band led worship and did an amazing job.

Yesterday Emily, Joshua and cousin Allison got to go the the Northwest Georgia Science Museum where they had a chance to see two shows at the planetarium, pan for gems, dig for dinosaur fossils, and lots of other activities. Here are a few pictures from the experience (including a really freaky picture of Whitney's face and Emily's face together).

It's been a good trip. We've gotten to spend lots of time with Allison and gotten to know our other new nephew, John Dillon, a little bit better. Allison came up to me at the end of the day and said, "uncle Brian....I love you." So that was pretty sweet. We crammed all three kids into our car and took them to the park, then to dairy queen (where Josh pouted for a while because he decided he didn't want ice cream after all but chocolate milk), and then to target where they all picked out toys for each others birthdays. My son had a $21 limit and he decided he wanted 7 squishy animals (each costing 2.99) including two dinosaurs, a turtle, a snake, a whale, a lizard and a fish. He was in heaven as we strolled through the store and he had a pile of squishy animal friends to imagine all kinds of adventures with. Tomorrow we make the insane 14 hour voyage back to the mother state.

Joshua's Party

Joshua had his 3rd bday party yesterday out here in Georgia at Poppaw and Grammy's house. As usual his favorite part was the cake although opening presents was an equal rival this year. We are trying to get him some more boy toys so he got a whole set of hotwheels including a big wheel to ride on too.