The human bowling ball

Kris snapped this photo of Thomas playing with the skateboard in the driveway yesterday and posted it on her blog. But I thought it was too good not to share here too.

Change we can believe in

Thomas has the uncanny ability to find loose change wherever he goes. I swear, every time I take him somewhere he winds up finding money.

So maybe there's a future for him working with the government. Could he be the key to solving the economic meltdown?

Good advice

When I left for work this morning I said goodbye to Thomas and told him to be a good boy.

"Okay. You be a good grownup!" he answered.

All aboard!

We now officially have two kids in school. Thomas started kindergarten on Friday.

I was nervous about how we would do getting on the bus. But as you can see here, we had nothing to worry about! He did super.

Kris has some more thoughts on the start of school over on The Rooney Train.

Back from Burlington

We're catching our breath after a whirlwind of family activity.

It started last week with Thomas' birthday, which we celebrated twice. The first was on Thursday, the day of his actual birthday. We had family over dinner -- including my mom, my sister Annie and her family, and my sister Mary Ellen who was up visiting from Kentucky. Then on Saturday we had his kid party with some of his pre-school classmates.

I still can't believe he's 5 years old. In a lot of ways he's still a little pipsqueek, but the time is going by fast!

Sunday we left for Burlington. As Kris pointed out, we were probably the only ones who went north for spring break. We visited the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory, ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center, the Lake Champlain Chocolate Factory and the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory.

Yeah, I know...that's a lot of factories. We didn't set out for our mini-vacation to be one big factory tour -- it just sort of worked out that way.

Besides all the factories (and one museum) we also took the ferry across the lake on our way home.



The scenery was beautiful. It's been a long time since I was last in Burlington, and I forgot what a spectacular view they have of the Adirondacks from the other side of the lake. Staring at the mountainous horizon was one of my favorite parts of the trip -- that and the chocolate!

Below is a slide show of photos from our trip. And you can read a lot more details about the birthday activities and our Burlington adventures over on the Rooney Train.

Easter Bedlam

The first picture here shows just a fraction of the plethora of people who showed up at the YMCA today for the Easter Egg Hunt. It was a complete mad house!

A large section of the gym floor was covered with hay, with eggs hidden in the hay for little kids Thomas' age. Nolan went outside with the older kids to look for eggs hidden in woods.

There were also bouncy bounces inside and outside. Plus there was a mini-golf course and a petting zoo also in the gym and photos with the Easter Bunny in a separate room.

We made a point of going because Thomas won the "name the Easter Bunny" contest. He suggested the name "Eggster" for the giant bunny sitting in a basket in the lobby. So he got to bring the bunny and its basket full of goodies home.

There were so many people that we just found our eggs, collected Thomas' Easter basket prize and got out of there!

Sleepy Boy

I think I wound up like this a couple of times in college...

Bridging the generation gap

We visited Kris' mom and dad this past weekend. It was a very nice visit.

While we were there, Thomas tried to teach his grandpa the finer points of video games.

'Sunny days...'

Actually it was a fairly snowy day here today.

But that didn't keep Thomas and his friend Stephanie from enjoying a morning at the theater. They took in a matinée performance of "Sesame Street Live."

This was Thomas' first time attending a live show like this. Kris says Thomas was a little nervous at first, but by the end of the show he was dancing in the aisles!

Wigglemania

Thomas and Kris had a close encounter with some of the Wiggles friends yesterday.

The Great Escape is adding a Wiggle World section this year. As a promotion, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus and Captain Feathersword arrived at the Albany Airport before heading up to Queensbury. They were greeted by a horde of happy children.

Thomas admired the characters from a distance. Other kids were posing for pictures with the characters, but Thomas chose to enjoy them from afar.

He enjoyed seeing the characters, although he was not fooled by the fake Captain Feathersword. The actor dressed up in that costume was very obviously not the same guy from the Wiggles videos and TV show.

However, word is the real Wiggles will be performing at the Great Escape this summer to help kickoff Wiggle World.

Gotcha Day 2007

Today we celebrated Gotcha Day -- the fourth anniversary of when we got Thomas.

It was a low-key event this year. We just hung out around the house today playing in the backyard. But tonight we splurged and went out to dinner.

Here are the annual then-and-now photos...

To know him is to love him

We had Chinese food for dinner the other night and this was Thomas' fortune...


If you know Thomas, then you realize just how appropriate that is. We thought it was pretty funny. So we set that fortune aside to hold on to.

Summer kick off

Kris and the kids celebrated the end of school and kicked off summer the other day with a trip to Hoffman's Playland with the Brownells.

As Kris mentioned before, Thomas' pre-school class and the first grade at Nolan's school put on some end of the year concerts in the last couple of weeks.

Nolan's class also recently went on a field trip to the State Museum.

In addition all of that, we had Father's Day last weekend (which was very nice). The next day there was a Father's Day picnic at Nolan's school that included a kickball game for all of the dad's and kids.

Prior to Father's Day, on Saturday, I took the kids and a friend of Thomas' to see "Shrek the Third" (I was disappointed -- it's easily the weakest of the three movies -- but the kids liked it).

And of course, as I mentioned before, we had our last few baseball games.

Anyway, here are some photos of the Hoffman's Playland trip.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!

It's hard to believe, but our little Thomas turned 4 years old today!

He had his first, real kid party. We had about four kids plus Nolan and Thomas. As you can tell from the video above, the party had a Superman theme. They played great games like "The Kryptonite Toss," "Ring Around the Daily Planet" and "Pin the S on Superman." The kids also got to decorate their own super hero capes.

All of the credit goes to Kris. She did a great job planning the party and coming up with all of those cool ideas.

My small part was taking care of the party music. I put together a nifty mix of Superman theme music that we listened to over and over.

Thomas had a great time. He went to bed very happy tonight. He's already looking forward to his next birthday--when he can once again eat candy for breakfast, doesn't have to share his toys and can pretty much do whatever he wants all day long!

Picture time!

It's been a while since I've thrown up any photos. So here's a couple--a recent one of Thomas and the boys at the Pinewood Derby...

Dig Dug

The kids were home with another snow day today. They spent part of their day digging through the backyard...

Getting ready

Thomas went out in the front yard today to sprinkle from "reindeer food" (oats and glitter).



I taped him with my super-spiffy new camera that my wonderful wife gave to me last night as an early Christmas present.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Autumn

Kris took this picture back on Halloween. I just didn't get around to posting it until now...

Trick-Or-Treat

We’re gearing up for Halloween. Today Kris and Thomas carved pumpkins…



Friday night there was a Halloween part at Nolan’s school. That gave the kids a chance to try out their costumes. Nolan is going as SpongeBob SquarePants this year. Thomas is (surprise, surprise) Thomas the Tank Engine. Kris made the costumes herself and did a fantastic job…


At the party people who saw Thomas kept saying things like, “Hi, Thomas!” and “Look, here comes Thomas.” And I kept wondering, “How do all these people know him?” Yeah, that dad’s a real sharp one, isn’t he?

Thomas the Tank Engine

Thomas and I spent some nice one-on-one time together this afternoon while Kris and Nolan were out together. We built a big track with his wooden Thomas the Tank Engine parts and played with his trains.

It was good to have some nice, simple fun at home on a quiet afternoon. We had so much fun that I grabbed the camera to take some shots…