Team Whitehead Goes Bowling!

We signed up for a summer bowling pass at some lanes near our house and it has been awesome!

Tony loves to bowl and I am pretty sure that he would go every day if he had someone to go with... and that I wouldn't be upset that he was never home... maybe.

We were pretty pumped to see that the boys like it too!

The boys with their bowling balls! I think that bowling shoes in size 7( G-man's size) are the cutest ever!

 (The marks on Bastian's face are from his first case of Poison Ivy this year... )

Gabriel's balls took forever to get down the lane! Tony insists that our kids learn to bowl properly and not to use the slide thing...  Gabriel doesn't seem to mind much!

Bastian was excited from beginning to end! We did have to battle some grumpiness because he had a hard time waiting for his turn... but he recovered quickly!

I am sure that we will be bowling again in the near future, so there will likely be more photos!

Peace,

Nikki

Steve and Kristina Come to visit!

Soon after Grandma Beth and Jane left we welcomed more house guests! Seriously.. it was less than 48 hours!

We had a blast, and now we know what it would be like with 8 people living in our home! AWESOME!

Steve is a friend from high school (Actually we didn't like each other in high school at all! But after high school we reconnected at a mutual friends wedding and discovered that neither of us are jerks anymore! Now he and his wife are some of our closests friends!)

They stayed with us for 4 crazy fun filled days.

We were able to check out;

 VA Beach- Where a huge storm caused us to run and carry (yes carry!) strollers into a nearby hotel because 70 mph winds and sand do not make for a very kid friendly afternoon! It was really scary, but after about 30 minutes in the lobby of a beach front hotel all was calm and we decided to head home!

National Zoo- Again! good thing we bought a pass this year! It is such a fun zoo! And we get free zoo cookies every time we go!

The National Mall & Smithsonian- Bastian got to see dinosaurs and a bunch of dead animals right after we left the zoo. Awesome, right?

Here are some photos !

My favorite beach photo of Bastian!

Bastian and Joshua

Kristina braving the waters with Joshua and Bastian!

Bastian checking out the amazonian fish at the national zoo!

My men in a South American Rain Forest, looking for monkeys!

I think that G-man and Tony look a lot alike here!

Th McGraths! Steve with Joshua and Kristina with Connor!

Gabriel- who is having an awesome hair moment!

Team McGrath at the Zoo!

We picked the parking lot with the giant steps all the way to the zoo! Don't park in Parking lot C if you have a stroller!

Kristina her way down the steps with another sleeping baby!

The big boys rode with the daddies and the little boys rode with the mommies... Bastian and Joshua were lucky enough to watch movies during each road trip! He is still talking about Wall-E!

We can't wait to see them again!

Peace,

Nikki

Grandma Beth and Janey Poo come to visit!

We recently had my mom and her friend Jane come for a few days!

The boys love "Grandma Beth" no matter what... but since she met Jane she has become quite a bit cooler!
Jane loves reptiles, lizards and all things creepy crawly! So now Grandma Beth loves them and owns a TON of them! When we skype Bastian justs asks to see the lizards and snakes! It is like a virtual trip to the zoo!

During the visit Bastian had lots of questions for both of them and loved to ask questions and try to impress them with his knowledge of all things gross!

While they were here we were able to see:
 Maymont... Where I had to take Jane down a horrifying flight of windy cobblestone steps in her wheel chair and I thought we were both going to die the whole time!

The National Zoo - Where Bastian, my mom and Jane all talked about lizards and had a blast!

and an amazing restaurant on the southside called Benny's BBQ. If you like BBQ- you have to check it out!

Here are some photos!

Under an awesome tree at Maymont!

Playing on a hill at Maymont.

Gman and Me in a Butterfly house at the National Zoo.

The Big Male Lion at the zoo. He currently has 7 babies with him and they are super cute!

Bastian checking out Lizard innerds!

Gman and Daddy making Crazy Faces!

Bastian, Jane and Grandma Beth checking out a snake.

Checking out the meerkats. They freak out over my mom's service dog Echo!

Grandma Beth, Jane and Bastian again.

Bastian and Gabriel looking at some tiny mammal.. I can't remember what it is called...

We had a blast and can't wait for them to come back!

Peace,

Nikki

Bastian is 4!!!

It blows my mind that 4 years ago my Bassie Boy was born!

Not to sound like a nerd, but it seems like yesterday! Although so much has changed in our lives since then!

He is such a goof ball and such a fun guy! Bastian loves to have fun no matter where he is!
He is becoming such an amazing helper and he loves to help Gman do things... although Gabriel seems to be less enthusiastic about it!

He loves to spend time outside. He loves to garden with me.
We have 10 tomato plants planted this year and he can not wait to pick the tomatoes that he can already see on most of the plants!

He loves to look at and catch (and sometime squash) bugs. When I ask him not to squash bugs his defense is " but mom, I'm just a bug killer!"

He LOVES dinosaurs! He can name over 20 different species of dinosaurs and some he can tell you the time period that they lived during. He loves for us to describe a dinosaur and he will guess what kind it is. When we were playing and I was trying to get him to guess "Pliosaurus" he corrected me and said "excuse me, mom a pliosaurus is a marine reptile NOT a dinosaur!" 
His favorite kind of dinosaur is Lambeosaurus and of course the T-Rex!

His absolute favorite thing to do right now is draw! If I find an old notebook around the house, I can give it to him and he will have it loaded from cover to cover in less than a week. I have no idea how well kids his age should be able to draw, but I am pretty sure that Bastian is a future Monet. Not that he is drawing lillies in a field or anything, but he seems to be pretty good at it to me. His most recent drawings that we have thought were amazing were; A bunny (he wants one for his b-day!), A Chef with a birthday cake, A Stegosaurus, and a Lizard with a bag on his tongue that helps him catch flies! There are literally hundreds more!

He is still taking a 2 hour nap each day in addition to sleeping 11 hours each night! I don't want to curse it by writing it here... we know that we are some lucky folk to have a 4 year old who still takes a regular nap!

Here are some photos of my handsome 4 year old!

He is currently in a headband phase.. that we think is AWESOME! He likes to wear one every day and now he has discovered that it is cooler for them to match his clothes!

 The Aligator Snapping Turtle his favorite animal!

He still loves the beach and any water in general!

He still loves to be goofy!

Happy 4th Birthday my little Stud!

* Be prepared- Some of these pictures will show up again in the future in other blog posts.

Belle Isle, Our First trip of the year!

Tony surprised me with a trip to Belle Isle with the boys on Mother's Day.
(Which was after I whined to him, because I wanted to do something fun and I didn't think we were going to! ) I'm not sure what it is about that place but we LOVE it! We went no less than 7 times last summer and we have already gone 3 times this summer!

Bastian's favorite thing to do is to throw rocks into the water!

You have to pick the perfect rock.. Tony is taching him what size/shape rocks skip the best.

Apparently, after throwing a rock in a river you have to strike a manly pose! Check.

A cute photo of my men!

Enjoy!

Playing Catch Up!

Yikes!

Nothing like a 2 month blog break!

I will be playing some catch up for a few days... Because believe it or nit we didn't sit on the couch this whole time!

But until I write a real post here is are a couple of shots of my Gman looking goofy!

Military Photos!

When we were cleaning off our old Desktop Computer I found a bunch of photos from Tech School. I thought they were too cool to not share!

  This is me working in the cockpit of an A-10. Pretty much the coolest aircraft ever!

  Tony and Me. I was about 20 weeks pregnant with Bastian at this point!

 This is my Tech School Graduation!

 Here are some random shots of our tech school experience. The group around the table is playing poker at one of the many poker tournaments that Tony and I arranged to raise money for an Organization called Airmen Helping Airmen (AHA). I was the president and it rocked!

Hooray Air Force!