A Certificate, A Green Stripe and a Yellow Belt

Last night the kids had their every three month karate belt testing. Zack is a Little Dragon, so he has a white belt but gets a colored stripe each time he tests. Sadie is in between. She is 8, which is the age cutoff for the Little Dragons, but she didn't start karate until she was 8 so she needed time to learn everything. Sensei Guido decided that she was finally ready to test for her yellow belt! Oh, and he also asked Drew to come in his uniform. Drew isn't in the class (it starts at age 4), but he joins in when he feels like it and Sensei just loves him!

Zack went in the first group and did awesome! He was concentrating SO hard and looked very strong and confident, which was fun to see.


When all of the Little Dragons were done, Sensei called Drew up by himself and had him do some exercises! He actually followed directions pretty well. He was so darn cute up there!



Sadie went in the next group. She also looked very good, strong and focused. She did an awesome job!


Then all of the kids lined up and got their certificates and stripes/belts. Drew even got his very own certificate!

Drew's Birthday Party!

It's hard to hold up 3 fingers!

Finally, here are pictures from Drew's birthday party! Drew wanted his party theme to be the Little Einsteins, which is a preschool show on the Disney Channel. There are four kids and a rocket, with lots of music and instruments. So we also ran with the instrument theme to go along with Drew's love of guitars, drums, and any other instruments.

Mommy and the Birthday Boy!

Look at all those presents!

Sadie made a special card and gift for Drew

Drew and his guitar cake.
I thought it turned out pretty great! I won't be making another any time soon, though.

Drew's first pixie stick, with his friends Phoebe, William and Ally looking on.

Drew and Papa Paul

Uncle Aaron, Auntie Chrissie, Drew and his new ukulele!

Drew and Grandma Betsey

Grandma Marie and Drewby

Drew's Beloved Derek and Rachel

Watch out! Officer Drew and his new bike are watching YOU!

Drew's Guitar

I am hoping to get a post of Drew's birthday party up by tonight. But for now I thought I would share one of the pictures we got when we took him to JCPenney for his birthday pictures. I love this picture. How fun to look back at this one day and tell him, "See? You loved the guitar before you were even three!"

Valentine's Day

Saturday my mom took Zack to OMSI for a special Grandma/Grandson day. This was after he got to spend the night at her hotel with her. Lucky guy, huh? Anyway, when they got back it was time to head to Pump It Up Jr. to celebrate Drew's friend, James' birthday. James was born the exact same day as Drew at the same hospital. His dad Matt and Tony are good friends, so they had great fun getting their meals together in the hospital cafeteria after we had the babies. Anyway, back to the party.

Bounce, bounce, bounce!

Too bad she isn't having any fun...

Drew and his little buddy, Ally

After the party we enjoyed a delicious dinner that my mom made and the kids got to open more Valentine's treats. Because they hadn't had enough. ;)

Valentine's Day at School

Wow, I took so many pictures this weekend, it's unbelievable! We had a busy weekend with Valentine's Day and Drew's birthday and all the visitors and fun stuff that went along with both. So I shall start with Friday. I was able to help out at both Zack and Sadie's Valentine's Day parties, which was lots of fun.

Even Drew got a yummy cookie!

Opening up the Valentines

Then it was off to Sadie's party. For the last several months, Sadie's teacher has been doing a money system with checks. The kids earned money for certain things but then had to write checks to their teacher for various things - bad behavior, getting drinks outside of lunch and recess, missing words on their spelling test, etc. So all the second grade teachers set up a store and the kids used their checks to purchase all they needed to decorate their Valentine boxes. They had SO much fun!

Sadie's Fabulous Box!

My mom came up Friday night to spend the weekend with us before Drew's party. That night was BINGO night at Sadie's school. They had tons of really cool prizes, food, snacks, lots of noise, it was great! The kids were quite disappointed that they never won, but it was still a fun way to spend a Friday night.

Hoping to win

Don't let that cheesy smile fool you, folks. Drew whined and fussed the entire rest of the night. Except while he was stuffing his face with pizza, M & Ms and popcorn...

Concentrating hard...

3 YEARS AGO TODAY...

This was me. Ready to give birth to our third child, a boy, to be named Drew. After having contractions all night and then being sent HOME from the hospital at 6am because my labor had not quite progressed enough, we were back and THIS time, we were a GO!

After an epidural that worked for a short time, then suddenly didn't work anymore and a short transition phase, Drew Anthony Bastinelli was born on February 16, 2006 at 9:36pm. He weighed a teeny 6 pounds 1 ounce and measured 18 1/4 inches long. We were in love immediately. He had short dark hair with a cute little hairline that swooped to the right, DARK eyes, and the cutest face we had ever seen (besides his bro and sis, of course!).




Wow, it's kind of hard to remember, you know?

TODAY, Drew is a spunky, energetic, independent yet cuddly and sweet THREE year old! He loves people and knows very well how to get attention and then keep it with his charm. He loves his Daddy and his big brother and sister. He loves his mommy, too, especially when I am at work, so he says. When I tell him I love him, he usually responds with "And Jesus love me too!!" They sure catch on quick, huh? Drew has never been a big fan of toys, which is kind of frustrating at times. He loves playing the little boy version of sports of every kind, especially baseball, golf, football, and of course, Wii bowling! His best friends are Bear and Scarf. Oh and his left thumb. :) He is a great sleeper: 11-12 hours every night with a 2-3 hour nap every day. We will see what happens when he moves to a big boy bed! Drew loves the Little Einsteins (a Disney Channel cartoon) and stemming from that is his love of instruments and music. He loves his guitar and drumset and is fascinated with all sorts of instruments. He has recently made friends with some of the musicians at open Bluegrass night at Rock Creek Tavern, in fact (you will see in a future post). I am so curious to see if his love for music sticks!

And there you have it. My baby is three years old. It makes me terribly sad but yet happy at the same time. I am a baby lover and always have been. So for Drew to be 3 is rough. But also being able to move into a new chapter of life that includes ALL of the kids in school and doing activities is refreshing, albeit frightening! So here's to Drew, the newly turned THREE YEAR OLD!

Pirate Drew - Arrrrg!

Cheesy Drew

Sweet Drew

Drew's Happy Place

Happy 3rd Birthday, Baby Boy!!

hair

If you read my blog religiously like you should (wink wink), you would know that Sadie has been asking for bangs for a looooong time. You would have seen the post back in November when I let her get Side Bangs with the hope of pacifying her desires. Well, do you think it worked? Nope. Not one bit.
It's not necessarily that I didn't think she would look good with bangs. Sadie has great hair and a great face and even though I like her without bangs, I knew bangs would be cute. But Sadie is picky. She doesn't like when her hair is in her face or when anything is on her face, for that matter. Having bangs before, I know that you have hair in your face very often when the wind is blowing or if you part them a little wrong, etc. But alas, I realized this was something Sadie was going to have to figure out for herself. As much as I like to be in control of things, this was something that I just didn't need to have. So off we went to see our friend Jen. To see about some bangs.

Before

In Process

And... After!

I must say, Sadie does look pretty darn cute. And older too. Jen did a great job (thanks, girl!) and Sadie is way happy. While I was getting my haircut after hers, she actually said, "This is the best day of my life!" Wow.

P.S. If any of you Grandmas or Aunties are reading this before Drew's party tomorrow, you must pretend to be shocked and amazed when you see her! She made me wait to post pictures, but I promised her no one would look at the blog between now and tomorrow afternoon! ;)