2 more Bir-f-day pictures of Sean

We had a little family birthday party yesterday evening. I thought you might enjoy these two pictures of him. 

Sean got all fidgety with happiness when we sang for him

After the singing, Sean announced "Happy Birfday! I'm f-ree now!"

Blowing out the candles proved to be harder than he thought!

Happy 3rd Birthday to Sean!

Today our wonderful 'little' guy turns 3! Happy third Birthday, Sean! He is growing to be such a spunky, smart, mischievous, fun, BIG guy. Have I mentioned that he is the same height as quite a few new Kindergarten kids at Mark's school?!

A boy with a smile and a heart to match his huge size!

Sean started out big, with '10' being his magical number: He was born on September 10, at 10:10am, and he weighed 10lbs even. Here are a few pictures of his first day, and of his other birthdays. 

Sean, minutes after being born

Our toddler-length newborn

He still looked small in Dad's arms

Our little papoose, a few hours old

Mark meeting Sean for the first time

Proud big brother

Gentle big brother

Sean on his 1st birthday

Sean on his 2nd birthday

We love you so much, sweet boy, and look forward to watching you grow!

Mark's 1st day in 2nd grade

Mark started 2nd grade yesterday! We are excited to see what this next year brings. :)

Our 2 wonderful boys

The boy with no brakes

Sean was built without brakes. Or if he has them, they are there to screech, and keep going. If there is something to climb, he WILL climb it. If there is space to run, he will run as fast as he can, as far as he can get away with. And now that he has figured out his balance bike (Laufrad), the kid is just plain unstoppable. He loves to ZOOM at top speed, and doesn't seem to be slowed down much by steep, long up-hill stretches. I should add that he does stop fairly reliably when it comes to crossing streets, thank goodness.

All boy...

The other day something kind of scary, but in the end funny, happened. We rode our bikes to one of the nearby parks, and the boys had fun playing. The play set is at the top of a little hill, and the path has a very steep portion leading away from the playground. At the bottom of the hill there is a sharp turn that even some of the teenagers on skateboards still wipe out on. Beyond the curve is grass, and then forest with stinging nettles and brambles.
When it was time to go, I strapped on Sean's helmet, and was about to tell him to wait for me when OFF he zoomed, down the scary steep hill!
The balance bike has no brakes... and there was just NO way Sean was going to make it around the curve without crashing. I sprinted after him as he barreled downhill... knowing I wouldn't be able to catch up with him on time. He didn't make it around the curve, and ended up on the grass, tumbling and falling. Somehow, he managed to land upright, with one leg on either side of his bike, a little shaken up, but not hurt.
When I reached him, he was still just standing there, a little shell shocked. He turned his little face towards me, and with eyes the size of saucers, finally uttered a chuckle, and with a pleased tone, said: "Huhuh... THAT was FUN!" 

Ben's pontoon boat

Inspired by a country song, Ben decided to build a pontoon boat. This became a fun project for the Bradley guys to work on this Summer. After several land trials, Ben and Mark launched the "Gute Fahrt" (as Ben named it) in the Battleground lake. 

Ben and Mark setting things up for a land trial in our front yard

The boys and Ben taking a well-deserved break after some hard work

YARG!

Ben setting up the boat in the lake

Almost ready for launch!

Launched!

The frame for the tarp over was accidentally forgotten at home, but a great time was had by all anyway!

A little bit of catch-up from our trip to Montana...

Our trip to Montana was wonderful, and I have hundreds of pictures of it on my computer... since this blog is dedicated to the kids, though, here are just a few pictures of the boys!

Warm weather, shiners, and fun

I am several weeks behind in posting pictures of the boys... but in an effort to catch up just a little, here are some fun ones from last week. 

Horizontal surface + boy = climbed surface

Believe it or not, Sean actually had a full set of clothes on when we sent him outside to play. When I went outside to check on the boys, I found that Sean had stripped down to his underwear (which actually is a pair of Mark's underwear that he insisted on wearing in stead of his own), and his rubber boots. He was jumping up and down on the picnic table, watching his reflection in the window.

Mark, hard at work

Mark is earning himself a new bike this Summer. You know, because we are trying to raise good little Capitalists. We made a chart that has 100 bike points that need to be earned. For 5 bike points, Mark is scrubbing the algae/moss off of the railing of our deck - a job that took him about 1.5 hours.

My friendly bunch

Oh. That shiner? Yeah... Sean lost a fight with a door he was swinging on... I took this picture the day it happened. The next day it had turned more purple, and had spread out. We've watched some awesome colors show up in Sean's face over the last week!

Black eyes can't stop my boys from being happy!

My friends who have girls often marvel at the potential for chaos little boys have. I love our flavor of chaos. :)

Family picture

I have a whole slew of cute pictures of the boys, but no time to sort through them right this moment.

Instead, here is the family picture my Uncle Bob took of us at my Bapoo's life celebration/ family reunion in Bozeman, MT a bit over a week ago.

Bradley family, Summer 2013

Ben and Mark go see a Mariner's game

The weekend of May 26th Ben took Mark to Seattle to see a Mariner's game at Safeco field.
They had a lot of fun - here are the pictures Ben took:

Dozer Days!

This year we attended Dozer Days as a family! This was Sean's first time going, and both boys had so much fun...

The boys posing by a huge wheel

We had to wait in line for a turn to drive an excavator for about 45 minutes.
Sean kept himself busy building things out of rocks.

Mark has been to Dozer Days every year since we moved here. 

Mark, driving a real excavator!

Mark got to use the controls to dig a hole

Sean driving a real excavator

Sean moving the lever that moves the bucket to dump the dirt out

The three Bradley guys

Of COURSE they wanted to make faces!

Waiting for our ride in the huge dump truck

Mark and Sean playing in the tracks of an XL excavator

Sean could almost stand up inside the tracks

Mark's opinion of how fun this was

I am sure this will be something we do every year for MANY years...