Happy 3rd Birthday Zachary!

So far Zachary has always celebrated his birthday while we've been at the beach. This year not only were we at the beach but we went to Phillips for their all-you-can-eat seafood buffet for dinner. Yum! We always look forward to gorging ourselves on seafood. When we were close to being full Paul asked our waiter if he could bring something out for Zach. Paul got to see the look on Zach's face better than me and he said that he looked absolutely amazed as a bunch of waiter and waitresses sang happy birthday to him. The brownies and pudding actually came from the buffet, our waiter just jazzed it up with the candles.

Lauren had bought him a Spongebob card that makes noise. As you can tell he loved it.

Here he is finally blowing out the candles on his ice cream cake. We waited till almost 9:00 to do the cake since we were still so full from dinner.

I know he had a great 3rd birthday. He played on the beach, had a good dinner, was surprised with a special dessert and then had even more cake right before bed. The only thing better would be throwing in another Go Kart ride sometime during the day. (See the post about the beach about the Go Karts.) Here's wishing you yet another good year Zachary, maybe you'll get to celebrate your 4th birthday at the beach too, who knows.

My Silly Boy

I was going through some of my pictures/videos on my computer when I came across this video. I used to watch Crime and Investigation network while we ate lunch and Zach always loved watching one of the promos they do for other shows. Towards the end of the promo one of the guys starts to open a gate and then you see a house blow up. Here he is watching it, I believe this was taped around Easter time.

I don't really remember why he was laughing but I somehow got this crazy picture of him mid-laugh.

He can be a handful at times but mostly he's a lot of comic relief in our house! He sure keeps things interesting.

It's Official

I kept this quiet just in case it didn't work out but this morning I had an interview and am now an assistant teacher at a preschool working with 2-year-olds.

Background story: One of my neighbors (who happens to be Lauren's friends' mom) had called me last week wanting to know if I would be interested in being her assistant for 2 mornings a week. She told me all about the job and she gave such a good sell that I said sure, I would definitely be interested. Of course it was all contingent on getting Zach into the preschool too. So about an hour later the director from the preschool calls and she sets up an interview for this morning. Oh, she also said there was no problem with getting Zach into the preschool, there were spots in either the 2 or 3-year-old rooms.

So, back to this morning. The interview went well and I got offered the job, of course my neighbor pretty much said it was a done deal before even going there. Even the director said it was just a formality. She decided to try Zach in the 3-year-old room even though he's not potty trained yet. Oh boy, we've got some work to do to get him ready.

My pay really sucks. :) I'm sure most teenagers are making more than me! Once you figure Zach's tuition into the mix (I do get a discount for him) I really won't be bringing much money home at all. I know I am over qualified for an assistant position but my long term goal though is to move up to a teacher position and of course, make more. Since I've been out of the loop for so long I figured this would be a good way to get back into it and find out if I like it there. And if I don't like it then after this year I'll go back to being a full time stay at home mom again, sitting around watching tv, eating bonbons. :) (At least that's what Paul thinks I do!)

Rehoboth Beach

Once again we went to Rehoboth Beach. My parents' neighbor offered his place again to us so my mom, me and the kids went down for 4 days. Paul even came this year and spent one night with us. Boy was that room crowded! It's a studio room that only sleeps 4 but with blow up beds and Zach's crib we squeezed 7 people in there for one night, 6 people the other nights. Here's a few pics from the first day we were there, Monday.

Zach having fun on the beach.

Kristin on the beach.

Megan and Zach enjoying an ice pop on the patio.

Ice cream time for Megan.

On Tuesday Paul came down. We spent some time on the beach, hung out in the room so Zach could take a nap then went to Grotto's and did some shopping on the boardwalk.

What happened to my kids?

Wednesday morning was foggy so we didn't get out on the beach until later. Not long after we were on the beach we heard thunder and felt raindrops. Luckily there were no storms but the sun kept coming and going and eventually we just gave up and packed our stuff up. Zach did get to play with his new dump truck we bought him on the boardwalk the night before.

Got all 4 kids in this picture! Lauren remembered to bring her ipod to the beach today.

Zach showering off before going to the room. He's trying to get the sand off his belly!

After Zach's nap we headed to Funland to ride some rides. I don't think Zach was quite awake yet, he didn't look very excited in any of the pictures. He did have fun though.

Kristin and Lauren rode something that flipped them upside down.

I can't believe Zach was big enough to ride FreeFall. It's the ride that takes you up and drops you, over and over.

A closer up look after a drop. Look at Lauren holding onto his leg, that's something I would do!

Megan really wanted to ride the Sea Dragon (also known as the Pirate Ship) but none of the sisters wanted to go with her. So guess who went? She kept coming out of her seat so here I am holding her head.

On the way back to the room we stopped to get a group photo. Well almost a group photo, someone had to take the picture.

So Paul left to go home Wednesday after dinner and after he left we just stayed in and watched some shows on tv. Here's Zach jumping on Kristin after we let him out of his crib Thursday morning.

I took Megan, Kristin and Zach to the pool Thursday when they opened while Mamaw and Lauren cleaned what they could of the room. After the pool we strolled the boardwalk one last time, did our last minute shopping, then came back and ate lunch. I loaded up the car while the rest of the cleaning was done and then we were out of there.

It was a fun trip, our first time to the beach in '09. What I love about that place is that it's right on the boardwalk and for 4 days I didn't have to drive anywhere. Between the beach, the pool, the boardwalk and Funland we kept ourselves occupied. Thanks Mamaw for taking us again this year.