new toys

We love summer hours -- on Fridays, we get to work just a half-day. This encourages us to try to take advantage of these Friday afternoons to do fun activities as a family. On this particular Friday, we (okay, maybe it was just me) were feeling particularly restless. We thought about going to the zoo, or maybe the aquarium and Coney Island, or maybe one of the county pools, or else the Hall of Science in Queens . . . but it was pouring rain which made us a lot less ambitious. Hence, we took a trip to Toys R Us to let the kids pick out a couple of new toys. Melissa & Doug toys were buy one get one 50% off, so we got a really cool wooden school bus AND toy cupcakes to decorate. What a hit! As soon as we got home, the boys decorated the cupcakes with the markers ("icing") and we took turns singing "Happy Birthday" to each member of our family. This was actually the first time we had really heard Avery sing an entire song in its entirety and we got all sappy-happy. And then we were inspired to make real cupcakes and let the kids have at it! We had lots of extra decorating supplies leftover from birthday celebrations earlier in the summer, and Avery and Caleb were sure to use a bit (or a lot) of everything: