Happy 2nd Birthday Danny Boy!

Yesterday our baby boy turned two! Doesn’t time fly by? Doesn’t it seem like yesterday that we were bringing our third boy home from the hospital? Now in 11 or 12 weeks we’ll have another baby to love and take care of as well! But before then we’ll celebrate the Marcroft way, a simple chocolate cake, some vanilla ice cream and two candles, but lots of love!
We love you Danny boy! Happy Birthday!
Here are some of Danny’s favorite things at this point in his life:

• Balloons
• Trains, train tracks, trucks and anything else that moves
• Chocolate, candy, ice cream
• Shoes/Socks or as he says it “shoesock on!”
• Balls of any kind…he’s even learned how to say the different types recently!
• Scooters, bikes, skateboards and yes, he tries to ride them all and does really well on the scooters!
• Getting dirty
• Washing his hands (he’ll stand at the sink for 20 minutes if I let him!)
• Screaming “Mommmmmy!”
• H “ugs”
• Snuggling after he wakes up
• Nate-Nate (he calls both of his brothers Nate-Nate!)
• His blue Clifford Doggie, Mac
• (Any) night-night blanket (and he’ll often just lay down where ever he is when he finds one and pretend to be asleep!)
• Milk! This boy loves milk.
• Books…and he just started saying again, which he loves saying after reading a book.
• Saying nooooooooooooooo! (but always with a smile!)
• Saying yes and then nodding… :)
• Swings (and slides but he calls them both swings!)
• Sammy's snow boots
• H "ats"
• Monkeys

Family pictures with Kellie Larsen Photography

I take tons of pictures of the boys. Way too many. But professional photography is one of those things that I almost never have done (besides a gift from my sister Cathy who paid for the boys to have some pics taken!) I didn’t have pictures of each boy taken at 0, 3 mos, 6 mos, etc…and the last time we did something like this with the whole family was before Nathan’s big surgery when I wanted to make sure if something went horribly wrong that we had some nice pictures to remember him by and my brother-in-law Danny took those with his DSLR!

Anyway…this was a great experience and might I add, was (especially by professional photography standards) affordable. Kellie wants to make sure that people, normal people like us, can afford to take pictures! So enjoy the pictures and definitely look her up when you need family pictures. She is a great gal that the boys immediately were comfortable with and we will definitely be using her services again!!! :)

Enjoy the pics that we picked out and if you’re interested in seeing the rest check them out at Smugmug…

Here are a few of my favorites :)

       

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Or check the full gallery out on Smugmug!

A few pictures from Oceanside…

Grandma and Grandpa Driggs made their annual summer trip to Oceanside and invited each of us kids down with our kids for two days and we got to play and stay in a room that was, um, bigger than our house I think! There were three rooms, two giant bathrooms with jacuzzi tubs, one “smaller” bathroom with a tub/shower that was bigger than our biggest bathroom, a kitchen, living room, two balconies and dining area. The boys were sad since we didn’t take the train from Norwalk to Oceanside (that has been our thing) but we did get to ride a train one of the days anyway. Daddy was on a scout trip so it was extra nice to have some company and get away from home for a few days!

They mostly played in the pool, in the activity center and legos and games back in the room but one day we ventured out to take the Sprinter from Escondido back to Oceanside. We stopped at Costco for hot dogs and then Grandpa drove us to the Escondido Transit Center so that we could ride the train all the way back to Oceanside. It was a deal, $3 ($2 for me and $1 for Grandma and the boys were all free). It was a lot slower than the Metrolink but was fun as we zig zagged back and forth over the 78 Fwy.

Here we are waiting for the train!

Danny was definitely excited!  

Nathan was so excited to hold my ticket.

Sam wished that the train went faster but he enjoyed it!

Danny boy sat with Grandma and hugged her lots as always. 

I got a few pictures on the train and a few on the pier when we went to Ruby’s for breakfast but Thad had our camera in the Sierras with the boy scouts so there really are just a few from Grandma’s camera…enjoy!

Here is one of them by a giant pelican. Nate was excited but Sammy was almost in tears for fear that the pelican would attack him!

Here are a few more pictures in this little album…or the rest (that show the Fongs and Repetti’s head to Smugmug) 

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p.s. We took family pictures this morning with Kellie Larsen. I’m so excited to see them…she was so nice and is so reasonable. We went to Chino State Park which is a bit of a drive but I think that the pictures will be nice! :) Here are a few that I took – I couldn’t take too many since the boys started looking at me so I put the camera away!

  

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Camping at San Gorgonio

Usually we camp at Barton Flats each summer for one or two days with Grandma and Grandpa Marcroft and Great Grandma Marcroft each summer but because the state closed many of the state parks  a lot of the national campgrounds are all full. We were lucky that Grandma and Grandpa found one open spot at the next campground up the road, San Gorgonio. It was a beautiful campground like Barton Flats but I think that I liked it even more because it had more trees and so it was more shady (even though our location was a little further from the restrooms than I would have liked with little boys with little bladders—note, find spot closer to restrooms when possible).

The boys would have loved to stay more than just one night but Thad and his boy scouts are leaving at 6 am on Monday to backpack in the Sierras and we still had a few things to purchase, food to separate, boy’s packs to check and all before the Sabbath hit so we kept our visit to about 24 hours!

Here are a few pictures from our adventures!

The boys helped shuck the corn for dinner…their excitement might have been that we allowed them to throw the husks into the fire pit so that they could watch them burn later…either way, they were happy to help!

Grandpa made hot chocolate for the boys in the morning! Yum!

Grandma had fun with Danny boy!

Grandma also made shields and crowns/helmets upon request! They had so much fun playing with them!
 

Great Grandma Marcroft made it up to camp just before we had to leave but we stayed about 15-20 minutes to see her!

And I try to get a picture of Thad and I from time to time…just to prove that we were both there! :)

  By the time we left it was past Danny’s nap time and he was asleep before we finished driving out of the campground, Nate fell asleep on the way down the mountain and Sammy at the bottom of the mountain after taking one bite out of his lunch.

It was fun mini trip! :)

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Orange Empire Railway Museum (OERM) Members Night

We love OERM but it is a bit pricey for us normal folks during the day (normal prices-- $12 for adults, $8 for children 5-11, free for kids under 5.). But on Members night we go with Grandpa Marcroft (a member) and get to ride the trains for free! Woo hoo! It’s a bit of a drive to Perris, CA but it is worth it to see the boys faces when they see all of those old trains, trolleys and street cars. We went on Saturday (7/30) and they were in heaven from the moment they stepped onto the property.

We invited our friend Lincoln who loves trains and he brought his daddy, his grandpa and his cousin Matt. They seemed to enjoy themselves as well! Talk about a lot of boys who love trains! The only problem is that there were so many trains in so many directions they were trying to run everywhere which can be dangerous with a bunch of trains on the tracks!

One of the best parts of the night is that they let members run the trains! They even let Nathan, Sam and myself (people with zero experience) drive. They let us drive this old PCC street car, LARy 3001, which  was super easy to drive just a dead man, a brake and a gas pedal, no steering.

Here we are driving (we have proof!)

Nate was a little short so he had to almost stand up but he did it! Lincoln, Matt and their grandpa got to as well (see the album for pics)!And me! It was fun!

Sammy made friends with Jacob and they happily rode trains together until they kicked us out!

  Danny was in heaven! A balloon and trains everywhere!

Nathan was pretty stoked as well!I forgot to get a family picture this year, but there is always next year. Here is a picture of Thad and I at least!

Find the rest of the pics of people and trains at Smugmug or look through a few favorites below in the mini album!

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