ADDITTIONAL PHOTOS FROM THE ARBORETUM

Remember when we went to the Arboretum with some friends of ours in March ... well we were able to spend the afternoon and evening with them on Memorial Day and she gave me a CD of very fun pictures from our trip. Aren't they GREAT! She was able to catch the silly faces, the funny poses, our little munchkin that can't keep his hands out of the water, and our fun time in the frog fountain.

We also spent Easter Sunday with them and had some fun with frosting and cupcakes ... as you can see from the frosting mustache!

I absolutely adore her camera :)

MAY 2012 - AROUND THE HOUSE

We had all kinds of fun in May! Charlie had his birthday and he requested that we go out to eat and go to this ice cream/cookie boutique called Pokey O’s. It is very yummy! You choose your cookie and ice cream and they make a cookie sandwich for you! The boys bought him the General Grievous, Star Wars ship … so they spent most of the afternoon and evening putting that together and playing Star Wars.
We had Baseball pictures this month too. Didn’t Zachery take some GREAT pictures?? Of course we have to put some of Zayne in there with all the gear on … just like Zach :) Zayne can actually throw the ball pretty good and he loves fielding or looking like he is fielding the ball. Pretty much all he wants to do is fit in with his brother. So if he is able to play with Zach and with the big boys Zayne is in seventh heaven!! (Zachery’s last baseball game was on June 02, 2012 … so you will have to wait until next month to find out how his last game went … it was AWESOME!!!).

One of Zachery’s closest friends had his fifth birthday party. It was Star Wars themed and his mom is very creative! They had these helmets for the kids to decorate with Star War stickers; they had a Death Star piñata; these adorable Star War themed cupcakes (even one like Yoda); they even were able to get grandpa to dress up like Obie-Wan Kenobi. It was fun! So that is the picture of the boys in the silver helmets below …

Also Zachery received a fun gift in the mail from one of his uncles, a remote control four-wheel truck. The boys had so much fun playing with it!
Mother’s Day was very special for me! Charlie brought the boys to James Avery, my favorite jewelry store and they picked out my present (well Zachery did). When I woke up or rather got out of my bed, I tried really hard to sleep in but neither one of the boys can sleep past 6am. They both bombarded me with cards and my gift. Zachery was very impatient for me to open my gift. I finally opened it and it was a beautiful sterling silver flower pendant on a black nylon rope. Zachery asked “Do you just love it Mom?” “Oh, yes baby, I do love it!” “Can I help you put it on?” … and he quickly tried to put it on, but the clasp is a little tricky so I had to help. But he proceeded to tell me about the other necklace that he wanted to get me and the matching ring (that I have to get). Apparently, he wanted to get me a necklace a little more expensive, but was swayed to go with the one I got (which I wouldn’t trade for the world!).

The boys went back to Iowa for six days to celebrate their cousin, Josh, graduate from high school! They flew up on a Wednesday and came home that Monday (5 nights, as Zachery would say). They had the best time!! They hate leaving Grandma’s. All the boys got haircuts and Zachery can actually style his hair into a Mohawk if he wanted to … but I haven’t seen it styled that way since the haircut. Zayne was able to talk so much more and of course show off his dancing moves!! He is so busy and really can keep people on their toes. It was the first time I didn’t go back with them and made me so sad, but I am so thankful for Charlie’s family and how much they love our little boys! I can tell you that they are already talking about Christmas!

Finally, And just this past weekend we celebrated my birthday. The boys purchased the Star Wars Pod Racer’s for my birthday. I have to say they are pretty cool! They even come with a stand so we can admire them while we are not playing with them. It was funny because Zachery wanted to help put them together and I just wanted to put one of them together all by myself, I had to laugh at myself when I was half way done and finally let Zachery help me. I have to admit putting these sets together is FUN!!! We had one of my favorite dinners, steak with asparagus and potatoes then strawberry shortcake for desert. Zachery said they had to use the number 5 candle because I am 35 this year, so they sang happy birthday to me … even though turning 35 was hard, it made it better when you get to enjoy it with the little boys that just brighten your day :)

Stay tuned for next month … we will hopefully have some more fun stories and pictures to share!!

APRIL 2012 - AROUND THE HOUSE

Don’t you just love the photo of the boys below? I think it is my absolute favorite this year so far. They both can be so silly and Zachery will get really silly when he gets Zayne giggling. They just crack me up! Anyways, there is a random picture of a red toe … yes that is my toe and if you look closely it is black and blue too. I was giving the boys a quick bath so I was swinging my foot around to get it into the bathtub and WAM! I smacked it into the edge of the tub … it hurt but not that bad. Nothing like walking along barefoot and running into the door jam splitting your toes (if that made sense). So I continued giving the boys a bath, putting their PJ’s on and then I walked into my room and thought … “WOW, my toe really is throbbing”, when I looked down it had swollen like crazy and turned all kinds of colors. I have no idea if I broke it or not but I iced it and taped it up and was sore for a couple of weeks :) It was funny!

Zachery and Ms. Amy love building with the Trio blocks and even with our marble set. So the pictures below are the creations! I have been looking into Lego Camps and/or Clubs for Zach, but most of the official Lego Clubs don’t start until you are 7 years old. As you know Zachery loves wearing his cape, with rain boots and a cowboy hat :) Little Pants (Zayne) had to try too … Seriously Zayne loves his brother!

APRIL 2012 - BRECKENRIDGE PARK

We met a friend at Breckenridge Park which happens to be an old landfill turned into a park, which is so cool! We played on the fun play ground where Zachery was trying to do flips on the bar and trying to swing from one monkey bar to the next (we are still working on strength and confidence!) … but we soon found out there was water down the hill and it was like bee to honey … we were off and in the water ! After our water adventure we found a little girl that wanted to play soccer so we kicked the ball around with her for a while! We will definitely be visiting this park again to ride bikes have a picnic and of course get wet again! I absolutely love watching the boys play together!! Zachery told me the other day “I can’t wait until Zayne is older so we can rough house”. They rough house now, but I think Zachery holds back because Zayne is so much smaller than him. I just love Zachery’s heart so sweet and compassionate!

MAY 2012 - BIRD NEST

So I have to tell you about the bird nest that I started to tell you about in our March 2012 post. So we waited patiently for the eggs to hatch and then one morning we heard little chirps, so we had to investigate! We would climb the ladder when we didn’t see mommy and daddy Blue Jay and look in the next every few days. They hatched and looked like little dragons at first then they started getting feathers. And we watched them get fed by mommy and daddy. Then one day we saw them on the ground bouncing around … Zach and Zayne both thought it was fun to chase them (poor little guys were probably scared)! Of course I ran to get the camera instead of trying to help the scared baby bird. They were so cute! I told the boys not to touch them but they chased all five of them around the yard and the neighbors yard until we saw the mommy bird and thought she might attack one of us so we decided to get in the house.

MAY 2012 - AWANA's

We wrapped up AWANA’s in May with a big ceremony. Zachery will be a Spark next year and he is super excited! Little Zayne will have to wait one more year to start Cubbies, but he loved hanging out with the kids. He actually started participating in trying to say his memory verse, which was so sweet! When we started to have play time at the end of the evening all the little boys and girls thoroughly enjoyed running around outside, trying to catch their teachers or balloons or playing different childhood games. It truly brings a smile to my face to see them so happy and carefree! It takes all the worries away of daily life!! On our last AWANA's they had splash night where they were able to play with water balloons and squirt guns. It was terribly exciting!! Anyways, Zachery asked if I would be his teacher next year, so hopefully they will let me his teacher (we will see). The video below is of Zachery singing the AWANA’s song with hand motions, so proud of him and he gets so embarrassed when I show people. He would probably hate it that I was posting it on the website!! (Shhh…don’t tell him :))

APRIL 2012 - VOLCANO/CUPCAKES/TANK PARK

One day Zachery and I decided to put together a volcano kit, I can’t remember why we purchased a volcano kit but I think it was because he was asking about volcano’s, lava, and how they “explode”. Every little boy, I think, loves to make something explode. So Zach and I, after putting Zayne down for his nap, started putting paper mache around the string that was holding the volcano form … we had tons of fun getting our hands dirty! Once it was drying we called his friend Will to see if he wanted to come over and decorate cupcakes for Zachery’s special dog’s birthday, watch a volcano explode, and come with us to a new park that Ms. Amy our nanny found!! So after Zayne woke up the all three boys were all about painting the volcano brown and orange with some green. Then we decorated cupcakes, as you can see they had tons of fun with sprinkles. Then it was time to explode the volcano … I have a feeling that they were really expecting it to “explode” :) I can’t put words in their mouths but I think they were secretly disappointed (the video's below are two of the three times we made the volcano explode).

Then we piled into the truck and headed to the park where we played on the old military tank, climbed a tree, and ran a race on the track. It was a very busy day!! I think all we needed to make it even more perfect was a Slurpee … but I have to say it was pretty perfect all the same!