The Things Our Parents Do For Us

We have been super grateful for things that our parents have done for us the past two months.  I just realized I hadn't taken pictures to show off for them or thank them.  Without further ado, bragging begins for our parents!

One of the many things my mom did for us while she was here was make curtains for pretty much the entire house.  I didn't take pictures of all of them, but besides the two rooms shown here, she did our room, the downstairs family room, and the entire kitchen and dining room.

In Carson's room, she did a really cute rocket print on blue.

The girls' room got delicate green and pink. Here you can also see the finished puppy and kitten that Aaron's mom did.  I love that the two animals are playing with a ball of yarn!

This is the love tree Aaron's mom painted.  Another puppy, another kitten, and the pretty tree.  She made it look like we carved our initials and dates on the tree, which I thought was so cute!

We recently found out that the city looks down on half-felled trees and they advised us to remove the large tree branch from our lawn or expensive consequences would occur.  Thankfully, Aaron's dad was willing, again, to come and work on said eye-sore.  He spent a few hours just sawing the branch into managable chunks for Aaron to now hack into firewood.

We feel very lucky and blessed to have Aaron's parents nearby, and that my mom is so willing to jump in and do any and everything when she's able to make it here.  We love our amazing parents!

Little Man Cole

Today I finally got down and took some formal pictures of Cole.  He was being just the sweetest of sweethearts!  He cooed and sighed at me so much!  He even surrendered a couple of grins just for me!

After the two smile pictures, I think this is my favorite one.  He was so calm, looking out the window.

This was my funniest moment!  I had gotten my whole 'set' together, laid him down and gotten behind the camera.  As I pushed the shutter for the first picture, he totally spit up all over the blanket.  Oh, my little boy!

My Boys

Just a couple of pictures of my boys hamming for the camera.

We Got A Zoo-Pass!

We had a family outting to the zoo!  When we got there, we made a quick decision: we could either pay $77 for one visit with parking OR $125 for a whole year of zoo visits with parking.  No brainer.  Before I get all tied up in a rant on the irrationality of the zoo for doing this, I'll quickly get into how much fun we had!

These pictures loaded funny, so they are not in the order that we went through the zoo or how I took the pictures.  But I took them and we did enjoy ourselves! :)  Also, Evie was there because we took her out of school so she could be with us.  Our justification?  It was a beautiful day, Grandma took the time to be with us, and what's one missed day of kindergarten in the long run?

Evie and Lizzie practiced balancing every time we had a curb.  Or a rock border.

We saw some really funny-looking giraffes...

Evie really loved looking at the big cats.  I loved this cheetah.  The pose and the look on it's face make me want to caption it with Drusella off of Disney's Cinderella, when she sees Cinderella in the dress and Lady Tremain asks if the beads 'give it just the right touch'.  Drusella answers "No, I don't! And I - Aah!  You little thief!"  This cheetah's face is the "No, I don't!" moment.

Evie was making funny faces at her reflection on a popcorn cart.

I can't decide which of these two sisters poses I like best.

The kids were pretty excited about the marble ball floating on the water.

What's got the sole attention of these two?

This dinosaur!  It moves and roars and is really neat to watch.  Carson couldn't decide if he was thrilled or terrified.

The girls loved this unconventional teeter-totter.  I thought it was pretty fun, too.

Every time we've been to the zoo, we've tried to get a picture with this baby gorilla in the monkey house.  We probably won't try to get it every time we go anymore...not if we go as much as I want to this summer!

After walking around for two hours, the kids needed to burn off some steam.  (More?  yes.  more.)  So we stopped at the playground area.  Evie tried the climbing wall for the first time.  It was a little tougher than she expected.

So Daddy helped.

Then Lizzie needed help.

All the while, Cole slept in the stroller.  He actually did wake up and eat while we were in the fish and reptiles house, but did really well in the stroller otherwise.

We are so excited to make use of our zoo pass and see the animals a lot more this year!

Playing Ten-Pin

Last weekend we went on a family fun day to a near-by bowling alley.  Neither of us adults could recall the last time we took the kids bowling - maybe two years ago?  Regardless of the last time, this time was a fun adventure!

We made sure to get a lane with both bumpers and a ramp for the kids.  Sad to say, even having the bumpers didn't help my score at all.  But then, I have no illusions as to my skill level at this game. :)

Lizzie stunned us all when she figured out early on how to position the ramp to get a good score.  Here, I'm asking here, "How many pins did you knock over?"  Yep.  She's holding up ALL TEN fingers to signify her awesome STRIKE!  She didn't get that athletic ability from me. :)

Carson had some issues with turn-taking.  As a two-year-old, it's ALWAYS his turn, if you ask him.  So he spent any time that wasn't his actual turn either riding Aaron's shoulders, dancing with Aaron, or taking a little walk.  He did pretty well for himself when it was his turn, though.

Aaron and I also got into the action, while Cole slept the whole time.  I love that I've got a kid who'll sleep through our own noise PLUS a teen bowling tournement three lanes away.

The Alligator on the Ceiling

We've had this fun toy alligator since Carson's birthday.  It's a silly dollar store item, kind of stretchy, kind of sticky.  The kids love it.  Recently, Evie figured out that if she flings it hard enough at the ceiling, it'll stick there.  Sometimes it stays for split-seconds, sometimes for a night.  The day she figured it out, it stayed a long time and I had a moment of "Aah!  There's something on the ceiling staring at me!" before realizing that it just hadn't fallen yet.