Lucky Ladd Farms

My mom and I took the boys to Lucky Ladd Farms on Friday. They were open for an Easter Celebration this weekend. Carter was super excited about the egg hunt. We tried to go to one at the Brentwood Library on Thursday afternoon but it got rained out. We had shown up anyway and Carter got his hand painted with an Easter egg (which took A LOT of coaxing - he was scared to death, just like he is of the Easter bunny). Then we showed my mom the beautiful library where the boys go to storytime and waited out the hail (it seems to hail every time it rains lately).

Anyway, Lucky Ladd was doing a continuous egg hunt in the field near the entrance so we did that first. Carter was a pro at collecting eggs ...


And Rylan joined right in (this was his first Easter Egg hunt) ...


"Look what I got!"


"You caught me. I'm grabbing as many eggs as a can as fast as I can!"




"I'm so proud of all these eggs!"


"Me too!"


"I know I can fit in more!"


"Just one more."


The eggs were empty and we got to turn them in for a prize bag. The prize bags included a coloring book, alphabet cards, and bubbles.

After hunting eggs, the kids visited the petting farm and fed the animals. Some of the sheep were dyed ...




Carter climbed up on this horse and kept yelling "Giddy Up!" ...



Carter had fun bouncing around on these cows. They also have the big balls with handles but these are a lot easier for our little guys.


The giant corn box was a hit again.



Carter tried burying himself in the corn ...


Carter liked being up here for about 10 seconds and then got really scared ...


These tires were more his speed ...



We stayed about 3 hours. The boys were slowing down by then but they still didn't want to leave. I was worn out!

Playground & Egg Dyeing

We were stuck at home today again while we had our security system installed but my mom and I got the boys out yesterday morning. We first went to storytime at the downtown library and then headed over to Centennial Park to play on the playground.


Rylan tries so hard to be a little monkey just like Carter ...


Rylan swung and swung and swung on the swing. We tried to get him out and this pouting ensued ...


I got Carter to climb (actually allow me to put him in) a tree. After a few pictures he got scared and asked to get down.


When we got home, the kids dyed eggs. I bought this dye spinner after Easter last year and it worked really well. There was a lot less mess and it was still fun for the boys.


Carter was really good at pushed down the top - I think he'd be excellent at performing CPR!



After Rylan's first turn, he didn't want to give it up. He hugged the spinner tight until we tore it away. On his next turn, he didn't even want to spin the egg. He just hugged the spinner.

Only one egg was dropped and broken. I think the eggs turned out great!


Tomorrow the drywall guys are supposed to finish putting up the new crown molding and then paint. So unfortunately we stuck at home again. At least my mom is here to help keep the boys entertained!

Caterpillar

My mom and I took the boys to the zoo this afternoon after their naps. It's open until 6pm now so we were able to get in almost 2 hours there before it closed. The last thing we did was play at the Jungle Gym. We found a caterpillar on the mats and the kids tortured it by jumping next to it so it'd fly in the air. I took a video with my phone (sorry for the poor quality) and then made them leave the poor thing alone.

(Rylan never actually hit the caterpillar, but he was close.)

This morning we had repairmen here to fix the holes made by the air conditioning repair. They patched the hole in the crown molding in the dining room ...


Unfortunately they didn't have the correct nails to attached the new molding, but they have to come back later this week to paint so they'll just do that first when they return.

The hole in the closet also got patched ...


While that was going on, I sealed/stained the arbor above our garage doors (the one on the right is completed in the picture) ...


And here is just a random, silly picture of Rylan from this weekend. He came down from playing in the playroom with this on. As he sat at the table, the goggles got more and more fogged but he didn't seem to care.

New Couch

The last two rooms we still have a lot of work to get finished are our family room and bonus room. We want new furniture for both.

We made the first step today by ordering a sectional for the family room. We've been looking a little, but it's been difficult when we have the boys along that want to touch everything and get on all the furniture. Since my mom is here, Brian and I were able to sneak away today and make a final decision on a sectional we thought we liked.

We ordered this sectional ...


in this fabric ...


Because it's a special order to get this fabric, it's going to take 5 to 7 weeks. We can't wait to get it!

This Week

I'm back! I have been really sick since Wednesday and haven't had the energy to blog. I'm still feeling lousy but am managing (plus my mom got here today so she's helping with the boys). I'm not sure what I have but it's flu-ish. Brian convinced me to go to the doctor on Thursday night and they ended up giving me an IV to hydrate me and get some medicine in me. Unfortunately Brian is insanely busy at work so he wasn't able to stay home and take care of the boys for me (but he did his best to leave a little early and take over for me when he was here).

Before I got sick, we had lots of playdates at parks because the weather was gorgeous all week.

On Tuesday Rylan and I met Kelly and Charlie at Fannie Mae Dees Park. I took the boys there when we first moved here but hadn't been back since. The playground and park are great and the boys had fun exploring.






Rylan REALLY wanted to climb this wall ...


Whenever Charlie gives Rylan a hug, he always says, "Aawwwww."



These two appeared ready for naps when they both started staring into space ...


On Wednesday morning the boys both had dentist appointments for a cleaning. Originally their appointments were supposed to be back-to-back, but they changed them so they were at the same time. Luckily it worked out fine. We go to a pediatric dentist so they were in the same room. Carter had a hygienist that was super with him - showing him everything before she did it and letting him feel things. He really liked her. I was then able to sit with Rylan who is still in his super shy phase. He didn't really want to open his mouth but eventually did though the hygienist had to battle his tongue then that he used to try to push everything away.

The staining that both boys have is much better than it used to be now that we use electric toothbrushes. The dentist was able to scrape off the majority of Carter's and a tiny bit of Rylan's. Neither boy had any cavities and the dentist said they both did better than most kids their age do.

Later that morning we met Missy and Heather at the Brentwood Library with their kids for storytime.

Carter wanted to take a picture with Luke ...


One of Carter's preschool classmates came to storytime (Claire) and she sat next to Carter at storytime. Then she also came across the street and played at the park with us. I don't think she ever said a word but had the biggest smile on her face the whole time. (She's next to Carter in the picture below.)


On Thursday our upstairs air conditioning FINALLY got repaired. Another repairman from the company that installed the unit came as well as our builder's warranty representative. Together they found the leak. A nail from the crown molding in the dining room went through the coolant line (on both sides of it). This wasn't our first time dealing with the problem. We had the same thing happen when our new roof was installed in Knoxville (see this post).

Anyway, they had to tear down a section of crown molding and cut a hole in the drywall ...



That was only the second hole they made. They first cut out a large section of drywall in our closet under the stairs ...


A repairman is coming on Monday to repair all the drywall and molding damage. Thankfully all this is covered under our new home warranty. We are sleeping much better now that we have air conditioning again. It's been warm here and the pollen is so bad that leaving the windows open isn't a good option either (plus ours only open from the bottom and we aren't going to risk that with the boys).

My mom is here for a week so hopefully I start feeling better soon and we get to do lots of fun things!

Target Toy Deals

I stocked up today on more super cheap toys at Target. They have some awesome sales and Target coupons that combine with manufacturer coupons right now.

Sesame Street Memory Game - $1.04


My First Crayola Mess-Free Marker & Paper - $1.00


24 Pack of Playdoh - $3.99


6 Games (Battleship, Simon Flash, Bob It!, Monopoly Deal, Sorry Revenge, Battleship Card Game) - $14.00 total


And Carter opened this one already so I had to use a picture from the internet ...

Playskool Heroes Transformers Rescue Bots - $0.99


I may have a slight addition to Target (and to www.totallytarget.com where I find all these deals).

Landscaping

There is so much we want to do with our backyard, but we are waiting to get an irrigation system and we want to take our time planning it so we still like it a few years from now. Plus there are a ton of other projects that have to get done this spring (like sealing our deck, screened porch, arbor, and driveway). So we may put off planting anything until the fall.

However, our grass is coming in! Our front yard and the one side along the alley were sodded in December. The rest of the yard got seed and straw. This warm and wet enough winter allowed quite a bit of that seed to germinate and grow. And our early spring has really helped. There are still plenty of sparse sections, but we are super impressed considering this was all put down in December.


Our front landscaping had an open spot that really needed an ornamental tree. When we were at Lowe's on Saturday morning, I saw a gorgeous Weeping Japanese Maple for only $94. Brian agreed that it would work and we managed to squeeze it in my car even with the carseats in.

Carter begged and begged to plant the tree yesterday and this morning. The only part he ended up helping with was watering it once it was planted.

Kid Room Decorations

I finally got a few wall decoration projects done this weekend.

Rylan has a really long wall in his room that I wasn't sure how to decorate. I ended up getting letters at Michael's and painting them. They take up the entire wall which is perfect.


I let the boys each paint the the first letter of their names ...



I picked the colors for the letters to match Rylan's crib sheet. It's Dwell Studio from when Target used to carry that brand (they are the softest crib sheets ever and not too expensive).


In the playroom, I put pictures of the boys on one wall ...


And on the opposite wall I hung cork boards so we could hang up some of their art work.


Carter picked out his favorite art from school to hang up. I need to get out some of the stuff we've kept from Rylan to hang on his board.


I painted the wood edges white and then added the boys' names to the corners (they each picked the color they wanted) ...


Carter asked to do "arts and crafts" this afternoon so Rylan worked on something new to hang on his board!

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Here is a video of Carter singing The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Please excuse the outfit. If Carter wears shorts or pants over his underwear, he completely forgets he doesn't have a diaper on. We only have so many shorts at this point in the year so we run out quickly. And he was obsessed with his bike helmet today and wore it all afternoon.

Class Picture

I got Carter's class picture this week that was taken a couple of weeks ago. All the kids in his class are in the picture but only one of his teachers (Ms. Toni).


We usually get awesome pictures of Carter from school but he's missing his smile this time!

Carter's class started off with 6 girls and 4 boys. One girl moved over Christmas break and they just got two new girls at the beginning of March. So they now have 7 girls and 4 boys, which is perfect for Carter, the ladies man at preschool! He talks about Sophie constantly (and Logan and Sarah Kate a lot too).