Recent Pictures

On Sunday morning we met up with our friends Jason and Dana and their little boy Silas at the zoo.  We hadn't seen Silas since March and there is nothing baby about him anymore.  He is 100% toddler.

My mom is coming next week to visit.  The boys are super excited.  They keep asking how much longer until she's here so we made a countdown ring.

Yesterday the boys turned in their reading logs for the Nashville Library (we signed up for the Nashville, Brentwood, and Williamson County libraries summer programs).  The boys already turned in their logs for Williamson County and each got a book and reusable bag.  Yesterday they each got a book and they both picked out alligator books.

Again, the books are sort of from Taylor Swift (the boys are pretty much over her though at this point).

While at the library, we were planning on going to storytime, but there was a performer during all the storytimes instead.  Ms. Ginger did a lot of songs about gardening and how things grow.  She was good but a little too slow for the age group that usually attends.  Carter and Rylan did fine (and were talking about parts of her show today) but a lot of people left during the show.

Ms. Ginger gave each family a packet of sunflower seeds to take home.

This afternoon while Rylan was still napping, Carter and I planted the seeds in one of our beds.

We were racing against an approaching storm so we didn't do an amazing job - just dug 4 small holes and dumped a bunch of seeds in each.  We'll see what happens!

In hopes that I don't spray weed killer on an flowers that do grow, I made popsicle stick markers for our four spots.  Carter requested a sunflower to be drawn on each - hopefully this permanent marker doesn't wash off.

After the library yesterday, we went to the sprayground at Cumberland Park.  We've always gone on our own but finally had friends join us!  Missy and her kids were there with us from 10:30 to 12:30 and then Suzy and Jen and their kids were there with us from 12:30 until 2 pm.  We had so much fun but we were so worn out by the time we left.

Will, Carter, and Rylan ...

Luckily neither Rylan nor Carter got hurt jumping off the huge step / seats!  They jumped for a long time too!

Luke ...

Carter and Hutch ...

Riley and Hutch ...

I had seen some watercolor animal paintings on Etsy a while back and really liked them as decoration for either one of the kids' rooms or their bathroom.  I decided to try to make some myself this afternoon.  I drew an outline of a snake on cardstock and cut it out to use as a stencil.  Then I filled in the snake stencil with watercolors.  I need to blend the colors a little better, but I thought it looked pretty good for a first try.

Carter saw the snake when he got up from a nap this afternoon and requested a kangaroo.  My paintbrush was a little too wet this time and the color ran under the stencil but I think if I'm more careful, the kangaroo could look okay too.

Tonight we went to Cheekwood for Family Night Out.  Some thunderstorms rolled through about an hour before the show so they moved it inside.  The performer this time was Mr. Greg (and his Musical Madness), and it was our first time seeing him.  He was pretty good - at least the kids seemed to be having a lot of fun.  Missy and Heather's kids were also there so it was extra fun!

Crazy dancing!

Us parents were sitting in the front row of chairs.  Heather was holding Lewis but he was cruising and was holding onto my legs when Mr. Greg pointed out an adult "volunteer" to come up on stage.  He apparently though Lewis was mine and called out Heather - THANK YOU LEWIS!!!

"Do the Worm Wiggle"

This morning the boys had their gardening class at Harlinsdale.  Today was a special class because a crew from the local PBS was there to film a segment for their show called "Volunteer Gardener".  The footage should air at the beginning of September.

Ms. Lisa did an interview first in front of the garden while all the kids were arriving.

The cameraman filmed us periodically throughout the class.  The boys did a great job of paying attention to Ms. Lisa and listening to me when I asked them to do something!

Today's class was about worms and why they are good to have in a garden.  Ms. Lisa had a worm hotel  that the kids got to look at and see some of the approximately 200 worms that were in it.

After we finished talking about worms, Ms. Lisa told the kids they could come get some worms out of some little buckets.  I think they thought they were getting real ones (and all the kids seemed excited) but they were luckily gummy worms (which thrilled Rylan).

"Aaahhhh!  There are worms on my face!"

The boys new friends (twins Charlotte and Riley) were at class again today.

Ms. Lisa asked all the kids to get together for a group picture today.

My kids are some ladies men!  Rylan and Charlotte have their arms around each other as do Riley and Carter!  There was no prompting from parents here either.

We had a nasty storm that dumped a lot of rain on us come through last night so the garden was super muddy.  Ms. Lisa said she sank to her ankles instantly so she spared the parents and didn't allow the kids in the garden.  But before we got there, Ms. Lisa did pick some blackberries and pull some potatoes for us.

The boys in line for their blackberries ...

Rylan wouldn't try his and gave them to Carter and me.  But Carter was a trooper and tried the blackberries.  And liked them.  Yum!

The kids also got to take home some new potatoes.  If the weather is better next week, they will get to pull them out of the ground themselves, but today they got to pick some out of Ms. Lisa's basket.

I can't wait to make these!  The kids will not eat potatoes but I think I have a chance with Carter since they are from their garden.

All cleaned up ...

Mazes

Yesterday I took the kids to the Adventure Science Center.  It'd been a few months since we'd been there but this week has been too warm and humid to be outside if there isn't water (like a pool) to keep cool.

The current temporary exhibit is mazes.  Carter loves to do mazes on paper.  He is so good at them too.  He is always looking ahead and rarely goes in the wrong direction.  So this exhibit was perfect for him!  There were all sorts of mazes - life-size mazes made from tarps, puzzle mazes, rope mazes that you carabine yourself to, and all sorts of other ones.

Carter and I worked together to figure this one out.  Here are the directions:

And here is the actual maze with Carter at the finish.

There was a smaller tarp maze in the preschool area with instruments set up throughout it that were fun (and loud).

A spinning maze that the kids just wanted to spin :)

The science center wasn't too crowded when we got there but after a couple of hours, I was starting to have trouble keeping my eyes on both boys because there were just too many people.  Before leaving we ventured up to the top of the Adventure Tower for the first time.  Carter made it to the very, very top.

I took this picture one set of steps lower (downtown is in the background).

Wilmington Trip - Day 2

On the second day of our trip (Sunday), we spent the day with my dad and Jan since they had the day off from work.  The boys slept well but were up nice and early - before 6 am since it was getting light out even though that only felt like 5 am to them.  Oh well.

The boys and I headed over to my dad's around 8 am and we drove straight down to Wrightsville Beach.  We spent a couple of hours there mainly collecting a ton of shells.

My dad taught Carter how to bury his feet in the shallow waves (he was still really cautious at first about falling in the water after the previous evening).

Rylan wanted nothing to do with the water and was content with digging holes :)

Carter got braver but had to be holding someone's hand to go in just a few inches of water.

These shovels from Target were definitely worth $3 each - they were the most used toy of our stash!

We brought a lot of the shells back to my dad and Jan's house.  My dad rinsed them and we let them dry while we had a lunch of delivered pizza.

Then we made things!  Carter requested a shark and my dad obliged.

I made this - no idea what it is.

There were lots of gifts for the boys (as well as birthday gifts for Rylan).  One awesome gift that I actually already had plans to buy was a real t-ball set (instead of the plastic Little Tikes set we have)!  My dad and Jan got the boys a tee, a bat, balls, batting gloves, and a catcher's mask.  They love it!  Rylan is still wearing the catcher's mask around the house!

It was pretty warm outside and bug spray wasn't doing much to keep the mosquitos off of Rylan and me so we didn't spend too much time outside.  We did watch a movie in the afternoon and Rylan took a much needed nap on my dad.

After dinner we celebrated Rylan's birthday!

When my dad visited us last summer, he gave Rylan the nickname "Monkey Boy".  And it completely stuck.  Rylan always tells me that Papa Mike calls him Monkey Boy.  Jan had a cake made at a bakery where she knows the owners and told them it had to have a monkey on it.

This was the first of many celebrations for Rylan!!!

When bedtime neared, we headed back over to my mom's house for the night.  There were many more busy days to follow!