Thursday, May 7, 2015

I Love Spring

Eliza loves holding Hopper.

We spend a lot of time outside.  The weather is gorgeous.  I know it will be miserable in the summer but I definitely love the spring weather.   


Eliza calls bubbles "bubbys" :)
 
I thought Hannah's braids and dress riding by were cute.


This is how Eliza goes to bed every night.  Bear on one side, baby on the other.  A bottle of water and all tucked in :).

This is Hannah's best friend from school.  We were on a field trip to the zoo.


We volunteered for the cities "clean streams" event which was actually pretty fun.  We were just picking up trash but it was a beautiful trail and stream and they gave us t-shirts and food for doing it.

 
 

Andrew is a quarterback for his flag football team.  He does well and their team is undefeated.

 

This is what our trampoline always looks like...kid soup.

The neighborhood kids live in our backyard which I have a love/hate relationship with.  The kids have all grown on me, they are all pretty good and my kids like them.  I like being able to watch them play and I'm glad my kids aren't always gone at someone else's house.  I don't like the constant stream of kids coming in to get drinks of water and worrying that it will be my fault if one of them gets hurt because I don't pay enough attention.  Mostly it's good but I won't be able to handle it if it is all day all summer so I told my kids we are doing our own "summer camp" in the middle of the day when it is too hot to go outside.  We'll see how it goes...

I love this pic.
 Hannah lost her first tooth which she is very excited about.
 
Hannah graduated to dishwasher unloading duty.  She looks happy about it here, but it's not always a happy face.  Ethan and Eliza like to help her which is cute.

Ethan changing a tire at the children's museum.  He is fully potty trained now...yay! I have some great tips for potty training if anyone needs them.

We went to the park for playgroup and there was a pond with a bunch of turtles in it.


Eliza wanted a turn petting the turtle also.


The kids school did a 5K or 1 mile run.  Andrew and Daniel did the 5K and the rest of us did the 1 mile.

 
 
Hannah took off and left us in the dust.  These two were cute runners though.  I had the stroller and pushed Eliza for most of it.

They did awesome!

She beat me by a ton so I didn't get to see her time or take a picture of her finish.

It has been in the 80s and a little humid but it is often a little cloudy or breezy so it feels perfect.  Eliza loves the water.

She did this herself, she is doing so well at reading and writing.

Cute kids.

Eliza is getting so big.  She talks a ton and is funny and smart and sweet and sometimes a stinker. 

Ethan loves riding his bike.  We found a cool trail to ride on and he had so much fun.
The kids only have 2 weeks of school left, I can't believe it.  As I said before I'm a little worried about the heat of the summer but right now I am loving Spring.  I feel like I'm in a tropical climate.  We can go out at 7:30 in the morning and it is warm and humid and it feels so good.  There are so many birds and I love listening to them and watching them.  The trees are really pretty.  9:30 at night is also warm and nice.  One major problem though...I found a fuzzy spider on/in the car.  Umm...not good. 

Surprise Visitors

The kids had no idea their cousins were coming to visit.  It was a very happy surprise!

 
The girls spent a lot of time making fairy houses.

Here are the boys on a hike that we all went on.
 
 

Ethan loved the attention that Matthew gave him. 
 
The girls at the botanical garden.  It was such a beautiful place!

 
There was a fun playroom for kids.

 
There was an even more fun outdoor play area for kids.  This picture doesn't show a fraction of it- there was so much cool stuff.  They had a big cave, tree houses, and so much more!

The Japanese garden was my favorite place, it was so beautiful!
 

We had so much fun with them here!!
 
I thought this picture of Emily next to the cherry blossom was so pretty.

 
Andrew looking at the koi.

The fish were huge!!

So beautiful!

We did a lot of walking this day but the kids all did great!
 
More people need to visit so we can take them here.
 
Posing by the waterfall.

Andrew at the tulips.
 
I loved this picture of Ethan hugging Jen.  There was another picture right before this with him looking at her with a huge smile. :)

The city museum is a crazy place full of crazy stuff to climb, huge slides, tunnels, and tons of unique things to do.

I think that is Emily climbing way up there.
 
They were so sweaty from climbing.
 
 
 
Swimming at the rec plex.

Painting.

Eliza loved both Brian and Jen.

My kids have never been to build a bear and Hannah wanted to go for her birthday so we celebrated early.
 
Fun at the zoo.

Ethan's build a bear giraffe.
 
Out of place swimming pic of the boys at the whirlpool.
 
Eliza at the zoo.

We had such a fun week together.  Thanks for coming Brian and Jen, we miss all of you!