Dillon's Birthday (April 18th)

I know I'm a little late, or a lot late, but this is what we did on Dillon's actual birthdate.

He picked...

The Botanical Gardens for fun, orange chicken for dinner, and chocolate cake for desert.

For his birthday party he wanted to take a few friends to the USS COD, a submarine downtown, but the season didn't start until May. Little did he know that his mom wouldn't actually get around to planning his party until the END of May. So a month and a half later he had his party (post to follow). The sub was definitely worth the wait, although when people asked him how old he was he would sadly say "I'm still just 5." No, you don't age a year in one and a half months.

The Botanical Gardens were great. They were having a "bug" weekend so we had a lot of fun with bugs. The kids each made a bug out of recyclables. (Daddy even got a little buggy)



They participated in some mealworm races. Nasty if you ask me.




They played in the gardens and Molly and Dillon made worm houses.



Then home for dinner and cake. What a day. Dillon, you bring so much joy and laughter to this house I can't imagine our family without you. Happy birthday my love!



A little class celebration at Dillon's preschool. King for a day.

Dillon Hard At Work

Dillon loves inventing things and "making machines". As I was getting out of the shower the other day he ran to me with lots of excitement and exclaimed that he had made this machine (below). He said that you blow through the tube which causes the water inside to bubble and that causes the foam to fly. (???)


Over the years he has used many different "household items" for his creations. These include, and are not limited to, pens(dismantled), chairs, flashlight(dismantled), pillows, books, batteries, tools, boxes, wood, kitchen utensils, ribbon, clothes, poles, his telescope (dismantled), his metal detector (dismantled), belts, video tapes (and the tape inside of them), and the list goes on and on. Notice how none of the things listed are toys. You would think he might use his blocks or something, but he's just not interested in that. In fact since he was old enough to really communicate he made it clear that if the train had a face on it or the jet was too colorful and didn't look like a "real" jet he would not be playing with it. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised with his items of choice on this particular day. I mean if it's in the house, and not a toy, I have to assume he will eventually be using it in one of his "creations".




(not sure what he was doing with this one)

Easter

I'm Finally getting to the Easter pictures. I wish I had something better to show you, but it is what it is. The outfits sure are cute though, thanks GG.



Easter morning was exciting. It was like pulling teeth to get the kids to wait to look through their goodies the bunny had left them until after church.

Some friends had us over for a yummy Easter dinner and a heated hunt for eggs. I love Easter. I love it for the fun, the excitement, and most of all for the spirit that makes it such a peaceful beautiful celebrated day.

Curlicues

We did the foam curlers after the girls showered the other night. They looked really cute the next morning. While I was taking pictures of Charlee later in the day after her curls had fallen a little it reminded me of these pictures I took of Molly at that age after we did curls in her hair one night. Do you think they resemble each other?

And yes, Charlee is sitting on the potty, we are starting the process I fear. She has been wanting to for some time now, but I have been trying to put her off until summer time when I'm not constantly busy with PTA stuff. Oh well, here we go, wish me luck.

Trip 2 to TX

So I'm just getting to our trip to Texas we took back in April. We decided, on a whim, to make the 24 hour drive down to get some much needed R & R. The drive wasn't that bad. On the way down we drove through the night and the kids did pretty well. On the way back we stoped at a hotel for a night and the drive seemed to drag out more that way. I've learned that it's a lot easier to get through a LONG drive without a million questions, comments, needs, etc. coming at you from the back seat. All in all we would definitely do it again.

Just a few highlights from the trip . . .


My mom has lots of ceramics to paint and a kiln to fire them up. The kids LOVE getting crafty at Grammy's house and I love how washable it all is.


Poppy showed the kids all his "treasures" from "long ago". I'm not so sure the kids had the patience to listen to the history behind EVERY piece that my dad was so eager to share with them, but they definitely enjoyed the discoveries of the old box. I remember seeing that box on my parents dresser all throughout my childhood and always wondering what kind of little things my dad kept in there. It was pretty cool.


Grammy started the kids with their own rock collections. They we're thrilled.



S'mores with some of the cousins and a dip in paradise.


Baby Danni was good to put up with Charlee constantly loving on her. You have got to love that hair on KK head.


And of course back to the ranch, one of our favorite places. Molly is helping Grammy feed the cows.

Dillon and Charlee down by the water looking for bones and skipping rocks.

Dillon found this old drill bit, he was REALLY excited about that.
And I found these bones that apparently belong to an animal that looks like this called a Nutria.


We spent some time in SOCO ( South Congress), which is this super cool funky strip with lots of neat shops and fun places to eat. These kind of places is what Austin is all about. I love it!



The Bob Bullock Texas Sate History Museum



Zilker Park. I really love this place and I really love this picture that Travis took.



Then comes the tradition of it all. The Easter Egg Hunt. For the last several years my dad has been filling the Easter eggs with money for a fun pre-Easter hunt and get together. Sorry, the only way to get in on this action is to either marry one of us, or be conceived by one of us. Anyway, we all had a lot of fun and I think this might be the first time in the history of the hunt that we found ALL the eggs, which is a good thing because our eggs funded the gas for our trip.


Charlee got to hunt indoors for coins and them deposit them into her new Easter bank.

If your wondering why we're all wearing white shirts and jeans, we had just taken pictures with my whole family. I'll share those in a post to come.

On the drive home we stoped in Kentucky to visit the Mammoth Caves. It was really cool touring the caves. It's cold and dark down there, the makings for a fantastic game of spooky hide and seek.


Texas, we miss you already! I'm sure we'll be back soon.