Catch Up

This is going to be a quick catch up blog post with a picture dump...

P52 has been happening, just haven't taken the time to post my pictures.  We've been rather busy and blogging/pictures have taken a back burner.  I'm hoping to get completely caught up today, though.

May 25 "Favorites"  This is my favorite picture of the boys kite flying.  I love pictures of little boys helping their daddys.

June 1 "Play Time"  Grandpa and Grandma got some good play time in with the boys the week they were here--indoors and out.

June 8 "Water"  This was a great theme for that week since it rained and rained and rained and rained.  However, it rained too hard for me to feel comfortable going outside and getting the pictures I really wanted.  One day it stopped for a couple hours, though it stayed pretty cloudy, so we quick biked to the park for a while and I played with shutter speeds with the creek.  I got to thinking about that log, though, with the chain on it.  Ever wonder what stories something could tell that's been there for a long time?  I kept wondering what stories that chain would tell. 

One night the moon was beautiful and the sky clear.  I loved the way it made my flowers really stand out.

It's June, so when it's not raining we are heading to a park.

Look who is strong enough to swing on a "big people's" swing!

Yesterday was wonderfully sunny so after grocery shopping we went to Elizabeth Park for a picnic and some play time.  That little boy behind Brandon also is Brandon.  It was pretty fun to watch them come to the realization that there were other people in the world with the same name.  They became good friends in a very short time.

Blessings on your Tuesday.

Grandparents

Living near grandparents has been such a blessing for us and the boys love being able to see them often.  Having grandparents that live far away also has an amount of excitement to it, though, and when they come and stay with us it is attention 24/7 and play, play, play--which the boys find extremely exciting and fun!

They were here for four short days, but we packed those days full of fun. 

Grandma's favorite place--surrounded by grandkids and books!

Building "together".  Brandon would put the legos on his taaaaaall crane and give them to grandpa for building.

Talking to his friend in Nigeria.

Grandma tells the "Candle Story" the BEST!

One day we went to the Children's Museum in Seattle.  It was extremely noisy from all the end of the year school groups that were there.  The kids had fun, though the adults walked away with headaches.

Micah wasn't too sure of the whole thing until he found the water.  Then he played with everything.

The boys' favorite room was the construction room!!

Brandon was ALL about dressing up with the right equipment and telling everyone
what they needed to do.

Micah allowed himself to be dressed up by his big brother, but wasn't sure what the
purpose of all that was.

Micah was far more into the actual building and helping to build.

I put two blocks on top of each other and he took over from there.

Brandon in the house he was insistent we build.  Mommy tried, but Daddy and Grandpa
had to take over cause it wasn't working very well.

Micah figured out how to put the screws in the holes.

This was fun to watch.  The boys put light golf balls in the tubes, pushed the button
and the air blew them all the way through the piping to the other side.

LOVE this picture!  They were all building a bridge together from two different ends to make it meet.



Brandon has really been in to maps lately, wanting to know where Nigeria is, where Grandpa and Grandma are traveling, where he lives, etc.  Here he and daddy are trying to find where Auntie Rachel and Uncle Al are right now.

Brandon also connected with the African area and went back there several times to
play the intruments especially.  It was fun to watch and warmed my Nigerian heart.

Grandpa and Grandma Nigeria left Friday morning.  We are looking forward to them being in and out of our house for the next couple of months.

Blessings

Happy Birthday Sally!

Last Tuesday was Mom/Grandma Sally's birthday and of course we had a party!  It was a blast!

The watering can was full of "fertilizer".

Said fertilizer...

Micah stole the show.  He would shove a couple handfuls in his mouth, then go for more to hand out to others.  We finally had to take it away or he would have eaten the whole lot.  It sure was good for a laugh, though.  ;)

Happy Birthday, Mom.  Blessings on a wonderful year full of God's goodness!  We love you!

Memorial Weekend

Wowzers I'm behind in pictures!

While I'm waiting for our carpet to be installed and the house to be returned to functionable (why bother cleaning while there's work going on, right?), I decided to tackle the growing pile of pictures that need to be edited. 

The Thursday before Memorial Day, Brandon had surgery.  Here are the before pictures (these were taken on my phone):

He LOVED that digger and was quite upset when he became too tired to play with it.  He kept trying to stand up to go play, but the sleepy juice didn't give him very good balance.

Slowing down.  We were reading stories.

Too tired to do much other than lay down.  The wagon didn't fit him as well this time around, though, so he had a hard time getting comfortable.

Those are all the pictures I managed to get from surgery day.  He woke up having a hard time breathing and started panicing.  I'm afraid that waking up scarred him pretty badly.  He's still telling people that the doctor put him to sleep and then he couldn't breathe when he woke up.

It took him through Sunday before he finally became himself again so we didn't do anything big for the holiday weekend.  Saturday evening we went out to the "boat" park for supper and to play for a little while, but even that tuckered him out pretty well, so that was the extent of our picnicing.

Taking a picture of taking a picture.

This little one is so investigative!!

See how red Micah's hair looks in this picture? He has the temperament to match. He's 22 months old. For the past couple of days when I've gotten him up in the morning, I've just pulled out a set of pants and shirt to put on him as usual. However, at 22 months he's decided he wants to pick out his own outfits already and has thrown a fit every morning until I put his clothes back in the drawer, lift him off the changing table and let him pull out his choice of pants and shirt (some days he'll let me pick out the shirt).

Speaking of stubborn, I've always said when Micah decides to talk it's going to come out in sentences. About a month ago words really started coming (starting with the middle vowel and the end consenant, but rarely the beginning consenant (isn't that weird?)). Anyway this afternoon he and Brandon were sitting in the chair together watching me vacuum and Brandon started singing his Bob the Builder song. Part of it goes like this:

"Bob the Builder, can we fix it? Bob the Builder, YES WE CAN!"

Did you guess it? This afternoon, after a month of using only one word, Micah says as clear as day (several times might I add) "YES WE CAN".

Okay, back to our picnic...

He's decided he's quite capable of using a big boy cup.  With the handle he actually does quite well.

But splashing it out is still more fun, so we're just practicing outside at this point.

See the tongue?  I love this boy!

Well it's been fun, but the carpet is officially in so it's time to get ironing curtains and getting the house back into working order.

Blessings.