Saturday, March 24, 2012

D.allas Blooms 2012

We went to the Dallas A.boretum to see all the beautiful tulips and other flowers during D.allas Blooms.  We normally go the arboretum during the week, but we went on Saturday so Hunter could go with us.  We had a great time and the weather was amazing.  



Reed enjoyed running (rather than riding in the stroller) with Eli and Chase
I tried my best to get a good picture of all three boys looking and smiling....not much luck.  : )


Reed taking a closer look at something....
.....showing his discovery to Eli and Chase
Chase taking a closer look at something



Watching a ladybug crawl on his arm


Watching the ladybug on Eli's shirt
Reed quickly discovered the snacks  : )  I use Ni.lla Wafers to "bribe" Reed to stay in the stroller.  It didn't work, but he LOVED the nill.a wafers!  : )




Monday, March 19, 2012

Ordinary Days

I just love ordinary days....days that we don't have any plans, nothing pressing to do.  I think the kids enjoy these days too.  Sometimes they say they are bored, but I am ok with that.  I am a firm believer that kids need to be board.  So we have lots of "ordinary days".  


 not something that I allow too often, but Reed loves to "play" on the LeapPad




G.reen Day

I remember as a kid how excited I was every year about St. Patrick's Day.  I have no idea why, but I LOVED that day.  I remember setting out clothes the night before that were green and wearing green pj's to bed the night before so that I would wake up in green.  Until this year, I've never been able to get the boys excited about "green day".  Maybe it's a boy vs. girl thing, but they just would never care about wearing green, etc.....until this year.  I decided to try to make it a really fun day to see if they would get excited about it and it worked.  They loved it and we all had a great day.  Now they keep asking  when is it going to be "green day" again.  : )

We started out the day by having green eggs for breakfast (picture to come later).  I didn't have any ham or I totally would have made it green eggs and ham, but instead we had green eggs and toast.  While eating breakfast, we read Green Eggs & Ham.  After breakfast, we got dressed in our green shirts and went on a nature walk.  Our goal was to point out all the green things that we saw during the walk.  We obviously found lots of green outside.  We also searched all of the clover patches in the neighborhood looking for a four-leaf clover.  We were not successful, but it was really fun trying.  When we got home, we wrote/colored in our nature journals about all the things we saw and found.  I showed them how to make a leaf impression with a green crayon.  Eli was amazed!  I can't believe we've never done that before.  

The rest of the day we just played outside and we ended our day with some frozen yogurt....Hunter and Eli tried the green flavor....I stuck with a mix of chocolate, strawberry and peanut butter.  : )






 "treasures" from our nature walk....I'm not sure a beer bottle cap and a plastic bag clasp qualify as treasures, but Eli thought they did!  : )
 Writing in the nature journal
 "and me"....Reed's favorite words.  No matter what I tell Eli and Chase, Reed runs up and says "and me".  He loves being just like his brothers!  

Arkansas Trip

During Spring Break, we went to Arkansas to visit family.  We love going to visit Madison, Parker and Paisley!  The kids had a great time playing, but with 6 kids ages 6 years, 4 years, 3 years, 21 months and 19 month twins, it was CRAZY loud!  : ) It was fun to watch them play though.  Good news is, no sickness and no broken bones during this visit!  WooHoo!!!  

 Parker, Hunter & Reed
 Sweet Paisley
 Parker!
Hunter & Madison

Zoo Trip

Eli had two weeks for Spring Break.  Our first adventure was a trip to the zoo with some friends.  The weather was perfect and the zoo was not crowded at all because most school districts were not on spring break yet.  Reed loved seeing the animals.  Chase is pretty scared of all the animals, but he enjoys looking at them from a distance.  He tells me that he is scared that the animals are going to eat him.  I'm not sure where his fear of animal comes from, but it is very sincere so I respect it and don't force him to touch or get too close to the animals.

While at the zoo, Reed wanted to walk rather than ride in the stroller most of the time.  Since it was not crowded, I let him walk.  He LOVES to do what big brothers and friends are doing and he did a good job of keeping up.  We were at the zoo for almost 6 hours and we were all exhausted.  I was tired so I can only imagine what Reed felt like.  He fell asleep at 4:30 on the way home and didn't wake up until 7:30 the next morning.  15 hours!!!  Now that's tired!!!  : )






 I just love giraffes!  I think they are one of God's most beautiful and unique creations (besides people, of course).
 Feeding the giraffes....check out that tongue!  : )  We gave Chase some lettuce and he just threw it over the rail.  : )  Too scared to feed the giraffe.  : )


 Eli's sweet friend, Jacob, is always so super sweet to Reed and Reed just loves him.  I love these pictures of Reed and Jacob.  I think they capture Jacob's sweet spirit and Reed's love for Jacob.

The boys watching a demonstration with Patrick the gorilla.