Busy Little Bees

We stayed closer to home for the rest of this week but kept up a busy pace with oodles of things to do, not to mention calamities that only two brave super heros could resolve! 

After a morning spent learning about dolphins at science "class" the boys spent the afternoon hitting the links! We took our darling little neighbors, Channing and Lyla to the near by mini golf course. I don't need to tell you how much the boys like mini golf, I know but Colin was giving Channing *8 years old* pointers. It was hilarious. We usually only play 9 holes at a time so playing a whopping 18 holes was exhausting for these little ones, thankfully Mamma was a sucker and bought everyone ice cream popsicles to boost moral. 

This is my favorite picture from the day. Four kids in four directions, pretty much sums it up! 

Thursday we were off to the National's game. We really have our routine down at this point. We arrive an hour early so that the boys can run roughshod on the kids' zone playscape. Then meander up the "escamalator" as Colin calls it to begin the gorging of ballpark food! This trip is was popcorn, peanuts, hotdogs, french fries and cotton candy. Oh and a vanilla milkshake to kick things off, natch! We got to see a few friends who stopped by to say hello which was fun and as always, we hung out with the best usher in the park, Mr. Mike. I didn't get a picture with the boys and Mr. Mike but that's a must for our next game. He is so sweet to the kids and even bought them both boxes of crackerjacks last game! 

Mr. JT comes to visit while Jim is getting drinks.
Will told him, "you're in my daddy's seat." Nice welcome.  

Friday we hosted an 80's dance party in the morning for Channing and Lyla and then headed over to the pool for lunch and a lazy afternoon. Later that evening we held our first family movie night with pizza and popcorn. The boys picked Wall-e which was a new movie to all of us. I must say, I feel like the boys miss out a little but just downloading a rental instead of roaming the aisles of blockbuster narrowing down the seemingly infinite choices. 

Saturday we had some fun friends over for a bbq. The boys husked their first corn! I'm a little embarrassed I haven't made them do it before now. Will whined about it (shocker I know) but all in all they did a great job!

And of course a little Saturday afternoon baseball practice before fall baseball classes with Coach John start back up!

We're off to North Carolina later next week for a long weekend with Tia (Colin's godmother) and Naya and Babs & Brent! We are all super excited for one last get away before school starts. I'm sure I'll have a million pictures upon our return. 

Till Next Time, 
Mamma, Frog & Toad

Baltimore or Bust!

After spending the entire day relaxing and playing at the pool on Monday I thought we should do something more ambitious today. We took off for Baltimore's Inner Harbor this morning to visit the National Aquarium and Port Discovery, the children's museum but not before a healthy yummy breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. 

 We started at the National Aquarium and headed straight for the new reef shark exhibit. I couldn't believe the number of sting rays, turtles and even fish that were swimming in the same tank, all seemingly undisturbed by the huge number of bull sharks. The boys had to "read" all about each species in the water, their favorite being the zebra shark. But we didn't know what was next! We walked down a four story ramp, and with each turn we saw more and more gigantic sharks, I don't even know which was which but I must admit it was pretty cool and I'm not one of those shark week obsessed people. 

Next we went to see the dolphin show... adorable, sweet dolphins. I mean who doesn't like dolphins, right? Apparently my boys. They were a little bored at the gentle mammals so we snuck out after about 15 minutes of jumps, claps, twirls and under water flips. What's wrong with these kids? 

What do you eat after two hours at an aquarium? Seafood, naturally. We had a great lunch at Phillips before heading off to Port Discovery. Ok ok and we might have stopped for some ice cream after lunch. 

We spent the next two hours running around like crazy people from one exhibit to the next with no real "plan of attack." The kids had an awesome time and I only had two heart-attacks when I thought I'd lost them in the three story cargo net - slide - rope climber playscape. Fun times for mommy. 

Play scape of doom! 

There's a mummy behind you. No really, there is! 

Tomorrow may be another pool day to recoup from today's adventures but we all had a great time and the boys even crashed for the drive back giving me a little peace and quite.

To top off the day Jim decided to break out his new Big Green Egg for dinner tonight so I don't even have to cook dinner. Life is good yall!

Till Next Time, 
Mamma, Toad & Frog

Hodge Podge of Summer Fun

Thankfully Channing reminded me the boys needed helmets.
#motheroftheyear

As the title of this post suggests, there isn't really a common theme, other than enjoying our summer days at home! 

Once Namma left we settled back into a schedule after THREE weeks of freedom from my tyrannical schedule of bed times, limits on tv, daily bed making, brushing teeth, bathing and sufficient milk drinking. I'm evil I know. 

Roughing it at the pool.

Yummy Saturday night dinner with the Magoons! 

Ice cream sandwiches after church! 

Colin and Will pick this one! 

The boys and I started our search for a new sofa for the family room this week with a trip to Mitchell Gold. About 30 seconds after walking in the door they dove onto this enormous sofa and claimed it as "the one." Thankfully the nice person helping us is the youngest of four boys and totally understood their enthusiasm. It does remind me a lot of the Raby's Galveston beach house sofa that I absolutely loved as a child.  

We all know summer time is about a great soundtrack, yes? Well this summer I introduced the boys to the Grease soundtrack! And let me tell you there is nothing like singing along (at full blast) with the boys to Summer Lovin'. I asked Will what his favorite part was... and if it isn't obvious from the video, its "Wella Wella Huh" 

*Technical glitch: I can't get the video to upload with audio so it just looks like Will gyrating around so I deleted it. Needless to say its pretty funny.*

Till Next Time, 
Mamma, Toad & Frog

Namma's Visit

We had just enough time to do most of our vacation laundry (which is located in her "en suite") before Namma arrived the next day and good gracious were the boys excited to see her! There were some pre-arrival negotiations about who would be giving and who would be taking "sugars" from each other but all was settled amicably. 

We had a busy week as Namma had a job interview outside of Charlottesville and a birthday to celebrate upon her return! We started out her birthday fun with a trip to the National Gallery of

Art to attend their Stories in Art, kids program. We had a ball! The kids got to show Namma their favorite paintings and Colin even found a new favorite. We learned about a new artist and Colin even got to make his own painting in the gallery! Will was being a grumpy pants and couldn't be bothered with the arts project. But Colin and I thought it was super cool. I  mean how many people can say they finger painted in the National Gallery of Art? I can't say enough about their kids programs, the National Gallery of Art is just the bees knees! 

Colin's "new" favorite. Coincidentally its one of my favorites too! 

Afterwards we opened presents and made Namma's birthday cupcakes. Both boys picked gifts that they could do with Namma, Will naturally picked a cupcake making gift so we got busy baking! And as the cupcakes cooled we were off to a Ethiopian feast! Namma was all about new experiences this year so we thought we'd introduce her to one of our favorite foreign foods. Aside from spending a good portion of the evening in the bathroom with the boys then Will knocking over every single glass on our table the dinner was

fantastic! Namma enjoyed herself and Colin did an outstanding job eating and liking the food. Will not so much but they both loved their first experience with mango juice. We will certainly be taking them back there... maybe we'll wait long enough for the owners and staff to forget about our calamity of a table. 

Over the week we also got a visit from Jamie, Eric and baby Lincoln. Oh good gracious is she absolutely delicious! Her smiles, coos and laughs, killed me dead. Needless to say, Namma was in heaven.

Later in the week we popped over to our neighbor's house to celebrate Baby Dutch's 2nd birthday, my how time flies. The kids were pretty wiped so we didn't stay too late but it was fun to see all the neighborhoods kids running around and playing together. It reminds me just how much I love our street. 

Happy Birthday Dutchy!

On the last day of Namma's visit we hit the National Building Museum to play the mini putt putt course we didn't get to the last time we were there. The kids had an awesome time on the new course and then building any number of things with Namma in the Play Work Build exhibit. 

It was a great week and we miss her already but fingers crossed she'll be up here more permanently soon! 

Till Next Time,
Mamma, Frog & Toad

Home Sweet Home

 We made it safely and easily home from vacation and were immediately greeted by our sweet neighbor kids. After sorting through at least a ton of laundry we hit the grocery store.  Poor Colin was basically buried alive in snacks! The boys loved it and asked if they could switch places and Will could get "buried." Needless to say we didn't do that. 

One little bump in the road came the next day when Will slammed

his finger in the inside part of his closet door while playing hide and seek. It looked pretty scary so off we went to the pediatrician who couldn't determine if it was broken and sent us to another office to get it xrayed. All told it took about three hours and William was a total rockstar! No whining, which is kind of his "thing" and all smiles and cheerfulness, this all told me his finger wasn't broken but who am I to argue? 

Turns out all was fine, just needed to keep it taped for a few days. I only mention this because I realized at 3 1/2 this was the first injury he'd suffered. Poor sweet Colin had been to the ER twice by 3 1/2! 

Till Next Time, 
Mamma, Frog & Toad