Double the Trouble Double the FUN!

Two of my favorite people are my cousins (one from my mom's side married one from my dad's side). They decided to come for a short visit and introduce us to their sweet twin girls. It was fun to see their 3 year old too!! We talked and reminisced, adored having 3 sweet children in our home, laughing, going to the beach, and having fun. Of course it was too short. I have been loving my "reward" for finishing seminary...lots of fun family visitors. Kim comes tomorrow and we're super excited!!

First Round of FAMILY!

Barrett's sister's family and his brother were in New York then made their way down to Philly. We met up with them Saturday. We had a great time! We picked them up at their hotel and got rock star metered parking right by the Liberty Bell...a couple hours for only 6 bucks!! Awesome. We walked around and saw the sights. Tons of Asians took pictures of little California beach baby Cailin and a group even picked Tommy up and took pictures with him...super funny! Poor Damon's shoes got wet and muddy camping, so he only had old ghetto pretend crocs to wear which ended up giving him blisters. He sat in the stroller until it broke:( We saw the Ben Franklin museum, Elfreth's Alley, and saw Ben's grave. We ate sandwiches and Philly Cheese steaks at Campos and enjoyed the sunshine!





We drove over to the Art Museum to see the steps and Rocky Statue. We happened upon another rock star parking spot!! We ended up hanging out in the shade at the top of the museum steps for quite a while. It was pretty fun.







We dropped everyone off at the airport to get rental cars then made our way to our house. We had honey lime chicken enchiladas then went out for Rita's. Delicious. Everyone was pretty beat that night. Quinn went to sleep before both my boys!
The next day Cailin got to stay with us. We loved her to pieces! Tommy loved taking her "binky" out of her mouth and putting it back in. He kept saying she was a "tootie pie" (cutie pie). Damon followed her around (while Quinn's iPod was charging) and adored her. She is the cutest thing...we all fell in love. We had a delicious dinner with everyone then Barrett took everyone over to his office and other downtown historical sites while I put over-tired Tommy to bed. We ate strawberry shortcake and hung out. The boys loved playing games on Quinn's iPod all weekend. Damon even had a monster tantrum over it...pretty sure Grandma has never seen him like that before. Everyone left Monday around noon and we were sad to seem them go. We love family!

Campout with Dad

Last month Barrett went camping with the Scouts. Tommy and Damon were so sad they couldn't go with him. We usually don't tell them cool stuff that's happening until closer to the day or else we hear about it! But, this time we felt so bad. We told them they would get to go camping with dad in May for the "Father's and Son's campout". They have been so excited about it! We got 4 or 5 camping books at the library the week before to get them extra excited. Friday morning I took them shopping and made sure we got the things dad wanted us to get for the trip...we added a few other fun things too. Dad got home early and they were super helpful! It was really cute. Soon my boys were off and I found myself in an empty house. I decided to go shopping at Kohl's and had fun stolling along in no hurry at all. I got a phone call from Barrett saying it was pouring on them (I had no idea since I was in the store!). They still had a great time! I spent the rest of the night cleaning and organizing for visitors, but enjoyed time to myself. The next morning the boys came home muddy and wet, but full of excitement! Barrett told me how Tommy started roasting his hot dog, then five seconds later took a bite, then it fell off his roaster, so he got another one and just kept taking bites in between roastings. I was pretty proud of Barrett. I sent him with the camera and he took some pretty great pictures!! They all loved it!

Strawberries and Frogs

We love strawberry season! It was supposed to rain a lot during the week, so we decided to hurry over to the farm and pick strawberries one night before dinner. Well, it was really over cast and blustery...but we picked some beauties and didn't get rained on. The week ended up being pretty nice so we could have gone any other time...but oh well. We had strawberries and waffles and made jam and just enjoyed that fresh off the vine sun-kissed taste!! There is nothing better.



I haven't done very many projects with the boys lately, so we busted out the good ol' Family Fun magazine and found this cute craft. We painted paper plates green and while they were drying, we wrapped electrical tape around opened paper clips for flies. We assembled the frogs and played. The boys loved the whole process and especially catching flies. When they were done, the frogs were stuck on the fridge by their magnetic tongues! It was a fun project!

May

Some things we've been up to so far in the month of May.

I had a $10 off coupon from JCPenny, so I took the boys to the mall one day. Damon loves picking out clothes, so I let him (with some mom direction) pick out a new shirt and shorts. His new shirt has a little drawing of a kid on a motorcycle with flames. He loves finding things to draw in his notebooks too. When we got home, he changed into his new duds and later decided he needed to draw his motorcycle guy from his shirt, so he took it off to copy. I couldn't convince him to put another shirt on in the mean time.

We hadn't done a project in awhile, so the boys were really excited when I said they could paint! I cut up the old egg carton from our Easter egg dying activity into little tulips. The boys painted them then we put them on pipe cleaners. I was surprised how cute they turned out.

One of the boys from church that both Barrett and I work with (plus he's the boy's babysitter) was moving. They were going to have a farewell party for him at mutual, so Barrett decided to write a song to play for him on the guitar. He used the tune of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane. It turned out really good and the boys are always singing parts of it. Because of it, Damon calls airplanes "jet planes" now. I asked if he wanted to draw a picture for his babysitter for dad to give him and this is what he drew. Adorable!

The first weekend in May is Dover Days. We met up with some friends at "our" spot on the parade route. The boys were ready with little baggies to collect all their loot this year. Damon now thinks parades are for candy:) I love seeing the colonial costumes. We were excited to cheer for some of the kids in my seminary class that were in the band.

Check out Tommy's stash! I couldn't believe how many tootsie rolls he collected without dropping them. I think he ate 3 maybe 4 lollipops while watching the parade:)

For some reason Damon wanted his picture with this building.

After the parade we watched the May Pole Dancing then found a fun little spot to play with stuff. The boys dug in sand to find rocks and trinkets. They also fished for crabs and fishies found in the area.


We came across some knights in armor. Damon was able to see the helmet and was pretty excited about it.

For Mother's Day, the boys picked out these flowers for me (I let Damon take the picture). I also got Tangled and a BBQ (which we ended up taking back because it was missing a part). I also got to go shopping Saturday afternoon, then we all went out for dinner. It was a pretty great time. Tommy was the cutest saying "Happy Muhders Day!"