Young Love

So, in a previous entry we've mentioned Benny's girlfriend Amelia who sadly moved to California this week.  However, I don't know if we've recently mentioned Evan's girlfriend Kalina.  While she is fairly shy, and Evan is a bit of a talker, they actually get along very well.  They've been hanging out now once or twice a week for well over a year now since they met at a baby meet up for kids under 12 months. 

This story, like Ben's, I'm afraid will have a sad ending.  Miss Kalina and the rest of her family are also moving at the end of August.  But, until then, we will enjoy hanging out with them.  Last week, we headed down to a complex that has a few restaurants and some apartments, but is most useful for its large and entertaining fountain.  The kids ran around and played by the fountain while the little ones crawled on the grass and the moms talked. 

On the way out we actually managed to catch both of them smiling, so we had to take a picture.  Toddler photography is so hard these days!

 (Kalina and Evan explore the fountain.)

 (Young love)

(Okay, so Benny might be a bit jealous.  This is the view I got when I turned around after taking the shot of Evan and Kalina.)

Who's Turning 3? Everyone!

The big day is rapidly approaching.  Evan turns 3 this Friday and we are definitely looking forward to celebrating!  However, it seems that all of Evan's little friends have also been turning three, so we have spent the past several weeks celebrating lots of third birthdays.  We've played and eaten pizza in the park, dined and played Skee-ball at Chuck E. Cheese, decorated cookies and pirate ships at Chick Fil A, lounged at the pool for swimming and sandwiches, and eaten cake for breakfast and played at Marbles Kids' Museum. 

We feel so fortunate that we were able to help so many of our friends celebrate.  You'd think that Evan would be sick of cake by now, but definitely not!  At every party he always asked when he would get to sing "Happy Birthday" and eat cake. 

While I don't have as many pictures as I would like due to my camera's somewhat lengthy recovery time after its little dip in the pool.  But here are a few pictures of our birthday fun...

Can't wait till Evan's big day this weekend!

 (Singing happy birthday and waiting for cake)

 (dining on some cheerios while waiting for pizza)

 (Mmmm...cupcakes)

(Benny the pirate enjoys a good party!)

This Time...The Front Yard

We had such a great time hanging out in our own little pool with the sprinkler in the back yard, so we decided to try it out in the front yard as well.  One day last week, we filled up the pool, put the boys in the their swim suits and headed out.  This time, they hung out in the pool at first.  I put on some gloves to pull some weeds in the front yard and Ripple started fetching sticks.  After too much barking, I started to throw his sticks into the backyard over the fence which caused the barking to stop for a little while as Ripple searched in vain for the lost sticks. 

After a little bit of playing the boys got a bit tired of the pool.  The sprinkler itself wasn't particularly interesting, but they did like running up and down the driveway as the water dripped overhead.  Evan was pretty good, but all Benny wanted to do was crawl as fast as he could into the street.  Then, when I gave him the walker, he walked as fast as he could in the same direction.  Needless to say, after not too long I was exhausted from retrieving the escaped one year old and placing him back at the top of the driveway or in the pool so he could repeat the process.

When I pulled the boys inside, we were all a bit tired and covered in grass.  I think we may have to stick with the backyard next time, or else have some extra people to run interference between Benny, Evan and the street.

 (The boys actually play in the water.)

 (Ben begins his escape towards the street.)

 (Evan contemplates more mischief.)

(Ready, aim, fire...Evan takes aim, and Ben dares him to try the shot.)

A Night at the Ballpark

We hadn't been to a baseball game since last summer, so we thought it was about time our family went back.  So, one evening last week we headed down to the Durham Bulls Stadium  We were a little nervous because we were going to a 7:05 game and the boys bedtime is usually between 7:30 and 8.  We thought we'd chance it anyway.  It was a bad sign when we pulled up in the parking garage and Evan was out cold in the back seat.  Ian couldn't even wake him up at first, but when I finally roused him he was in a pretty good humor so we headed in.

Our friends Brooke and Dan who have season tickets had gotten us tickets, so we were looking forward to spending the evening with them.  We walked through the crowds and were distracted by the balcony overlooking the freeway.  We almost couldn't pull the boys away to head to our seats.  We were hoping that the actual game could beat the cars driving by.

(The boys watch the traffic.)

Fortunately they were excited when they walked in and saw the field and the ball players warming up.  Our seats were fantastic (Thanks Brooke and Dan!) and they were close enough to the field that the boys, especially Benny could actually focus on the baseball players.  The weather was beautiful, the game was great.  Ben was a bit twitchy at times, but we had a great time talking with our friends, watching the game, and eating some sugary treats.

 (Our view of the field)

 

 (Benny enjoyed his sweet treat.)

Too bad there were no Bulls homeruns before we left.  Evan was really excited about seeing the bull on the stadium wall blow smoke as he does when there's a homerun.  However, everyone was wearing out at the seventh inning stretch so we decided to call it a day.  We can't wait till we can head back from some more basketball!

(We love baseball!)

Backyard Retreat

While it's great to head to the pool on a hot summer day, sometimes I just don't have the energy to load everyone up and drag them to the pool.  Plus, looking after two munchkins in the water on your own can be a bit tricky.

So, last week we came up with a great solution.  We dragged the mini pool into the backyard where I'm trying to get grass to grow, filled it up with a little water and some bath toys, and turned on the sprinkler.  The finishing touches were two hyper boys and a lawn chair and we had a wonderful afternoon.  The pool kept them busy, the sprinkler reached just far enough to keep my toes cool, and the dog entertained himself with some sticks (and a few hijacked baby pool toys).  We hung out in the pool for quite a while and when we tired of that we moved to Ben's new sand and water table and the swing set.

The backyard is getting to be just a wonderful place to hang out.  Now, I just need to do something about the mosquitoes!

 (two boys in a pool)

 (a heavenly afternoon)

 (a boy and a sprinkler)

 (the backyard, a labor of love)

 (a little sand and a little water)

(boy, that was fun!)

Zoo-Times Two

This year, we decided to buy a membership to the NC Zoo.  Even though it is an hour and a half away, the membership was really reasonable and gets us reduced price tickets to lots of other places, so we decided it was worth it.  This means we can go to the zoo whenever we want, and we've been doing just that. 

I've already written about our first visit this year when we headed down with our friends a few weeks ago.  Last weekend, we decided to pack our family in the car and head back down there so we could spend some quality time at the zoo with Daddy.  Again, we had a great time!  Ben got a lot more out of all of the exhibits, I think because, with two adults, it was easier to take both kids out and really hold them up to make sure they saw all the animals.  Ben would point at the animals and smile, especially the giraffes.  Evan's favorite this time was the white alligator who they say is good luck.  He's still talking about the "swamp ghost" to this day. 

A couple of days later, we headed back to check out the other half of the zoo that we didn't have time to see with our friends the Offenbakers.  All of our friends said that we were crazy for attempting the trip because it was ridiculously hot with a high of 98 that day.  We figured that we'd go anyway because the kids would be able to stay cool in their shaded strollers, and the moms could tough it out.  I'm glad we went because, as usual, we had a great time.  There were plenty of shaded exhibits and lots of new animals to see.  This time, Benny loved the turtles that he could see underwater as they swam around in front of him at eye level.  Evan, on the other hand, loved the arctic fox.  I think this stemmed from a new-found interest in foxes gained at a recent party.  One of the dads was trying keep his kid from running off into the woods, so he said that there were foxes in the woods.  Of course, Evan has been wanting to see a fox ever since, and he got his chance at the zoo.  I think my favorite was the last animal we saw.  As we were about to leave, the Grizzly Bear came out of hiding and walked right up as close to us as he could and stared at us.  We think he just wanted some of our goldfish, but it was a great pose anyway! 


I love going on adventures like that with the boys.  They enjoy seeing all of the new sights, and I'm glad we can show everything to them.  I think we'll be making quite a few more trips to the zoo before the year is out!

 (The boys watch either a seal or sea lion.)

 (Ben crawls in a polar bear cave.)

 (the famous arctic fox)

 (Evan plays with a praying mantis at the bug playground.)

 (Ben's favorite part of any outing-the mulch!)

 (Evan and Quinn make friends with the buffalo statue.)

 (The geyser that helped keep us cool)

 (The bear waves goodbye.)

 (The animals just wear Benny out!)

An Author

My whole life I've wanted to be an author.  I always hoped that I would publish childrens' books someday, and when I was little I was always writing something.  Even though I said I would do more writing when I stayed home with the kids, somehow they always seem to keep me just a little busy.

However, I have been keeping a blog for the boys for almost three years now.  Just the other day, the third book in the installment documenting our lives since Ben was born arrived at our house.  I get each year of the blog bound into a book.  In looking at all three books together, over 700 pages of writing and pictures, I guess I can say that I am an author.  It didn't come about in quite the way I expected, but I'm incredibly proud of what I have written.  Hopefully, the boys can look at the books in the years to come and learn a little bit about how our little life as a family started.