Long Weekend

We spent our long weekend doing pretty much normal weekend things, but then when it got to Sunday Night, I realized Max didn't have to work the following day and we got so excited! 

So Saturday, CHarlie and Max went to Home Depot to do some projects and when they were trying to come home, the worker gave them 3 more projects they could work on at home and Charlie's very own Home Depot bucket. Pretty Successful! I then went to an Eye appointment...turns out my prescription hasn't changed for nearly 30 years yet they still like to check annually. In the afternoon and evening we finished some house organization projects. Exciting right?

Anyway, Sunday was spent at church and  then setting up Charlie's new birdhouse. 

And Miles found this special place in a bush and would not leave until his diaper was completely full!

And I had curled my hair so I thought...hey, I'll take a picture of that..this is what turned out from that...haha!

 And some walnut smashing!

After our random outside play, we went to a friend's house for an amazing dinner. We brought the boys homes and put them to bed.
 Monday morning, we had a cream of wheat breakfast with berries then loaded up our bikes to go for a family bike ride before it gets too wet and cold.

We went to a smooth trail because Charlie has not been that excited about his new bike since he tries to ride it on the gravel around our house and then falls over. He's ridden his bike successfully before but this time he was super timid, even when we got to the trail so it took a lot of patience to get him comfortable enough to ride for awhile.

This is Max's face trying to be super patient with Charlie, while he stopped every couple of inches.

Max told me to ride ahead while he worked with Charlie so I pulled Miles in the trailer and we rode for awhile. When we got back Miles had fallen asleep and Charlie and Max were still in the same spot.

After a little more practice, we finally rode all together a little ways down the trail, we still stopped a ton but we made some progress.

 When we got back to the beginning of the trail I took the boys to the park so Max could go on a little ride. Miles woke up and Charlie made a new best friend so life was good at the park.

Max came back after awhile and joined in the fun!

We went home ate lunch and got Miles to sleep more! Then our friends, the Heaps, came over after dinner and we had a doughy party around the fire and that ended an excellent day with Max home!

Overalls

So we have some incredible retired neighbors that love gardening. The sad part is that no one can see their yard. We are the closest neighbors to them and we can' t even see their yard. They said we could come take photos there anytime we wanted. They must have seen us always taking photos in our yard. So a week or so ago they specifically e-mailed Max saying we should go take photos in their yard while they are out of town because the flowers will all be gone soon. We can't say no to a photo shoot so early one morning I dressed the boys in overalls and went into their yard. The boys were being adorable at first then I just got really nervous as they were picking flowers and destroying the rock water fountain. Anyway, I still feel like we got some good photos...

Then we got back to our not-as-pretty yard and Charlie pushed his brother around on the tractor and they looked like little farm boys and it was sweet!

Anyway, there's a random rapid photo shoot for you. Also, I've been on a blogging roll and have done about 5 posts in the last couple days...so keep scrolling and enjoying our exciting life :)

A Grand Old Tree

So, I'm realizing that both Charlie and Miles have sponge-like minds. They are thrilled to explore and gain more knowledge. Miles' vocabulary is increasing daily. and he is using correct words in context. Charlie is so interested in inventions and anything outside and in nature. I completely believe that kids are natural learners and I don't want to force some curriculum on them too early. But I do love finding ways to enhance their natural interests. A couple weeks ago Charlie picked out a book called "A Grand Old Tree" from the library. It's a non-fiction book about the long life cycle of a tree. We read it a lot at home but I thought it would be fun to go read it in our forest while sitting on our fallen "Grand Old Tree" 

Charlie was excited for this idea and was running with the book in hand and tripped and scrapped up his elbows within minutes of us arriving in the forest. After that he didn't want to do much. So he sat on a bench and I pulled out some graham crackers until he was feeling all better and forgot about his injuries. 

Miles was happy to be cruising through the forest with Big Brother!

It turned out that neither of them wanted to sit still to listen to the story. But we did enjoy applying the knowledge that we had read previously. We took time to notice falling leaves, forest creatures, large roots, and fallen trees. That was a lot more exciting for my boys. 

Oh and Miles loved this hollowed out stump, it was the perfect space for him.

He didn't like when brother crowded in his little space. 

Ok...so I may be a little obsessed with forests!

Tacoma Day trip!

Before we had a chance to breath from returning from our rafting trip, Max had to go back to work on Monday and I decided to jump in the car with my kids, drive up to Tacoma and help surprise Grace for her 4th Birthday Surpris party. We hadn't made our way up to Tacoma in a long time and we had never been their for Grace's birthday so we really wanted to make it happen. The boys did great in the car. We made it in time to be there before Grace showed up with her dad so it was perfect. The surprise party was at Pump it up. A big bouncy house indoor playground! My boys were excited (Note: all photos of from Elizabeth) 

Grace peeked under her blindfold and she got a really loud surprise when she walked in

And then she got tackled...mostly by Charlie who is all about wrestling these days!

My boys loved it! And we had the whole rooms to ourselves.

The party-ers

After a bunch of bouncing madness we made our way into the party room where Grace got to sit on her thrown. We ate pizza and cake and she opened her presents and went to hug everyone to thank them.

Afterward, the guests went home but we followed James and Elizabeth back to their house to have some more cousin time. It was so fun to just relax and watch our kids play and check out the bee hives and vegetable garden and the shed that James built. We also played in the yard. We stayed until dinnertime and then had a wonderful living room dance party and then loaded up in the car and went home. The drive back was pretty uneventful and we were happy to be home and start getting back into somewhat of a routine. We were very happy to celebrate with Grace, she is really such a sweet girl and we are so lucky that are cousins are really only 2 hours and 14 minutes away!