Bird Houses

On the Saturday morning of Mother's Day weekend, we met up with Memaw, Pepaw, and Uncle Drew for some Cracker Barrel goodness. 

Every time we go, I have to coach the kids on how it's not polite to ask their grandparent(s) if they will buy them something at the store.  This time, Memaw proactively offered to let them pick something out to take home, so the kids were really excited and chose bird houses.

The bird houses came with paints to personalize them, so on Mother's Day afternoon, they painted away on the driveway.

The finished products!  Ava opted for a floral scheme, while Aidan created almost a tie-dye kind of effect on his.  The houses are hanging happily in the backyard waiting for some tenants!

Cooking Out With Friends

 As is customary most weekends in the spring and summer, we get together with David and Jenny and the kiddos.  A couple weeks ago we had an impromptu cook out at their place complete with shish-ka-bobs, nachos, fruit, beverages, and fun.

We LOVE that we live so close so that if neither of our families has anything going on, we can just call each other up and plan a get together!

First Swim of the Season

Two weeks ago, we broke out the inflatable pool.  It has been so blazing hot the past week, and it doesn't show signs of letting up.  In fact, by the time this post publishes, I am fairly certain we would have broken it out a few more times!

We always think it's interesting that they want to play in the pool, but when it comes time to actually play with one another, they end up fighting or getting angry at the other person for getting them wet - such strange creatures!

And while the kids were splish-splashin', Sean was having a little fun of his own by creating masterpiece chalk renderings of various Avengers:

Muffins With Mom

For Mother's Day, Aidan's school hosted Muffins With Mom.  I am always so excited to get to go to things like that with the kiddos.  When we were driving home later that day I asked Aidan if he liked eating breakfast with me and he said, "Yah - it was COOL!".

No Training Wheels Required

Over the past month or so, we have been working with Ava to teach her how to ride her bike without training wheels.  As expected, there were some frustrations - from both her and us - and some successes too.

After the initial attempt, we gave it a try a few different times at home.  It seemed like Ava was about to give up.  Until one random day, when she decided to just sit on her bike and coast around.  Sean offered to give her a hand, and she just took off:

So, she's off and riding!  She has even figured out how to get herself started, and is going pretty fast.  Although we were both so proud of her (and rewarded her with a Blizzard of her choice), we still felt a little pang of sadness at the realization that Ava has checked yet another first off the list on her way to becoming a big girl...

Personal Tutor

A few weeks ago, Ava was doing some homework at the desk.  Apparently Gobi thought she was having a tough time, so he took it upon himself to lend a "paw":

We're Still Alive!

I promise!  Truthfully, there wasn't much to report.  I plan to spend a couple hours on Sunday getting all 5 of you readers up to speed on our goings on.  There will be at least half a dozen posts to come, so that should tide you over for a week or so :)