the pout

Mason has the pout figured out. I find it adorable - extra adorable with a bead necklace and hat on. :)

And he's Superman.

little updates

April is our house anniversary month. After 6 years of home improvement projects, we're down to two things: big projects and tiny projects. We're going to be painting the outside of our house this year and working on fixing up our yard. In the mean time, here's what we've done...

... added planters to the porch

... added blinds to the bathroom windows

... and updated our bathroom.

The little things are fun but I can't wait to paint the house! I've been waiting to paint it since the day we put the offer in!

I had my doubts...

I thought we may have had our first bad experience at the zoo since the complete melt down that happened on my first visit to the zoo alone after having Mason. Andrew lost his favorite lego hero and then Mason fell off a monkey statue in the parking lot and scraped up his cheek. Luckily we calmed down and decided to go back in to finish up on a better note.

The last picture of the beloved green lego hero. :)

Andrew climbed a tree higher than I could reach to rescue him, if it were needed, for the first time. He was quite proud of himself.

Mason really liked these monkey statues. He kept trying to feed them his cracker.

A preview of their new dinosaur exhibit! We can't wait!

This was Mason's first time enjoying the Zoomasium. Once he realized this was a slide, he climbed right up and went down on his own. He loved it!

I {heart} doors

I try really hard to not make my boys pose for pictures (other than for holidays, etc). But today I found this door at the zoo and couldn't resist. For some reason I have a slight fascination with doors and in my opinion, this was totally worth the pain of forcing them to stand there and smile!

He is risen!

I love Easter Sunday! I think it's funny that we celebrate with baskets and hidden eggs, but it's fun and I love that part too.

I hid Mason's basket in our toy shelf, just as I did for Andrew when he was 2. I forgot that Andrew would find it first, not giving Mason a chance to find it on his own, but it was still cute. Matt was entertaining the boys while they waited for their baskets from grandma & grandpa. Thanks for dinner, Melissa!

And.....goodnight!

egg hunt

Today we had breakfast at Michael & Leslie's then headed out to a big community egg hunt. The breakfast was delicious, the egg hunt was not so wonderful.

The main reason the egg hunt was a bust is because we had to wait quite a while on the start line before they let us start (which was torture for Mason) and once we got to go, he started crying. Andrew also had to go to a seperate field due to his age, which was kind of a bummer. It was only a bummer for about 30 seconds though and then it was over.

The good parts... It was a beautiful day, we got some cute pictures and we found a prize egg!

dying eggs

Both boys enjoyed dying eggs this year, although Mason was more interested in cracking them open to get to the 'ball'. :) I also found out that Andrew loves boiled eggs.

happy easter

I love it when music can bring me to tears... I also love Carrie Underwood.

pirate ships & train rides

We went to one of our favorite places today - Country Village! Andrew had more fun than ever playing on the pirate ship this visit.

(And I had fun playing and editing the pictures. I've never really done much editing before and I could see that if I ever really learned how or paid for a real program, I would be in trouble. It's fun!)

After we played for a bit, we hopped on the train. Mason was pretty excited for this part.

They don't give tickets but Mason really wanted one. The conductor played along and pretended to punch his ticket. :)

Mason loves to be outside, so he had a pretty great day. And to top it all off, he got a box of raisins in his lunch - his new favorite!

fun at the bar

For some reason, the boys love sitting up at the bar/counter to play. Today they spent some good quality time up there.

Andrew has been really into Inspector Gadget lately. And once again, Grandma saved the right toys! Matt pulled this out and hid it for Andrew to find this morning. He left a note with a clue and Andrew was in heaven!

They also found a magic kit that grandpa sent over for them. Andrew would love to be able to do a trick - I just need to find one that seems easy and cool enough for a four year old. In the mean time, he'll have to settle for looking at all the cool stuff.

serious, we're ready for summer

We drove home with the windows down!!

It's a little hard to tell because I had to take these pictures while driving (I was safe, promise, that's why they're not good shots) but it's true. :)

this is weird

Warning: 100% potty talk. Don't read if you're not interested in poop.

It appears some good can come from having a kid who poops in the tub more often than I care to talk about*. It hasn't happened in quite a while for 3 reasons:

1. He has become mister regular and usually goes after dinner, before bath. A welcome change that started a few months ago!

2. He's a little too obvious about it so we can tell him to stop if he does try in the tub, and

3. Matt put him on the toilet last night and he went! Then tonight I put him on the toilet and he went again. And, he loves sitting on the toilet, so this could be going somewhere! I have no desire to potty train my not-even-2-year-old, but if he wants to poop in the toilet before bath, I'm all for that!

* The 'good' is we have easy access to a toilet and an obvious sign when it's go-time. Just in case that wasn't clear. :)

real smiles

I love it when I catch real smiles!

(take a moment to appreciate his first Orange Crush mustache, but then don't tell anyone we let him have pop!)