Treaty Oak

Our first stop Monday morning was Treaty Oak in downtown Jacksonville. Stephen and the kids had never seen it before. It's quite large! I wish I could have taken more photos of the kids, but they were ready to go see dinosaurs and the big tree just wasn't that interesting to them.

A rare photo of the sissy and brother together!

The photo does not do it justice!


I have two other posts from the day so please read on!

Friendship Fountain

What ALWAYS happens when I try to get a picture with my children!

MOSH

Monday morning we took the kids to MOSH. They recently opened their new dinosaur exhibit and we thought Grant might enjoy it. The first exhibit, in the museum, is one on the human body and you must enter in through the big open mouth. Grant wasn't so sure this was a good idea. He reluctantly let Stephen carry him through the set of giant teeth. Stephen said he was shaking the whole time!

The second exhibit we went to had several aquariums of fish. Grant and Erin both enjoyed this one!

Then came the dinosaur exhibit!!! The whole reason we came to MOSH. Of course, Grant was terrified! He's scared-y cat! Erin seemed to like it and even tried touching some the dinosaurs.
Grant preferred to peek over Stephen's shoulder.

After touring the museum, we had a picnic lunch down by the river. We enjoyed watching the boats go by, but Grant enjoyed the pigeons most of all!

He really wanted to hold a pigeon! Wonder what he would have done if he'd actually caught one?

Quick Teaser...

...of what we did yesterday.

Blast From the Past

Rain, Rain Go Away and More

It's been a few days since I posted last and I have a lot to tell you. First, it has been raining buckets for days here. We were in desperate need of rain, but I am sure we have made up for the deficit in just a matter of days. Our rain gauge has overflowed a couple times, but I am estimating that we have received about thirteen inches so far. We live off a dirt road and it's almost impassable. The worst part about the rain is that the kids have been stuck inside ever since Saturday. This does not bode well for children that are used to getting outside everyday. We are getting cabin fever here!



To pass the time we have played a lot of Thomas the Train and I got out some old sheets and made the kids a tent in the living room. Grant really likes this!

Grant calls the tent his "tunnel."

This occurred this evening as I was cooking dinner. Grant traveled the whole house in the walker while Erin pushed him. They are so bored!

We painted this morning.

Yesterday, Stephen and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. I worked all day, so we planned on putting the kids to bed early and spending a quiet evening together. Our plan was coming together. Stephen had Erin to sleep and Grant was almost to sleep when someone knocked on our front door. Now, we live out in the country and we don't have many people knocking on our door. Especially, the front door at 8 o'clock at night. When I opened the door it was a sheriff's deputy and he was pointing his gun at me. I was shocked! I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. He told me that someone had called 911 from our address and hung up. My first thought was that one of the kids had done it, but they hadn't been out of our sight for the last hour or so. I told him that there was no problem and he lowered his gun (thankfully). He told me to check our phone lines to see if there was dial tone. There was just static. The officer (who conveniently used to work for Bellsouth) told me that this was a common problem and that the line was shorting out due to the massive amount of rain we have received. He apologized for disturbing me and asked me to call Bellsouth to have the problem resolved. By this time Grant had gotten out of bed and had gained a second wind. Hunter, had ran out in the rain, gotten covered in mud and tracked back it into the living room.

Somehow, Stephen did not hear any of this and remained in Erin's room rocking her to sleep. (How he didn't hear it I don't know? I think he had fallen asleep himself.) I went and got Stephen to call bellsouth (after I filled him in on our surprise visitor) Erin woke up and it was ten o'clock before we got them to sleep again! Talk about a great evening.

On another note, I wanted to share a recipe I cooked for dinner tonight. A few weeks ago we went out to dinner with some friends to Buca di Beppo. We had the Chicken Carbonara and it was delicious! I frequent The Pioneer Woman's website and ran across this recipe earlier this week. I added sliced chicken breast and frozen peas to the recipe and it was wonderful! This is definitely one I will make again and again.

Sorry this post ran a little long. I hope everyone is having a good night!

Water Fun

It's been hot here lately so we have been enjoying playing with our water table and swimming.

The kids love throwing water on Rusty, Stephen's Grandmother's dog. He loves it too!

The kids were soaking wet in a matter of minutes.

I made Erin a hooded beach towel. I found this tutorial and decided to give it a try. I think it turned out cute.

Erin liked it too. Especially while she was eating an ice cream sandwich.

Mother's Day 2009

We had a great Mother's Day weekend and enjoyed celebrating with our moms and grandmothers. I am so blessed to have these two little ones in my life. There is never a dull moment around here, and even though life gets stressful sometimes, I wouldn't have it any other way!

This picture was taken earlier in the week one morning. I let Grant (and copycat Erin) run around in his diaper after breakfast before we get dressed for the day. They crawled up into my bed and were goofing off together. I love moments like these (pink pacifiers and all!)

Yesterday morning before church. Grant refused to be in the picture because he was mad at me for making him get dressed. (Life with a two year old!)

Erin playing with Hunter yesterday afternoon at Stephen's parent's house. Hunter had a birthday this week. He turned seven on May the 5th.

My special gift from Grant. He made this in his Wednesday night class at church. The painting is on canvas and I plan on framing it to display it. He was so proud of his work.