End of May

 Last day of May and we spent the morning outdoors.  Brian and I wanted to get some more gardening done in the cooler morning hours.  The boys helped me to plant some radish and carrot seeds.  They then lost interest in planting and decided to help with watering instead.  We had just found Jude's little orange watering can in the garage (man did his eyes light up when we dug it out!), so he very excitedly delivered water to our plants.  I did plant some bean seeds too; I surprisingly really liked our green beans last year and was excited to get some going again this year.  Our tomato, pepper, and leek seedlings were all planted last weekend and seem to be fairing well.  Now we have a bazillion of the tomato and pepper seedlings, but we have high hopes of lots of fruit from them in the fall.  I did also remember not to plant ALL of the carrot and radish seeds so I can stagger their planting / harvesting this year.  (Recall that we did get a million radishes all at the same time last year and got pretty sick of radishes).

After working in the vegetable gardens, Brian expanded one of the flower beds in the back and planted some lily-of-the-valley plants.  By 9 o'clock it had gotten hot, and the boys were sweating.  I let them have some fun on the slip-and-slide but by 10am, I gave in and got the pool out.  Yep, it's May and our wading pool has been set up.  I hope that this doesn't mean that this summer is going to be hot one...especially with the camping I've got planned!

And I got a good chuckle while over-hearing the boys (ours plus neighbor Liam) play.  All three of them use a deep-voice to indicate that they are grown-ups speaking.  They were using the toys for  racing and making engine sounds and upgrading their cars / trucks and hauling things and other great imaginative play.

First Third Thursday of 2015

Our town has a big music party on the third Thursday of the summer months.  This past week was our first third Thursday of the year. It had been chilly and overcast, but no rain, typical spring weather, so we had to wear our jackets.  This did not stop us from grabbing ice-cream cones at Granny's!  Mmmmm...I love ice cream.  

All over town, there are musicians standing outside rocking out for the public. I think it is just great for to hear so many different types of music and seeing our neighbors out enjoying it. The first guitarist we stopped at was singing kid songs!  The boys thought this was hilarious and loved participating in the silly songs by shouting out suggestions for versus. 

The balloon-animal-twister-dude was here again.  Of course, we stopped so the kiddos could have a piece of balloon art.  They had a fair wait until their turn, so they saw several other crazy balloon shapes get made. 

Tamlin opted for a sword, but a "really big sword".  The man obliged.  Tam loved his sword and kept attempting to slide it down the back of his hoodie, like it was its sheath.  He thought he was a wicked-cool Ninja Turtle. 


When it was Jude's turn, he asks enthusiastically for a "fire-bird."  What??  Brian and I look at each other and we both look at the balloon-artist.  "A Fire-bird!" shouts Jude.  What??  I shrug as the dude look's totally confused.  I try to frantically think of what my four-year-old son might actually want...what's a firebird?  Did he mean a phoenix like his daddy's tattoo?  "FIRE-BIRD!"  I lean in and tell the guy to just twist up a bird using red and yellow balloons.


Know what?


This is EXACTLY  what Jude wanted.
He then held his bird by its feet, pointed his head at things, and made whooshing sounds.  Apparently his bird shoots fire out of its head = fire-bird.
We laughed and laughed and were just so happy he got what he had imagined.

(Note, the yellow balloons are the feet, the black is the beak, and the red is wear the "fire" comes out. Jude is holding it side-ways)


Some of favorite bands from last year are back again, and then we heard some new groups.  The local middle school band played a few fight songs for the crowd.  Also, our highschool's jazz band played down at the beach, and performed a few dance/song numbers. 

Tamlin and Jude rocked it out whenever there was room for them to get their grooves on.
Tam's been learning some great dance moves from the YMCA; his after-school teacher loves doing line-dances and has been teaching the kids.
Jude just goes for broke, often spinning or running in circles. 

It was a great way to kick of the summer.

Last day of school

 May 29, 2015 was the last day of school here.  Our little Tamlin is officially done with Kindergarten and is a First Grader!   He finished the year with high marks  (mastery) in just about everything.  We are so proud of our little man.

 He's excited to have more fun in the pool and swimming in the lake.  But, he says he'll miss riding the bus and playing with his school friends.  He's favorite thing about school this year was gym class and computer class.  He also said his favorite event was the singing/ dancing show the kindergarteners did, which was followed by a party.  I was lucky enough to attend this event and it was uber-cute.  Like all kids, he was so proud that his mom came to watch him perform. When asked what he learned that he liked the most, he answered "Ten-squares, because it was what first graders were learning." 






Jude will continue in the same room at pre-school until the fall, but they all still celebrated the end of the "school year."  They'll have more play/ fun structure throughout the summertime.  My how my little Jude has grown through this year!  He's progress report had many high marks too, with him recognizing letters, numbers, and shapes.  He is still my passionate/stubborn little man, but just as bright as his brother.

Drawings by Jude...Family photo at the top, drawn in May 2015

Self-portraits at the bottom...January 2015 and May 2015.

  Jumping with excitement to start the summertime!

Cousins at the beach

We celebrated Jude's 4th birthday on Memorial day weekend.  Shelly and family were able to come out a day early to spend some time with us and let the kiddos all play together.   It was a beautiful early evening, so we decided to walk on down to the beach.  We love the beach, and take just about any excuse to go down to the water.  Baby Elizabeth hadn't seen sand and waves yet, and we wanted to give her a great first experience.  When we told the littles that we were going to the beach, we had to interrupt their dress-up play.  This didn't bother them!  Doesn't everyone go as superheros to the beach?

The capes are all made by Aunt-Shelly...with Jude's was whipped up in the past 24 hours as a quick birthday gift.  I like this shot, because they all have the same head tilt as they walk :-)  The kids insisted on bringing shovels and buckets for making sandcastles.  Baby Elizabeth got a free ride in the stroller...which also double as portable storage for the random things the kids wanted to bring back home.

Our beach is small, but nice and our local neighbors enjoy using it for recreation.  Jude immediately fell to digging in the sand with his digger-truck.  Tamlin started hauling water to make castle molds.  Ciearra checking out the water and helped Tam.  I had to remind them all that we did NOT have spare clothes so there should NOT be any swimming.  I knew as soon as the words left my mouth, that Tam would get wet...accidentally...and he did slip into the water within 10 minutes.

 The water was pretty calm with only small waves lapping the sand.  The temperature of the water is still pretty chilly, not quite foot-cramping cold, but still toe-curling cold.  I was good just wading in far enough to cover my sandals.  The kids all went in to about knee-high. 

And Elizabeth?

She's the serious baby...just watching everyone playing and watching the waves and watching the birds and touching the sand and grabbing the rocks and watching the kids and watching and watching and watching :-)  It was great to watch her pick up a rock and then drop in quickly when she saw another rock that she thought she wanted.

 The fresh air and walking tired all the littles out.  The walk homeward was a bit slower and meandering, but we made it back for some dinner, play, and bed.  Happy times for all.

Reading Books

We're readers...a whole family of readers. 
Both Brian and I still find small spots of time to read for ourselves, but we totally read with our little ones everyday.  I hope that we have instilled in them a love of a good book...and I see glimmers that this is true.  We visit the library about once a week...though Jude picks about 2 books and then wants to play with the puzzles.  Tamlin picks out 5 books or so, and then wants to look at movies, but he is learning to ask the librarian for help with finding books.

Tam is reading, truely reading on his own now.  They are simple books, but he recognizes words and sounds out the ones he doesn't know.  I'm such a proud momma.  Even though he can read by himself, he still likes to curl up and have the bigger/longer books read to him.  We've started reading short chapter books too at night.  I've tried "choose your own adventure books" which are a hit and "Encyclopedia Brown, boy detective", which are sometimes chosen. (I think he likes the mystery, but doesn't like that there aren't many pictures).  Transformer stories are also popular with him, and he loves the toys / cartoons too.

And Jude...Jude recognizes letters and his name, but still really just enjoys having a book read to him.  His very favorite books of late are "Elephant & Piggie", of which the library has a complete set.  These are great simple books, slightly repetative, but fun.  Jude likes to hear the stories again and again so that he can then repeat them to himself.  He also likes "Pete the Cat", which Tamlin also liked at that age.  But, hey, it's all groovey.




And a last note...I love this book.  I really consider it the first "real" book that Tamlin read all on his own (with the exception of the word "metropolis").

Shots and Pool Noodles

 Jude had shots... 2 shots...one in each thigh. 
Even though the nurse was prepared for him to flail, scream, lurch, fight, whatever...my little JuJu didn't even flinch.

Brave little man.

But he knew he was getting really cool band-aids and

Lots of Stickers!



We also stopped at target for a few pool noodles for sword play.