It's always fun...

When Grandma comes!

We drove back into Austin on Sunday night to greet a very special visitor - Grandma Marynel! Andrew's mom came down to spend some time with her sister in Houston and stopped in to stay with us for a few days before going home to Utah. The kids were back in school, so the little boys and I took her to the Dinosaur Museum on Monday.

On Tuesday, Andrew took some time off work and we realized we'd never taken Grandma to see the peacocks!

So we set off for the Mayfield Preserve - a beautiful little nature preserve near Camp Mabry.

Perfect for hiking with little kids!

It's especially nice right now since all the spring flowers are in bloom.

Afterwards we headed across the street to climb the steps up Mt. Bonnell so Grandma could see the great view of Austin - it was really windy up there!

Then it was home to take naps before picking up the big kids from school. We surprised them by taking them to see "Tangled" and going out to Red Robin for dinner.

We got home with just enough time to play a little twilight soccer before it was time to get ready for bed.

Thanks for a great time Grandma - come again soon!

Mission Completed!

Peter is potty trained! YIPPEE!!

As his reward, he chose to go to the zoo with Grandma and Papa. We were lucky enough to have Uncle Ryan and our cousins join us for part of the day as well! The timing was good since they just opened the new Africa exhibit at the Houston Zoo. They don't really have many animals in that section yet, but it was fun anyway - and the rest of the zoo is always great!

Papa and Peter tried out the huts in the pygmy village for size.

We had two excellent jungle guides to help us find our way.

They led us straight to the carousel where we tamed the wild beasts..

And rescued a runaway rhino!

Spring Break

Spring Break always kind of throws me for a loop. I get very accustomed to having just the two little boys all day and suddenly I have to entertain four of them! I guess it's a good wake up call to get me planning for summer, but still... What do you do with four children for a week? Here's what we came up with:

DAY 1 - Monday

We went on a nature scavenger hunt - to find the letters of the alphabet! We did pretty well!
I think we're only missing Q and R - although some of the letters are a little sketchy...

DAY 2 - Tuesday

We trimmed a lot of trees and winter scrub from the back yard and started getting our garden ready for planting - however, since we're not quite ready for planting yet...It's turned into a pseudo sandbox.

DAY 3 - Wednesday

We managed to set up playdates for both of the older kids - and Andrew was off work today - so we worked on our list of house projects (refilling water barrels, cleaning out the garage, putting away winter clothes, etc) Of course, we probably spent more time playing with these two cuties :)

DAY 4 - Thursday

Andrew and the kids started work on a fort made from the branches we cut a couple of days ago - they didn't make a lot of progress since they kept stopping to play soccer and get snacks and play in the "sandbox".

DAY 5 - Friday

Driving down to Houston for the weekend. We got in right around lunchtime and just hung out in the backyard riding bikes and playing with plastic bugs and magnifying glasses. Andrew and I were able to take advantage of the babysitting to get to the temple and visit with my brother afterwards. Thanks Mom!

Kite Festival

We had one of the best ward activities today - a kite festival!
It was so much fun to get out there and see your kite rise up in the air - the day started out with a downpour, but you can see that it ended up being perfect weather for the activity!

Leah did a great job flying her Barbie kite... and won an award for the girliest kite :)
Unfortunately, our other kite took a hard nose dive early on that splintered its ribbing, so we didn't get to fly it after that. Should be an easy fix though, so we'll have to try it another day.

Despite the fun of kite flying, I think the boys may have had more fun playing in the sand of the baseball field... boys and dirt - not much can compete with that!

Rub-a-Dub-Dub

my three boys in the tub :)

I got tired of all the bath toys we had in the tub so I got rid of all of them except for the foam letters that stick on the wall. Peter has a great time with them spelling little words like STOP and TUB and GAS. Eli, on the other hand, seems to have a special affinity for the letter O and once he gets a hold of it, no one else is allowed to touch it.