Come What May - Posted by the Mrs.

Our lawn was needing some water...

and so were our boys.

Planting sunflowers, playing in the dirt,

and checking on our sprouting kale!

Charlie:

"Qwarkle...?"

Duncan really wanted his own Book of Mormon, we don't usually give in to pleas when we are at the store but this seemed to be a good one to indulge.

When we got home, Duncan gave Charlie our family B of M and they walked around the front yard calling themselves missionaries.

We did it!

We bought a Sun Oven finally!

The corn on the cob we tried was perfect.

We have yet to try other things but you can bet we'll be cooking our Thanksgiving Turkey in this baby!

The biggest (and probably germiest!) Teddy Bear these boys have ever had the chance to cuddle with

-courtesy of the local library.

We celebrated our family's birthday!

Yep, in honor of our Wedding Anniversary we all went out for breakfast and Bobby and I told the boys stories about our courtship and getting married in the Temple.

This is a tradition we're going to keep for sure.

I really feel like it's so important for children to know the love their parent's have for each other and how important the Temple is in sealing us all together forever.

Anniversary Date:

just me and the hubs out on a dinner date.

We went to Cheesecake Factory (where Bobby kindly shared half of his meal with me because my prego brain can't seem to decide what sounds good and Salmon apparently wasn't cutting it).

Then we found a cozy sofa at the mall and enjoyed our cheesecake desserts...which I may or may not have eaten half of Bobby's as well and left mine mostly alone.

True love for sure.

Mother's Day!

Bobby made a tasty smiling breakfast. I had a beautiful bouquet of flowers and Duncan and Charlie made some cute things at church for me.

*Charlie had help filling in a picture of a flower with things that he loved about me on each petal. One of them said that I play police car games with him. This was such a simple sentence but it really meant a lot to me because 3 or 4 days earlier, while Duncan was at preschool, I sat on the couch with Charlie and we played a police car racing game on the iPad for maybe 10-15 minutes (not long).

The fact that he remembered that little playtime and was able to convey that to the nursery leaders when they were trying to decipher what these little children were saying they love about their moms just made my heart melt.

 And last of all, we ended the evening with chocolate dipped strawberries...of course! 

I am so grateful for these boys and the opportunity we have to grow and progress together.

Charlie's many chocolate faces.

Duncan graduated from preschool!
This is what his teacher said about him in an e-mail:

Duncan has done excellent! He is a good listener, he follows directions, he tries to please and
he likes to do good work.  He stays focused well and stays with the task until it is done.
He retains very well.  He didn't at first, but he matured in that area quickly. He socially does very well. He knows how to play with others, to share and to be kind.  If he needs to be reminded of any behavior, he is quick to be obedient.  Very kind, loving boy!  I have really enjoyed him!

Thanks Teacher Summers for a great year of learning.

We went through all of his papers and kept a few of our most favorites.

Bobby had to go to Georgia for 3 1/2 days for a conference on the software his company uses.
We sure missed him but we tried to make the best of it.

Here we are sitting on some grass near the airport, after dropping Bobby off, watching for airplanes.

While we were sitting on the grass, a squirrel ran by with a big piece of pizza in his mouth.
He ran it up a tree...hopefully not to store for the winter!
The boys thought that was pretty crazy to see.
You might only be able to see just his scraggly tail in this picture and maybe the pizza if you look closely. :)

Spotting a bunny (not to be confused with shooting a bunny) in our backyard!

Have I mentioned before that we LOVE cardboard at this house?!

This big piece of cardboard came from our lemonade stand that we finally opened up!...
(we bought it when we lived in Pittsburgh and Duncan was about a year or so old. It was a super awesome deal at Costco and a really nice set-up. Duncan now has dreams of making all kinds of money doing lemonade stands :)

Anyway, with Bobby being out of town and having lots of rain this was PERFECT!

As for the lemonade stand I promised him, it will have to wait til' we have sunnier weather.

Wiggler Car Buddies

Friday night we ate at Chik Fil A and then headed over to Coldstone for some tasty ice cream.

Even though our yard takes a lot of work and time, it seems worth it when we can sit on the back porch and enjoy all the beauty that we have.

This might seem silly but I was realizing that Duncan's going to be taking showers instead of baths at some point in the near future and I didn't have any pictures of the boys having their bath time fun.

Now we do.

So the question is...where does this Lamborghini owner think they're going to put all their Costco groceries?!

We had company come!

We actually weren't sure if my parents, my two younger sisters and their husbands would all end up coming because my bro-in-law cut his finger off just a couple of days before they were going to come and had surgery just the night before to reattach it back on. 

 Good news is they still ended up coming!

Here's "Gwampa" with his little shadows.

Brooke and Tyler surprised us all with birthday gifts...some early some late. :)

We loved it all, thanks guys!

My parents took everyone on a real train ride.

The little boys were pretty happy about that.

Tickets please!

We had a good time just being together and enjoying the scenery.

Love it.

Thanks for the ride!

After church we played some good ole' Croquette and had porch time.

Totally reminds me of when my Grandma and Grandpa Duncan used to live down the street from us growing up and we'd play this game out in their backyard. 

My Grandpa was a pretty sweet Croquette player. 

My Dad and Duncan slept out in the tent the whole time we had company.

I think there was a lot of story telling, questions and answers, and cool youtube videos happening because they were up pretty late every night.

I got my scrapbook pages done for Joanne's Mother's Day Present...surprise!

I was going to send them home with family but figured we'd just wait til' we could give them to her in person.

There's our year summed up in two pages.

We had a good time having family come.

There were Qwarkle and Great Dalmuti games.

Seriously awesome homemade Huckleberry and Apple Pies that the Lynches bought from a local vendor after our train ride.

Cereal galore.

Sunny weather and lots of catching up.

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For their YM's activity one week, Bobby and the YM played soccer over at the church.

We don't usually attend their activities (although there was that one time when me and the boys were outside in the front yard playing and Bobby drove off to YM's closing the garage behind him out of habit and driving off. There we were, locked out. Duncan in his roller skates for the first time, me without a phone, keys or stroller, and Charlie. We walked and rolled slowly all the way to the church where we were able to get the garage door opener, watch the YM sett up their Rube Goldberg activity, and then head back on our slow and steady trek back home. Good times :) but the boys really wanted to go and watch Bobby and the big boys play while hanging out on the sidelines.

The YM were good sports when Duncan decided to venture out onto the field and play some too.

Cars, cars, cars.

Bobby and Duncan went on the Fathers and Sons Campout (maybe next year Charlie!)

so Charlie and I had a Doughnut Date and watched Planes: Fire and Rescue.

We did save a few doughnuts for the campers. :)

I'll have to post the Fathers and Sons camping pictures in next months post since I don't have them right now. They had a good time at the Sand Dunes.

Strawberries!

Grown in our own backyard. I have to say, they taste so much better when they are this fresh.

Unfortunately, the birds get to them often times before we can.

It wouldn't bother me so much if they ate the whole thing but they eat a little bit and then fly off - leaving a perfectly good strawberry to waste.

Lemonade is taken very seriously around here.

 Quotes:

5/25/15

All of us riding in the car on the way home at the end of the day...

Sara/Me: "Today is actually a holiday."

Duncan: "It is?!"

Me: "Yes, it's called Memorial Day"

Charlie: "Mario Day?!.......Mario is a game."

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We were watching a little girl (Avery) in our ward who is 4. The boys play with her often since her mom and I are in Primary together. She came bouncing into the house and I commented on how cute her hair was. When she got to Duncan and Charlie, Duncan said something about her hair (I was saying good-bye to her mom so I didn't catch it), Avery's reply then to Duncan was:

Avery: "Am I cute or pretty?"

Duncan: silence...... "Both"

I had to smile inside, good answer Duncan, good answer.

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This is another instance later in the day while Avery was here. They were playing cars (Avery's a good sport) and I heard Avery's 'car' say to the boy's cars:

Avery: "I love you all"

Duncan: obviously confused, "What?"

Avery: "I love you all"

I could tell Duncan just wasn't sure where to go with that so instead he changed the subject with a very masculine voice and replied,

"I can fly to space!"

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We aren't used to 'cute' girly hairstyles around here and declarations of love for all who are playing so it always catches us by surprise when a little girl comes along and teaches us a thing or two. :)