May 4 Robinette's Orchard

Thursday:  On my way to the grocery store (!!) this morning, I stopped at Robinette's to admire God's amazing creation and snap just a few pictures ...

I LOVE these blossoms. I love the detail in their design ... the dimensions, the colors ... and look at the branches! Aren't they beautiful?!?

My little Erin's favorite blossom color is PINK ... so I wanted to be sure to photograph these gorgeous pink flowers for her ...

Aren't they delicious looking?

Yumm ...

I love spring time. I love seeing new life. God is so good to have designed life this way--so kind of Him to let us see and experience this kind of beauty. Thanks so much.

May 2 Erin's Fashion Show

Tuesday:  Erin was excited to show me all of her new dresses that had come in the mail ... just for HER! She told me all about how Kelly had ordered them and how they had waited and that they had come that very morning before she left for preschool.

We looked them over and she showed me the matching socks and talked about which dress she was would to church and which dress she would wear to Miss Jen's upcoming wedding, and which one was her favorite color, etc. It was so much fun.

I thought we were finished with the dress thing until Erin looked at me and asked if she could try them on. Hmmm. I wasn't sure. Wouldn't Kelly want to be the first one to see her little angel dressed in these great outfits? I struggled with this! But Erin literally BEGGED to try them on. So I gave her some boundaries: yes, she could try each dress on--but she when we had photographed her in each dress (front and back), then she had to put her play clothes back on. Erin hesitated about agreeing to this--but I told her it was the only way I would allow her to model them for me.

Here is Erin with her very own fashion show:

We had a hard time getting this little dress on Erin! At first, we thought it wasn't going to fit--but that was because I tried getting it on over her head--but only one of the shoulders has buttons and everything kept getting tangled up. So we had Erin step INTO the dress (duh) instead and then it fit her perfectly. Look how darling the back of the dress is!

Erin explained to me that she wanted a flower dress and this is what they picked out. Oh my. I could just eat her up in this dress. She is SO dang cute.

THIS dress was Erin's favorite (below) and it's the one she wants to wear to Miss Jen's wedding this month. I love this dress on her. She is so stinkin' cute in it.

There was one other dress--but when we tried to unzip it, the "invisible zipper" wasn't sown correctly and needed to be snipped in order for it to actually go DOWN. I didn't want to do the snipping and told Erin we would wait for her mom to do that. 

With each dress, Erin would run down to the basement to model it for her brothers. I listened to see if they had any comments; but of course, they were playing video games and were totally unimpressed with their sister and her pretty dresses. They didn't say anything MEAN ... they just didn't say ANYTHING. Erin was undeterred, however; and with each dress made the same announcement: "Look guys! Look at my pretty dress!" 

After Dylan and Kelly came home from work and we ate our dinner and played for awhile, it was time for Erin to take a bath. She told Kelly that after her bath, she was going to pick which dress to wear to bed. Poor Kelly had to dissuade our little princess from this idea--and she did a good job with that conversation. But then, Kelly is a master at that sort of thing!

May 2 Tuesday's Kids

Tuesday:  The kids played their hearts out today, and it was super fun to have them. I had a few "new" toys to show them--just small stuff I've picked up over the last few weeks. I was sick last week, so I couldn't take care of them on Tuesday. 

Here is Cal blowing our new train whistle. He liked this a lot.

Erin was delighted in our new baby hamster puppet (Tina) and especially the gift Tina picked out for her over at the Garden's Gift Shop--can you see the yellow butterfly in Erin's hair?

Cal was all about his usual cars, trucks, musical instruments, books, etc. He really is a delightful little soul.

Erin requested my "jewels" once again and tried on lots of bracelets and necklaces.

Erin asked if I could get out the wind-up toys and we were entertained by them for 20 minutes! Erin says her favorite wind-up toy is the butterfly--actually, I have TWO butterflies, and she loves both of them. 

Cal had fun with all of them. I am unsure which one he liked the best.

Here is Erin cuddling with Tina. She later wrapped Tina up in one of our doll blankets and "put her down for a nap."

We read a LOT of books again today. This is MY favorite thing to do with the kids. I'm intrigued how much all of Dylan and Kelly's children love a good story. They sometimes sit for 30 minutes at a time listening to me read--but more than that, I love how they interact with the story--ask questions, point at interesting things in the illustrations, ADD to the story their own interpretations and thoughts ... it's great. Very engaging little kids, all of them. 

Cal especially loved my "Baby Elephant" and "Baby Dolphin" books. He gets a real thrill out of puppets of all kinds. I love that about him.

Cal played and played with the trains today too ... he's starting to get the hang of how many cars he can add on to "Lady" engine and still have her actually pull the load.

Interestingly, during one of our snack times today the kids requested ice cream--so I hauled out these nice little ice cream cones. For myself, I got out the peanut butter jar and some cut-up celery. I began dipping the celery into the peanut butter and making sounds of extreme pleasure as I ate them. Cal put his ice cream cone down (after 3 licks) and said, "I want some!" "You want celery and peanut butter?" I asked. And sure enough ... Cal ate four sticks of celery loaded with peanut butter! He didn't even want his ice cream cone; so Erin very nicely ate it for him.

Cal was super happy to see I had picked up a dinosaur puppet ($4.99 at the Garden's Gift shop). His name is ROCKY ... most of the time -- sometimes it's ROVER!

Herbie and Cal had an interesting conversation today at the table as well. Cal gets a real charge out of Herbie.

Here Cal is roaring at Herbie to see if Herbie will ROAR back ... he DID!

Erin built a very fancy building today with our MagnaBlox. She couldn't decide if it was a church or a castle. Cal told her it was a tower.

We arrived back at their house in time to get Aidan off his bus. Cal had fallen asleep, and while I was unloading my car, Erin jumped into my place in the front seat and pretended to drive. She was extra excited when I turned the car back on, put her in my lap and let her steer it into the garage.

We let Cal sleep a little while on the couch, but then I carried him downstairs to play. He gradually woke up and actually only slept for a total of one hour the entire day. So that was good. If Cal takes too long of a nap, he doesn't go to bed very easily at 8:00. 

It's always nice to be with Brendan. Look how much he has grown and how ALL of his "little boy-ness" is vanishing with each passing week! Yikes. I love this child so much.

Aidan organized an entire school (where? you might ask ... it was kind of EVERYWHERE). Naturally, Aidan was the TEACHER, the BUS DRIVER and every other kind of boss he could think of. 

Erin showed me what she would look like if she was having a baby by stuffing one of her squash mallows up her shirt. Hmm.

Here are a few other pictures from our day:

I stayed for a yummy chicken dinner, helped with the clean-up, visited with Dylan and Kelly for a short while and then drove back home by about 7:45. It was such a good day.