Water Fun

Operation: Please don't be afraid of water! -  Has begun! I bought a cheap-o water sprinkler for the boys to run around with! Today was actually the first day we didn't have anything going on! We set it up and had some fun - or at least Jonathan and I did...




Getting started...looking good...having fun!!!

No! Not fun for Ben!

He got lots of Momma hugs and then he took a walk around the yard and came back and looked at the sprinkler for a while...glutton for punishment.

Then they both wanted to play with the hose!

Then Ben is starting to decide that he doesn't like it, yet again.

Here is my shoe, please take it and me and get me out of here!

He isn't kidding. I took him in and cleaned him up and put him down for his morning nap and he slept for 2.5 hours!

Brother really got into it after little one went down!



Big Jump!



"Daddy would be so happy with me if I water his garden."

Beautiful boy.

And then he talked me into inflating his little pool. We ended up putting our feet in it and splashing each other for like an hour! It was fun!

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3!!!

Oh Happy Day!!

Yesterday, May 20, 2012, Jonathan and Benjamin were baptized!! It has been something that we have wanted to do since Jonathan was born. We felt we needed to be committed to a church and be members before we did this, so that is why it has taken so long. We were so excited to join First United Methodist of Hurst a few months ago and our first order of business was the Baptism!

As most of you know, I was a Baptist prior to becoming a Methodist recently. So I spoke with the Pastor and Associate Pastor about the practice of an "Infant Baptism". It was explained to me that is in almost the exact same practice as a Baptist "Baby Dedication". The intent and verbiage are the same, mainly asking the congregation to commit to help us bring up the boys in a Godly manner. With the additional steps of sprinkling water on their heads and then we laid our hands on their head and prayed for them to grow up to love the Lord. It was a very touching and moving experience. I was beyond pleased with the way things went. I have been on cloud nine ever since!
It goes without saying that this was an "infant" baptism and neither of our boys are infants anymore! This caused Michael and I a little stress prior to the event...What if they don't behave in the church before we are called up? (There was about 10 minutes of singing and introduction prior to) What if Ben just takes off? What if Jonathan doesn't want to go up there? What if they freak out when the water is put on their head? - You get the picture! So I feel confident in telling you that - WE HAVE THE BEST BEHAVED KIDS IN THE WORLD! I mean it! We worried for NOTHING! Both of them sat quietly and thoroughly enjoyed the service. They were both very obedient during the baptism and neither of them got upset with the water or anything! YAHOO! I think it made it a little bit sweeter for Michael and I, we were both so pleased with them. We even had people come up to us afterward and comment on how nice they behaved!!!
When we left the service I asked Jonathan what he thought, he said, "I just stayed as quiet as I could so I could hear everything that was said." - I was beaming with pride! He is such a sweetheart! And if you ask him, he will be proud to tell you, "I was bath-tized!" We took the boys to their Sunday School and Nursery and then rejoined for the rest of the regular service.

We were so lucky to have our immediate family there with us! Thank you so much for coming! It meant the world to us! After the service we went back to our house for some yummy food and fun!

We were given one for each boy!

This was the handout for the order of service.

I love this photo for so many reasons. You know me, I like to have lots of photos to mark an occasion. But I received a last minute run down letter from the church of "things to know" and one of them was, NO PHOTOS during the service. WHAT?? I was so disappointed. But I understood. - But...Ben was being SO SWEET during the Amazing Grace on the Bells that I pulled out my iPhone and held it low to catch this shot. He was grooving to the music and glanced up at Daddy! I wish I could have gotten a picture of Jonathan. He was sitting on my other side and being so, so good!  

Pastor Mike McKee with us after the service!

Olga, Brian, Michael, Anna Marie and Pat at our house after the service! Thank you so much for lunch Pat!! She paid for us to have catering from Carino's!! It was so good!

Jonathan, Waylen and Ben! I am not sure where Scarlet, Amy and Will are, but this was the only time I brought out my camera!! :(

Ben enjoyed the lunch!! - He had fallen the night before and caught his right eye on the side of his toy basket. You can tell that it is a little swollen and red here. I was sick about it and almost wanted to cancel the whole thing. No I do not want to take my baby in front of the whole church with a BLACK EYE! Ugh. Thankfully, he was okay and it wasn't that noticeable! But I moved the toy baskets!

He is enjoying his brownie and chocolate ice cream!

The second he left the table, Scarlet jumped up and helped Jonathan finish off his ice cream!! HAHA!

The Beautiful Snow globe that The Day's bought each boy! I love, love, love them! Thank you so much!

This is what the front says (there are 2 and the other says Jonathan).

End of Year Comparison

At the beginning of this year I posted a picture of Jonathan with his "facts". Now, I have done it again on the last day of school so we can compare what a big boy he has become! And WOW! He grew a brick! And lost what little baby-ish-ness that he had left. It's official, he is a big boy now.

Beginning of the Year

End of Year!

His answers are somewhat consistent, only a few changes! A few months ago we listened to the sound track from Mary Poppins a lot. My personal favorite was Jolly Holiday, so we listened to that a lot! Around this time, Jonathan made up a song called "Happiness to-do so reins". I am not sure what it means, he says it means being Happy! It's to the tune of Jolly Holiday! He is a funny kid! He loves helping daddy! And he can now "read" the whole book of Brown Bear to us, so I am sure that that is why he likes it!

Schools Out for Summer!

I don't know about you, but every single time I say "schools out", I have to sing the Alice Cooper song..."Schools out for Summer...Schools out for Forever" - So that song has been stuck in my mind the past couple of days as we approached Jonathan's last day of school! (Which was 5/17/12).
We had such a great school year, but honestly I am REALLY excited for the summer! We have so many fun things planned! I can't wait!
I'm not even going to talk about the fact that I now have a child that is on his way to PRE-K!!! What? I have several months to let this sink in and then we will discuss.

This was our end of year teachers gift. Jonathan and I did these together. I asked him what he wanted to give them and he said, "Flowers, they love flowers!" I found this idea on Pinterest and I have to say I am proud of how they turned out and I think the teachers really liked them! - I spray painted Chalkboard paint onto Terra Cotta pots! Jonathan picked out the flowers and helped me plant them in the pots! I believe he was really proud of them too!!

So for the last day of school, we were asked to an end of year Pool Party! One of Jonathan's class mates Reagan has a nanny named Beth. And nanny Beth has one of the coolest house/properties I have been to! We had a blast!
Okay, so a little disclaimer, my priorities have not really been on teaching Jonathan to swim. So he doesn't know how. I didn't realize that all the other kids would be little fish! He is signed up to take swim lessons this summer (and Ben and I are doing the mommy and me swim class!) So I plan on this summer being the one that Jonathan becomes a little fish too!

He sure does look the part, but that is about as far in as he got. The step he is on leads to an area right there is only 2' deep, which would have been perfect for him, but he just didn't want to go all the way in. 

But he liked playing with the toys. That is Taryn with him!

In the white cover-up is Nanny Beth (her house and pool).

Ben was great. It was in the middle of his nap time and he got a little cranky, but he got through it.

This is my friend Kirsi's little one, Mazie. She is 9 months now. So she gave Jonathan the perfect job for him, taking care of Mazie in the little floaty thing! Jonathan even scolded that little boy that is approaching because he squirted Mazie with a water gun. Ha!

This is Beth's property. It goes as far as you can see, literally, I can't see the back fence line from here! Crazy, because we are in Hurst, not far from the church! You would never guess this is tucked away back here. You can't see it here, but there is a guest house to the left behind all that greenery.

This is next to the pool area. They have a trampoline and 2 or 3 swing sets! Neat!

This is the Reagan!

Baby Collin, which I guess he is not a baby anymore, he is about to be 2 (Lily's little brother)!

The pool from a different angle.

He still didn't want to get in, but he sure did want to wear those goggles!

Yay! He got in the shallow area!

There is Lily!

Jonathan Reading to Ben

Ben was given these cute little books for his birthday from his Gran. He has loved them and played with them a lot. I had left the room for a minute and when I came back I found Jonathan "reading" to Ben. Both boys ignored me and continued reading for a while. I LOVED IT!

Dino World

The Saturday before Mother's Day, Michael treated me and the boys to a Day-O-Fun in Glenn Rose, TX! It's only an hour and half drive from our home! It has lots of fun things to do there! We went to Dinosaur World for the first time! It was fun! Jonathan is really into Dinosaurs right now, so I was excited to see what he would think of all the "life size" dinos! It was a beautiful day, rainy, breezy and 70! It was such a fun memory! We headed to Fossil Rim next, so I will share pictures from that soon! 

 We started off with a picnic! I love this picture of these guys! Michael and his "mini me". Look at their lips- Exact same!

 ROAR!

 Starting the Dino Trail! There were over 100 Dinos! It took about 20-25 min to walk the trail.

 A Jonathan mid-air still shot - Pure Excitement!

 I don't remember why he looks so shocked, but I thought it was funny, any time there were 4 Dinosaurs, he would assign them names and titles - This is the momma, this is the daddy, and these are the kids, Jonathan and Ben.

This is for all the 'Jurasik Park' fans! 

Some of these Dinosaurs are just the freakiest looking things! Even worse, their names! Who thinks up this stuff??? 

 Koi! Kind of random to find Koi in the middle of all this, but, still cool! I'll never complain about a Koi sighting! (Michael and I love them and want to have a Koi pond in our backyard one of these days)

 I thought this was a cool setup!

 I think this was my favorite. It really puts in perspective how big they were!

 This was by far the weirdest looking one!

 T-REX!

 I kind of wanted to give him a hug.

Scary Dudes! I don't want to hug them.

Neat playground while waiting for the Fossil Dig to begin. Do you spy a little guy you know?

 Swing time!

 Jonathan and I went to do the Fossil Dig without him. I don't think little buddy was very happy about it.

 Daddy's hat makes it a little better!

The Fossil Dig was cool. He was able to dig and dig for 10 minutes. Then we had to pick 3 that we could keep!

We couldn't pick just 3 so finally I decided he could pick 3 and I would pick 3 and I just paid a couple extra dollars. The top 3 are Jonathan's and bottom 3 are mine!!

It was such a fun experience!!!