Attempting to Read

Richard and I took the kids to the library this afternoon.  Given that we were not-entirely-politely tossed out the first and last time I took the kids solo, we opted to tag-team it.  (I'll tell that story later, if anybody's interested.)

I got to wander off by myself for a few minutes and actually look at book titles and read blurbs and everything.  It was kind of cool.  I even picked out a few books, though thinking that I'll be able to scratch out enough time to finish even one is probably silliness.

I'll admit to two of them.

The Queen's Rival by Diane Haeger.  The way this particular library shelves their fiction, it's kind of hard to tell sometimes exactly what genre your book is going to fall into.  This one looks like it's going to be a nice combination of historical, romance and personal redemption, without being too much of any one of them.  I don't expect it to be a particularly light read, but I'm looking forward to it.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  This is probably gong to sound ridiculous, but I had NO IDEA that a movie of this book had been made, much less one starring Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon.  When did that happen?  (Oh, last year, by the looks of it.  I was a little busy.  Obviously missed it.)  I was going to give some sort of blurb, but I suppose everyone's already seen it. ;)

I picked up a third book too, but it's a poorly written piece of garbage to have on hand for car rides.  Also probably the only one of the three I might have time to finish - sad as that is.

After picking out my books, I went to find Richard in the kid's section.  I was shocked...that place had been stripped clean.  Bug has been reading the Magic Treehouse books and the shelf that used to be full of them was entirely empty, as was every other shelf on the aisle.  Aisle after aisle after aisle in the kid's section was empty.  I thought that perhaps they were rearranging or moving the books elsewhere, but it turns out they've all just been checked out.  Almost all of the chapter books, almost all of the easy reader books, almost all of the board books, almost all of the kid's music and movies.  Stripped clean.  Richard was baffled until I pointed out that it's the first week of summer vacation and 115 degrees outside during the day.  Even mid day on a Thursday, the library was packed.

Bug ended up finding a handful of books that he was excited about (a new Charlie & Lola, his first Ramona book and a few that we've never heard of before), so it ended up being a good trip.  We read a whole bunch of little board books to Boo while we were there, but she generally prefers to hear whatever Bug is reading, so left all of those there for whoever might want them.

I'll go online and put holds on some of the books that we couldn't find for Bug today.  He'll be pretty excited by that, I think.

Pre-Easter Playdate

The kids and I got to go have a bit of fun just before Easter.  Even though we've been here in Arizona for nearly two years already (how did that happen?!), given everything that's happened during that time, there hasn't seemed to be a lot of time for us to get out and meet people.  But we do have friends, and for that I'm very grateful.  :)  And, that we *all* seem to have made friends in the same family, well...that's just awesome. :)

So we got to go play with our friends.

It was a really nice, relaxing day.  The boys, both four, alternately had great fun with each other and then seemed to delight in shouting at each other.  The girls, both hovering on either side of a-year-and-a-half, mostly still play near each other, but have taken notice of each other.  There were moments that I wondered if they weren't developing little crushes on each others brothers.  And I always enjoy hanging out and talking with Kendall.  She's awesome.

The kids dyed a few eggs, though I didn't manage to get any pictures of it.

Boo got to wear her first tutu, and I think she fell in love.  She liked it so much that Kendall sent her home with it.

Boo and Luca.

Much fun was had. :)

(And, Kendall has a shop!  Find her at www.hennyandev.etsy.com, www.facebook.com/hennyandev or www.hennyandev.blogspot.com.  She does CUTE stuff.)

Butterfly Day at the Desert Botanical Gardens

A few weeks ago, we headed out to the Desert Botanical Gardens.  I love the botanical gardens.  I especially love that, once a month, they offer a free admission day.  In the spring, that even includes admission into the butterfly exhibit, which is amazing in a way that I can barely even begin to describe.

Since it's ridiculously late and this post is seriously image-heavy, I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking...

Boo, getting ready to load up and hydrating before a long, hot afternoon.

LOVE these glass sculptures.  I have no idea how they don't get broken in bad weather.

All ready to spend the afternoon looking at amazing things.

Turns out that, this year, instead of offering free admission for the day, they offer free admission for half of the day.  We ended up arriving about ten minutes before they wanted to start letting people in and, given that it would have cost quite a hefty sum for tickets for all of us, we opted to hang outside the gates and have lunch first.  There were lots of neat things to look at out there, too.

I so love this.  It makes me want one somewhere in the house.  As if that wouldn't be pretentious.

 Once inside, there was SO much to see!

Enthralled.

Riding in style.

She was happier in there than she appears to be.  Honest.

I love this tree.

Hummingbird!

And then...butterflies!

Boo was SO EXCITED.

She knew she wasn't allowed to touch the butterflies...so she bent down and kissed one instead. <3

I adore this child. <3

A Texas Mountain Laurel...which I never saw in Texas.  It smelled like grapes.

A really cool art installation.

Quail!

Bug LOVES to run!

She's chatting with a chipmunk that was in the plants.

They got SO close.

See?

 

These lovely women - who's names are escaping me - chatted with us for quite awhile.  Very nice ladies!

 

Terrible photo of me, but Bug is so stinkin' adorable.  That smile!

There was a LOT that we didn't get to see.  With only spending half of the day there, we basically saw the butterflies, took a short walk and stopped for lunch before heading out.  There's quite a lot more.  (Seriously.  We've been probably four times so far and there's still one half of the place we haven't seen, yet.)  We're looking forward to heading out again soon and taking some of the other trails.  And, of course, seeing the butterflies again!

Easter, Part I

I know it's not Easter yet, but we've already done our big family celebration.  My sister's ex-husband has their kids for the weekend, so we did the big family thing last night.

I have to admit, I'm a little surprised (and quite pleased!) that their Easter baskets are still around.  This was the third year we've used these baskets, and they're just made of felt.  I'd hoped they'd last for a few years, but I'm kind of surprised that they've survived three years, three moves and some pretty rough handling in the playroom.  Considering that I think I paid $1.50 for them, I'd say we've gotten our money out of them.

I'm not sure why but, this year, Bug and Boo were both a little obsessed with wearing their Easter baskets as hats.

 

 

Bug had a lot of fun dying eggs with his cousins.  Boo was still a little young to take part (in my opinion), but she also didn't seem terribly interested in it.  She played outside for awhile, then just kind of orbited the table as the bigger kids finished up the eggs.

Bug dyed ALL of his eggs green.  It's his favorite color.

Then it was time to hide the eggs!

I'm a little embarrassed to say that we hid eleven dozen eggs.  Yep...eleven dozen.  In my sister's backyard, which is about the size of a postage stamp.  (And we ended up leaving another 18 eggs in the fridge.  I can't even imagine where we'd have put them!)  Luckily, we were hiding eggs for little kids, so putting them in plain sight was totally acceptable.

 

I was particularly proud of this balancing act.

 

 

Eventually, we just took to tossing them onto the lawn...

 Being the youngest, Boo got first crack at the yard.  We gave her a head start of about 30 seconds or so, so she could figure out what was going on before the big kids plowed her down in their quest for eggs.  She picked up on it pretty quickly and did really well on her own, though she did have parental help in reaching some of the eggs she found but could get to on her own.

 

And the hunt is on!

Afterwards, the kids sat down and counted out their loot.  Mom gave them each a quarter for each real egg they found, and all of the plastic eggs had some change inside them.  Considering the number of eggs out there, they all banked even though most of the eggs only have a few cents inside them.

Not sure how I didn't get a picture of Bug with his eggs, too...

And then they attempted to eat ALL of the real eggs.  Before dinner.

We'll do something low key on Easter, but they really seemed to enjoy the big deal. ;)

Oh, Hello! - and A Farmer's Market ;)

Oh, look!  I still have a blog!

I'd apologize for not having updated in...forever...but, well, we've been living our lives. ;)

And I've got a few pictures to prove it.

Last week, we headed out to the big farmer's market.  As much as I talked about markets last year and the year before, it's actually the first time we've headed out this season.  There's just been too  much other stuff going on!

Bug is four now, and decided that HE was going to push Boo (almost two!) in her stroller.  She doesn't ride in it often, so she was pretty tickled by the whole thing.  He even pushed her around - with some minimal steering assistance - for  about ten minutes before he gave up on it.

We saw some really great stuff.  Flowers and veggies and some super yummy prepared foods.

The kids loved the veggies.

Boo watching the live band while we ordered lunch.

We got the BEST hot dogs ever from these guys...

Seriously.  SO good.

All of the hot dogs are named after actual dogs, which was cool.  I got the Igby - blue cheese, cole slaw and bbq sauce.  Sounds maybe a little strange, but I've craved another ever since.

After lunch, we picked up some super yummy, all natural popsicles.

Bug got chocolate raspberry.

I got prickly pear and passionfruit, but Boo snagged it immediately.  She did allow me a small taste.  Quite yummy.

And, yes, she finished the WHOLE thing.