A Special Weekend

Gift time with lots of helpers

Superheroes. What more could he have asked for?

Mother's Day was doubly special for us this year, since it was also Myles' 5th Birthday. Saturday Myles celebrated with his first "friend" party. Unfortunately the weather was poor, and Mommy vastly underestimated the amount of prizes needed to fill a pinata, but we muddled through. Apparently his classmates were aware of his obsession with superheroes - he's ready for new adventures with Ironman and Spiderman. We don't do fancy cakes, but the kids always bake them with me, and Myles, true to form, chose "chocolate, Mom, everything on it should be chocolate."

It was sooo windy out! The kids had fun attempting to fly kites.

I never want these little homemade gifts to stop. I cherish every one of them. Handprint gifts of any sort are my absolute favorite.

Mother's day was pretty low-key. I wasn't feeling so hot, so Dan let me go back to bed after Church, which I had to drag people to. I actually think what I did was get out of bed, and said, "when I get out of the shower, at least one of my children better be ready to go to Church with me." Yeah, good way to start the morning.

My sister and I took my Mom to pick out a new mother's ring, and out to lunch with some of the assorted children :)

The weekend prior we took Max and Mason to pick out their trees to plant in honor of their birthmoms. Mason was completely uninterested in the process, but Max made sure that both trees had pink blossoms. He was a little overwhelmed at the number of pink options, and had a lot of fun deciding. We had an interesting snake adventure, finding the snake that Myles lost in the truck two days prior while at the greenhouse. We successfully caged in in Myles' superheroes carrier, and released it at Nana and Papa's house.

Wish I had the camera for that adventure!

Mother's day was soooo windy! We couldn't plant the trees at all. We did plant them later in the week, and they are lovely additions to our front yard. Max speaks of his birthmom frequently, and always wonders why we can't just go to India to visit her. He has identified her and one of his cribmates as his "India family." I'm surprised at how much he wants to talk about this already. Guess I'd better prepare quickly for the harder questions that are sure to follow. I wish we had more information to offer him. I wish she had more information on how wonderful he is doing now, and how thankful we are that she made such a difficult decision for her child.

A Wonderful Addition

My parents are now up to 8 grandchildren now, with the wonderful and early addition of Aisla last week. Big Brother Austin loves his new baby sister, a pleasant surprise for everyone. Big Sister, Auri, had a rough week. She didn't feel well all week, and we kept on plying it off as nerves, adjustment, etc. Poor girl ended up in the ER the night Aisla came home and apparently it was more than nerves. Everyone is feeling better now, and we are thrilled with this gorgeous new addition to the family! Check out some gorgeous pics of the family here - http://www.darlingphoto.net/blog/?p=488

Crawling

My son is officially crawling now. Not commando crawling, actual, on his hands and knees, crawling! We've been working hard on this for 5 months. He has to think very hard about it, and really focus, but he does it. This week his physical therapist commented on how he was progressing in leaps and bounds. You don't notice when you see him day in and day out, but as we talked about all the changes in his body, posture, skills - it's pretty impressive. I'm certainly learning all over again how exciting each milestone can be. I'm a very proud Momma.

Flashback

Madeline fell asleep last night rubbing my fingernail. This is something she used to do ALL the time when she was little. She'd suck her thumb, and with the other hand rub your fingernail. Odd and cute, and I was glad for the memory. She's such a sweet girl, and growing up way too fast.

Summer is coming. We're ready.

We've had a string of warm days, and couldn't hold the kids back from swimming any longer. Mimi (my sister) was home with her family, and we were thrilled to see Fin again. All three of us sisters took our boys (the girls had school) to the Gray Animal Farm. Everyone had a blast. Max wanted to "see more animals" as quickly as he could. It was windy, but the place was empty, so it was worth it.

Mason has a really hard time with balance, so kayaking with him was tricky, but SO worth it. He loved it. He kept on saying, "here I come" and "it rocks." He waved and yelled hi to everyone we saw. It was a riot and I can't wait to go with him again.

Myles was thrilled to be wearing his Spiderman lifejacket again.

Mason's first turtle. He was less than thrilled.

Max loves to catch anything he can. He was my helper catching above turtle.

The cold water didn't bother Maddie a bit.

Max thought this was comfy. Mason let him know that it was NOT!

Mason's new hat. We're a bit late in getting him one.

I tried to post a video demonstrating Mason's obsession - serious obsession - with driving, trucks, and tractors, but apparently that's not going to happen. Trust me, the obsession is real :)