May

We were mostly burnt out in May.  Burnt out from 31 whole days of rain, heavy, heavy rain.  Burnt out from our first year of elementary school lunch making and pickups.  And burnt out from almost a whole year of Preschool co-oping. 

Be that as it may, we still did some fun things. 

Miss Lee started standing.

Our preschool group went to First Tuesday at the DMA where they have story time and activities for young children.

Here is our outdoor moving art with our friends.

Joy working on her artist recreation project.

It was a Mondrian. (It's now hanging in Johnny's office.)

It took her forever to do because she is convinced that white is not a color, it's a spot that hasn't been colored yet.

And playing in the art center.

We also were able to get to a few of our inter-ward playgroup activities, one of which involved Toddler Time at a place called Urban Air - a trampoline fun center.  For $5, you can sign a waiver and let your >4 year old loose in the entire building.  Joy is seen here climbing the wall of a dodgeball court.

Also featured in May was Little Lee's birthday, but that gets its own post.

Perry Homestead

If you live in my area and you haven't been to the Perry Homestead, why not?  It took me way too long to visit and it is a great site for pictures, as you can see.

We went in the hopes of taking some six year pictures of The Captain, and discovered they were having a bluebonnet festival, so we joined in, did some coloring/crafts, ate some cookies, played some bean bag toss,

found some new friends and played soccer . . . 

which left Miss Lee and me with nothing to do but stand up by a log and take pictures.  

She doesn't seem too sad about that.

I did grab The Captain between matches to take some pictures, but it was just way too bright.

Joy, of course, had to be in on the action.

We had so much fun that I decided to take them back the next day.  Johnny was still out of town and it was a Sunday, so I got up, coordinated everyone's outfits, rushed them into their clothes, grabbed a blanket for the mud-soaked ground, and made it back to the bluebonnet field before the next storm hit.

 It's (un)surprisingly hard to get all three looking at the camera.  Especially when one is a cranky baby, and the other two are pretty concerned about fixing that.

 Proof that it wasn't all fun and games.

 And some by the fence.

 But we did find a winner for The Captain's six year shot.

 And a decent one of Joy as well.

 And too many of this little munchkin.

Hmm, a flower

Hey, I know you

And you, Mom

Hold up my flower?

You mean this flower?

Okay.

 And some of the birthday boy that won't make the cut.  I would have got a fabulous one here, but he got bitten by red ants 30 seconds after this picture was taken.

 His posing faces

 And a normal smile to end.

April

Easter was early this year. which means we hardly had time to breathe or eat birthday candy before it was time to hunt for it again.  Between conference sessions on Saturday we threw eggs all over the lawn and let the children loose.  Well, two of them anyway.

And they're off.

Where are those eggs?

Spotted one

On Sunday between sessions we dyed some easter eggs.  

We did things a little differently this year.  We did silk dying.

You cut silk into squares, wrap the eggs in lining, and wrap it in the silk. Then hard boil the eggs.

Then we dyed some in mayo dye.  It didn't work great, but it made them a little spotty, which was the idea.

We also taped some and graduatedly dyed some.  Results.

We also finally got our garden in place.  The children wanted to take pictures of all the plants, so pardon the fuzziness.

The one thing we planted in our garden bed was tomatoes.  We are crossing our fingers that they will survive because our lawn guys sprayed some weed killer in there.  Plus, you know, two months of huge rain storms almost every day. 

We added some flower boxes to the kids' playhouse.  I love it.  It looks even better now.

Johnny had another international trip in April and was gone for 10 days.  We managed to do some service while he was gone and some fun things, like go to the aquarium.

`

The rain continues, but occasionally it lets up just in time for sunset and amazing skies.  For about 10 minutes it gets super bright in our living room from all the reflected light.