Bubba-licious

After much anticipation, Bubba came for a week last week!! I cannot tell you how tired I got of telling Brooklyn, "No Sweetie, we still have 53 more days..." lol. It came and went all too fast, as always, but not only did we get a lot done, we had quite a lot of fun!!

Sam thought he was pretty hot stuff "making rainbows".

Samuel turned 2 on April 23!! We went berry picking for his birthday and celebrated with chocolate cake for dinner...

...and strawberry crepes the next morning.

YUM!!! This is one time you won't hear this momma complain about picking up after everyone. :P

We found this little guy in our flower bed.

This is one of the kids' favorite past-times now....yay....

One morning we decided it was a rocket morning and headed off for the park. It was a GORGEOUS morning--the sun streaming through the trees and such.

Bubba was looking for the last rocket casualty (which is still stuck in the tree) while I was waging a war against the Noseeums. Grrr.

Russ put Froot Loops in the nose cone of his rocket in hopes it would help us see it better. Here's what I got from almost zoomed in all the way w/ my lens...

...and here it is cropped in super close.

Brooklyn retrieved it for us for another round!

Then we went to the Arboretum for a special event they were having. They had all sorts of informational booths, free baby plants and seeds for all the kids, a nature scavenger hunt for the kids, BINGO, and a goo-making station. We took note to arrive a little earlier than 30 minutes before closing time next time...it was fun! Brooklyn still talks about the queen bee and how girls are special b/c most bees are girls...funny kid. Here's Sam w/ our goo:

Playing in the kids area.

Sam stood by this creek for quite awhile. He finally made his move--pointed at something obscure in the corner and got Bubba interested, trying to figure out what he wanted. While she was distracted, he made his move and yup, jumped right into the water...little stinker.

Hanging out on the porch in the cool afternoon breeze.

Brook is on a Buzz Lightyear kick and pestered Russ all day for wings like Andy from Toy Story. Being the awesome dad that he is, he obliged. And she was beaming for the rest of the day.

She would circle the trees and mailbox, talking about which stars and planets she was circling.

We also hit Airlie Gardens for the first time ever (sans Russ though...). It was gorgeous (although I'm bummed we're a week or so late to see all the Spring blooms) and fun for the kids to run around. Although Sam isn't the best at keeping a set pace...he's more of a meanderer, which makes it tough to get through 10 acres in a decent amount of time.

Dut was fascinated w/ this swan and it's baby.

Both kids' favorite part, hands down, was the butterfly house. I'm proud to say that there was only one casualty (that I know of...) and both kids did great. The loved laying on the floor and blowing on the butterflies to watch them take flight.

Russ and I also got a lot done while Bubs was here. I finished my rock wall out front and got the remainder of plants planted (which was about 15), almost (finally) finished up the paint on the front of the house, plus we rented a pressure washer and got the paint stripped off the garage. We figured since we had it for the weekend we'd do the driveway, etc. as well. OH.MY.GOODNESS. I had no IDEA that all of that cement was supposed to be WHITE!!!!

Here's the garage post-pressure wash, pre-paint (duh), and before Russ replaced all of the rotted wood.

And thanks to Bubba, who did probably 90% of the painting, we got this paint job done in a DAY. I kid you not when I say this project would have taken us 6 months to complete on our own... I actually enjoy going outside much more now and am actually starting to enjoy our house, lol.

The rest of this is Post-Bubba.

Sam is getting one of his 2 year molars and caught a cold, so he has been one CRANKY dude (and sucks at sleeping again--for the past two night's he's been up until 10!!! AHHHHHH!!!). Well, around 11:30am one morning I asked him if he wanted to go night night. He said yes! Okay, whatever...went back in 15 minutes later and found this. He passed out in Bubba's makeshift bed while watching Toy Story. The kid slept for 3 hours! Sheesh.

While Sam slept, Brook asked if she could make her own lunch--her specialty, PB&J. She does a pretty good job, so no problem. 15 minutes go by and she's still working away. I go to check on her and find this. A Penta-Decker!!! She was pretty proud of herself, and of course only ate half of it, lol.

And lastly, I am too pleased not to include this--I've been wanting to go brunette for awhile now and finally got to get it done today. I LOVE it. I'm just hoping it doesn't wash out! :)

In other news, I must add that Russ and I started the P90X regime. I was tentative (to say the least) about it, but after the first workout didn't kill either of us, I was game. We've been doing it for 3 out of the 12 weeks and let me tell you, it's been great! We do it for 1 to 1 1/2 hours each night, and it's been nice--the kids are asleep, I actually get to hang out w/ Russ for a good chunk of time, and we're both feeling great. I'm excited to see the changes come Week 12!