Charley and Jackson: May 2011

What's your Gnome Name?

Aunt Jen-Jen sent these awesome mugs with Gnomes on them to Mommy for her birthday. We divvied them up and now we each have Gnome Names.
Here they are, left to right:
Aunt Jen-Jen - Nestor (we had to give her one for when she visits)
Charley - Lucien
Jackson - Arthur
Daddy - Marcel
Mommy - Léon

Fun with friends

Our friend Will, from the D.C. area, his sister Nora and his Mommy, Leana, a great friend of our Mommy and Daddy from college all came to visit us. We had so much fun.

We had a sleep over and got a chance to show Will all our coolest toys before they had to leave.

Right before they were to leave, another friend, Nathan, stopped by to pick them up. Well his Mommy, Kara, who is Leana's sister, came to pick them up. While the Mommies were getting all packed up, we showed them some tricks on our swing-set . . .

. . . and in the basement.

Yum-Yum

We told you three times, now we're gonna eat YOU for dinner.

Dino tunes

Today was the big day of the big concert.

We sang all about dinosaurs and showed off our dinosaur drawings.

It was a little intimidating, as always, standing up there in front of everyone.

Afterward we got a little silly with our best friend Brian . . .

. . . looked at some pictures from the entire school year . . .

. . . and had some snacks with everyone. Grandma and Bumpa came to see the show too.

All the entertaining sure was tiring.

It was super-awesome of Grandma and Bumpa to come see our show, we made sure to thank them when it was time to leave.

All About . . .

We brought home some pages today from school that told all about our parents.
Here is what we had to say:

Jackson:
All About Dad
My Dad's name is Jason.
He is 33 years old.
He is Super Duper tall.
He weighs 40 pounds.
His eyes are yellow and his hair is brown.
His favorite color is red & blue.
His favorite food is hamburgers with yucky meat.
His favorite thing to drink is milk.
He is most handsome when we take him to the waterpark.
His favorite thing to do is go on the dark inner tube slides.
I love my Dad because he takes me to the waterpark.

All About Mom
My Mom's name is Beki.
She is 32 years old.
She is really tall.
She weighs 30 pounds.
Her eyes are blue and her hair is black.
Her favorite color is green.
Her favorite food is Boca Meat Hamburgers.
Her favorite thing to drink is wine.
She is most beautiful when she is wearing red or green.
Her favorite thing to do is dance.
I love my mom because she loves me.

Charley:
All About Mom
My Mom's name is Beki.
She is 32 years old.
She is 10 feet tall.
She weighs 30 pounds.
Her eyes are brown and her hair is brown.
Her favorite color is orange.
Her favorite food is Strawberry shortcake.
Her favorite thing to drink is soda.
She is most beautiful on Mondays.
Her favorite thing to do is play games.
I love my mom because she's nice to us.

All About Dad
My Dad's name is Jason.
He is 33 years old.
He is 10 feet tall.
He weighs 40 pounds.
His eyes are pink and his hair is black.
His favorite color is brown.
His favorite food is strawberry shortcake.
His favorite thing to drink is soda.
He is most handsome maybe on Sundays.
His favorite thing to do is play Cootie.
I love my Dad because he lets us have marshmallows.

"He's so cute"

There was a giant turtle just out for a stroll this afternoon. He was really big . . .

. . . and maybe "cute" isn't exactly the right word for him.

Why not bike to school?

It was a beautiful morning . . .

. . . we're getting pretty good at watching for traffic at intersections . . .

. . . HILLS! Perhaps a reason not too . . .

. . . but the hills are no match for our excitement.

Dirty work nearly done

We planted all of our seeds today in the garden. Carrots, peas, corn, pumpkins cilantro . . .

. . . and the all important nasturtium border.

Planting was fun, but watering was better.

Up next, seedlings. Three different tomatoes, tomatillo, jalapeno, cayenne, basil and broccoli.

Culinary trend

Oatmeal on toast.

POOL PARTY!

We were invited to a pool party at this awesome, and until now unknown to us, indoor waterpark that is less than 15 minutes from our house. There's a pretty awesome "lily pad challenge" that we spent a lot of time on.

It's little tricky trying to hang on after jumping from one to the next.

Once we got the hang of it, there was no stopping us.

Balancing act

We went to the Farm Festival near our house on a cold and rainy day. We spent a lot of time in the hayloft, jumping into the hay and walking around the railing like a balance beam.

We did venture out for a little bit, walking through the wetlands and watching the geese.

We said hello to big red, clearly the master of the acreage.

A visit to the farm is not complete until a little work is done. We picked dandelions . . .

. . . to make and eat deep fried dandelions.

The deep fried dandelions were pretty good, but we preferred the hayloft.

Boys at the ballpark

We went to the afternoon Twins game with Bumpa, Unkie Tyler and Daddy. Five dudes at the ballpark. It was pretty awesome.

We, of course, took the train to the ballpark, and made some friends along the way.

Daddy gave us our tickets and we made it through the gate all by ourselves.

We found our seats and the view was awesome, as usual.

The only thing better than the view was the cotton candy.

The game was kind of slow during the middle, but at least we had some sweet fedoras to wear from our good friend Mr. Patrick who works for the Twins and came to visit us during the game.

The fans erupted when Jason Kubel, one of our favorite players, hit a homerun to give the Twins the lead.

It was unbelievably exciting. The lead, however, was brief as the Twins lost 9-7.

Another round of cotton candy on the way home was all we could do to brighten our moods after another tough loss.

Showing off

Today was the first day of preschool for Charley with his new glasses. He show all his friends his new specs . . .

. . . even Mrs. Collins, our teacher, wore her glasses for the occasion.

80

Finally, it reached 80 degrees. All winter long we've waited and waited for this day. You see, when it's above 80, Mommy and Daddy say it's OK to get the waterslide out.