Happy Father’s Day!

We had a wonderful time today celebrating Father’s Day.  Not only was Calvin home all weekend, but my parents were here too, so we were really able to all enjoy the day; a nice breakfast (meat and potatoes, of course), a walk along the canal and a picnic lunch, way too much tricycle riding, naps all around, and a steak and corn barbecue followed by ice cream pie.  What a great way to say, “We love you dad!”

Graduation 2011

Today was Brian’s preschool graduation, a term I’ve always found funny.  He did complete a year of preschool, but back in my day, we didn’t have a graduation after every year of school completed.  Really, it’s more of an end of the year party, and just like last year there were the inflatibles, and once again Brian really wanted to go on them, but this time so did Eli!

Of course, Eli did not get very far on the obstacle course, and he got frustrated that I had to keep taking him off so that the big kids could go through.  I was relieved when it was time to go line up for the graduation. 

Brian did great waiting in line and going up when his name was called.  It might not sound like much but I was proud of that; there were plenty of kids who did not want to stand alone or go up.  I imagine the whole thing made very little sense to them, and in retrospect I probably should have explained what was going to go on ahead of time, but it all worked out well.  Here’s my little graduate:

He looks pretty excited, eh?  I think he was trying to figure out what this piece of paper was:

Eli sat in the amphitheater happily for a while.  I sat him on the bench and he started yelling “choo choo!  choo choo!” so clearly he thought he was going for a ride. 

It eventually became clear that was not happening and he got antsy, but when he saw Brian go on stage, he started yelling “brother!  brother!” and he wanted to go down where Brian was.  Fortunately, Brian was toward the end.  Here’s the whole class (or at least everyone who showed up today):

My graduate:

Me and the boys:

Running over to lunch:

Apples were all we found to eat, not that surprising.  I wished I had packed a lunch!

Brian says, “Now I know what’s a graduation.”  Yep.  Goodbye school and hello summer!

What we've been up to

For those of you who are dying to know what we've been up to this past week and can't wait till we get home, here are some iPod pictures to keep you going. Our first day we went to Desert Ridge shopping center (I wanted to stop by Joann) and the kids played in the fountains while I shopped happily without them.






Another day we went to the railroad park, a perennial favorite of the boys.



We bought some squirty toys for the kids to play with in the backyard. Eli wanted to play with this mister but when he finally figured out how to squirt it, it was pointing the wrong way:



Today we went to the Arizona science center. I don't have many pictures from the morning, but after Eli went home for a nap, Brian and Ian had a great time playing with this elaborate magnetic marble ramp:



Then they went to build a tower:



But made little progress until uncle Kermit stepped in as the foreman.



After that, a fairly elaborate castle was built.









So, that's what we've been doing, or at least that's what I've been able to take pictures of!

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Brothers

It’s funny, today I was showing Calvin pictures of Ian holding Emme and Brian hadn’t seen them and didn’t know what we were looking at, but just then, he asked to hold Eli.  I swear sometimes he is psychic.  Anyway, Eli is not as small as he once was and it’s not as easy to take this kind of picture anymore (especially without a real camera).  But here they are, Brian holding his baby brother. 

What a proud big brother!  (Eli had just woken up from a nap and was amenable to the idea but not thrilled about it.)  They really do play nicely most of the time. Here are some videos of them together!

On our garden tour in Delaware, Brian took Eli around by the hand in search of waterfalls.

And Brian took Eli for a little ride on the hippo at grandma and grandpa's house.

I walked in to Eli's room to find the boys sitting together reading books... so sweet! Eli says lines from Hop on Pop, then goes looking for them. Brian is reading There's a Wocket in my Pocket.

One of Eli's first phrases: "I'm coming!" He's always bringing up the rear and is often reminding everyone he is not far behind. :) He keeps up with Brian pretty well these days though!

Delaware Children's Museum

Yesterday was rainy so I took Brian to the Delaware Children's museum while Eli took a nap. Compared to the Strong museum it's pretty small, but he had a lot of fun... Who wouldn't when there are trains to ride,



gardens to tend,



marshmallows to build with,



and above all, water,



water,



and more water!



Even a water tornado; the boy was in heaven!

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Wildflower celebration

On Sunday we went to Mt. Cuba, a mansion and gardens (like so many others, and also belonging to a former duPont). I had never been before, since the owner of the house was still alive when I lived here, apparently. It was neat though, the had a one-way walking tour set up with a lot of kids' activities along the way.



Calvin, you would have loved it, it was all about caterpillars. :). Here's Brian modeling the hat he made next to a picture of the kind of caterpillar he's supposed to be.


At the next stop, they learned about what caterpillars eat, and they each got w box of raisins. Brian led Eli in search of a waterfall...



We found it!


Yum, raisins!
Next our little caterpillars learned about defenses and crawled through a chrysalis. No pics of that because it was a fiasco! Eli tried to walk through but was too tall and ended up dragging the supports with him and generally destroying everything. So we left quickly. We saw lots of nice flowers and I actually took pictures with my real camera so I'll have to post them later! Last but not least our little caterpillars made butterflies.



Then came the best part...a school bus ride back to the parking lot!

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Longwood gardens

Today we went to longwood gardens and the flowers were spectacular!



Eli saw me with the iPod and that pained expression is him saying "cheese", believe it or not. So is this:



Hopeless! Brian was fascinated by the drains, of all things.





But mom was more into the flowers.



The kids both loved the waterfalls (Eli said it, but it sounded more like "waffles"), but were upset when they couldn't go in them.



Little did they know what was coming! We went to the Children's Garden after a snack, and of course it is waterfalls,



fountains,



and water, water, more water everywhere!



Plus caves, spooky pools with fog, painting with water, so much water.









My mom assured me they wouldn't have water going so early in the season ("They wouldn't do that to parents," she said), but as you can see, they did. It was so much fun though, I was glad we went even though the kids were soaked and we had to drag them out kicking and screaming. Thus ended our trip to Longwood!

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