Yay, zoo day!

The weather was beautiful today--cooler, partly cloudy, and little sprinkles every now and then. Well, beautiful weather for the zoo. Something about rain seems to make the animals more active and the overcast means I didn't have to lather the kids up with sunblock. Nate was reading a book about the zoo this morning and asked if we could go and since we have a season pass (thanks mom), we headed to the zoo as soon as Liam woke up from his nap. The tulips were all in bloom and gorgeous. Nate and his friend Rylee walked the whole time without getting too hot. There was hardly anyone there so we took our time with the animals and talked to their keepers. They put giraffes on birth control! Weird. It was a very nice shorter two hour trip, but it's nice to NOT have to spend the entire day there to get your money's worth. I think we'll go back tomorrow. ;)

Hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather. 

We're back.

I've decided to come back to the blog. I deleted my Facebook years ago and Instagram just joined it in the digital wasteland. I suppose this is the best way for us to connect to everyone without eventually being bombarded by friends that want you to buy the newest beauty product from them. Irritating. And this way there is some depth to the pictures posted, memorable things the kids say and do, blah blah. Call me sentimental. 

So, the good weather has finally come. The boys play outside from sun up to sun down. They eat their meals outside and hang out with Mufasa. 

We are eagerly waiting to plant our vegetables that Nate and I planted awhile back, from seeds! We have to build our raised beds next weekend and the plants will go in by the end of April! Yippee. We planted so much stuff. We don't know what will grow well, but we've armed ourselves with a journal to take notes for next year. 

Mitch still works second shift and is busy, busy. But hopefully things will slow down during the warm months. He's as excited as the kids about King's Island opening this month. That's one of the nice things about 2nd shift, he can go early to the fun stuff when hardly anyone is there. Our children will think that amusement parks are an ordinary part of life. It's ridiculous.  Well, that's pretty much all we have going on these days. I'll definitely be posting a lot of gardening pictures and the kids riding on carousels this summer. We love and miss y'all. Come visit us! 

Pretty pictures.

Liam was a week old and Nate was 2 1/2. 

Eggs.

Nate and Mitch having fun dyeing eggs for Easter. We managed to only spill one thing of dye and crack two eggs! Success! We also got the flooring finished in our bedroom and the entry. We called in reinforcements. Mitch's parents came to help with flooring and kid wrangling. Now we just have the living room and kitchen to do. Well, Happy Happy Easter to everyone! We wish we could see everyone in Memphis for the holiday and love you all. 

Hello.

Liam loves being on his tummy. Nate hated it when he was little. But Liam just laughs and laughs. And Nate has obviously discovered his superpowers. That is a sample of his superhero moves. And we have finally started to lay down our new laminate floors! Yay! Mitch and I are taking it a little at a time. Well, we really don't have much of a choice with two kids. Nate wants to hammer on everything and Liam just eats and poops everytime I turn around so it's a slow process. But it's going to look awesome when we finish! 

Hello. We're finally getting some decent weather up here! Well, a few days here and there and a bunch of rain. But I joined a mom group, because I've lived in Ohio for 4 years and have yet to make a friend. It's a pain in the butt being social, but Nate has a blast playing with the kids. Last week we went to a few parks and a fossil dig site. Nate found "dinosaur bones and prints." He thought the old dried boot prints were dinosaur foot prints. 

Liam can roll from his tummy to his back now. Mufasa really seems to like Liam and sits as close as possible to him. Mitch and I think he's realized how lucky he was when Nate was that age and couldn't terrorize him and is now trying to enjoy Liam's inability to chase him. But Mufasa was laying beside him when Liam rolled over and surprised him. So he just decided to snuggle with Liam. It was sweet, until Nate jumped on him. 

Also, Nate has been working on his drawing skills. He came and told Mitch and I he drew a whale. Mitch got up to go look and he called me in there because it was a darn good whale. Eyes, fins, and a blowhole. We were quite impressed. We of course think Nate is super smart. Apparently I am one of those mothers that think my kid hung the damn moon. I was driving down the road and Nate kept trying to tell me something. About the third time I realized every time we passed a stop sign Nate said, "octagon, momma!"  He knows all of his shapes and colors, he can count to 20, and identify all his numbers and letters. Upper and lower case. He can even sing all of Feed the Birds. I'll stop bragging as long as you're aware my kid is super awesome. :)

 

William Mitchell :)

Just so I have it documented somewhere I won't misplace. We welcomed William on Friday, December 27th at 1:13pm. He was 7lbs 5oz and 20 inches long. He was very wide eyed and alert for hours after he was born, which was wonderful. Nate wasn't a big fan at all. It took a few days after we got home for Nate to even touch him. It has taken 8 weeks for Nate to really start paying attention to him. He'll rock his chair and put his blanket back when it falls. It's cute.

We hope everyone has been enjoying the winter weather. we're about tired of all the freezing temperatures. It's finally in the 40's this week. So the 7 inches of snow that has been hanging around pretty much since Liam was born is finally melting. We can't wait for some sunshine! And Nate is super excited to visit Memphis next week! So yay, can't wait!

Enjoy a few pictures of little Liam..

And Nate, he was very excited about his new Thomas shirt.