May Flowers

Rodeo

It wasn't his first rodeo, but it was his first 8 second ride all by himself.

Peanuts

I am not sure if Ryan was doing a Linus impression, or if he was practicing his runway skills to be the next top model. But he wasn't letting go of those towels for anything. :)

What's for dinner?

How about some spaghetti? So technically it was some corkscrew pasta, but that didn't make it any less messy. :)

An afternoon at the Playground

We took the boys to the playground at the front our neighborhood just before dinner time.

Ryan wanted to check everything out. He climbed up the stairs, crawled through the tunnel, and after some prompting made it down the slide. He kept planting his shoes in the slide slowing himself down or causing him to stop all together. While Connor was sliding he was content to just run laps around the border of the play area.

Connor had a great time sliding down the slide. He crawled to the top of the slide, sat down, and worked on getting his feet in front of him. When he was ready he would wiggle and scooch down to get himself started. He smiled, he laughed, and then he wanted to do it all over again.

A little bit redneck?

Just another lazy Sunday afternoon around the house.

Connor discovers that he can make the tunnel roll.

Who says it's a one way?

Ryan watching a little Nascar at Taladega

And a little brotherly love?

I think it looks more like a little WWF smackdown.

A visit with the boys

The boys ran us ragged while we were visiting. We really enjoyed getting to spend some time with my family.

Great Grannie and Granddaddy

My mom and I.

Grannie and Connor

Great Grannie with the boys

Great Granddaddy and Ryan

Jeff Gordon and hotdogs?

Talk about short term memory. I had forgotten all about the Nascar race Kevin went to until I was downloading his pics and stumbled across them.

Here is what he had to say about the race:

April 5 was the big race at Texas Motor Speedway. We actually made it in time for a tailgate lunch of hotdogs and chips. Surprising given we were stuck at a gas station for an hour on the way to the race because Scott’s SUV decided to lock its doors on its own when we were getting gas. Unfortunately, Scott’s keys were in the vehicle when it decided to lock itself. Good thing Scott had AAA or I don’t know how we would have gotten back into the car on a Sunday morning. This turned out to be a great race. It was windy and a little cold, but the sun was shining. #24 Jeff Gordon, my favorite driver, won the race. Gordon has had a great season but hadn’t won a race in something like 47 races. This was also Gordon’s first win in Texas (surprising given he has won more races than any active driver and had won everywhere except Texas and one other track). Hopefully Gordon will still be in first place in points when NASCAR comes back to Texas Motor Speedway in the Fall.

Easter in Jasper

Every year Kevin's family and friends get together the Saturday before Easter. It's a great opportunity to see and catch up with people we don't get to see as often as we would like. There are typically about a dozen kids running around and having a good time. We were really looking forward to Ryan and Connor watching and playing with the big kids. Unfortunately some folks couldn't make this year and there weren't as many kids as usual. The boys still had a great time exploring and running around with their lions.

Grandpa and the easter baskets

Grandpa made the kids Easter baskets, and one for mom, too. Uncle Randy and Diana hid eggs for the kids to find. I think this is the first year that we have been that Kevin and his cousins haven't hidden the eggs, but Kevin was a bit preoccupied trying to help contain Ryan and Connor to do any hiding of his own. That's probably a good thing for the boys though as he has a habit of stashing eggs in hard to find or reach places. Uncle Randy and Diana were much kinder and left a field of eggs for the boys to discover.

Connor in the field of eggs

Ryan putting eggs in his basket

Connor putting eggs in his basket, too.

Thanks to that practice at school the boys knew just what to do. They were amazingly good at picking up eggs and putting them in the baskets. However, Ryan liked to carry at least one egg around with him while looking for others so he would typically only give you his if his hands were full, and then only just one to free up a hand to pick up more. He also really wanted to know what was in the eggs. He kept running around opening them up and pouring out the contents. Contents which he would then try and eat wrappers and all.

Ryan opening eggs

Ryan trying to figure out how to pick them both up with one hand because the other hand was already full, too.


Connor - working hard picking up eggs.


Ryan making a run for it eggs in hand.

Connor getting in on the "opening" part, too.

Ryan. When did he become such a big kid?
The boys had a great time. They were both filthy and exhausted by the time we headed home. We missed all the folks who couldn't make it. Hopefully we will see them before next year!

Bluebonnets

The bluebonnets have apparently been out in full force this year. We had planned to go several times to take pictures of the boys in the bluebonnets, but something kept coming up. We thought we had waited too long and missed the opportunity entirely. So imagine our surprise as we were driving down a country road just outside of Conroe and stumbled across a hillside still covered in blooms.

Since the boys have gotten mobile they haven't been the most cooperative subjects. Connor tried a couple of times to decapitate the stalks or crawl off. Ryan kept trying to stand up and on the uneven and somewhat steep hillside managed to do a head over heals somersault. Luckily no one was injured in the taking of these pictures other than Kevin who put his knee down on a particularly thorny weed.

Easter Egg Hunt

The school took a picture of the boys during the Easter Egg Hunt they had at school yesterday.

Happy Easter!

Continuing in the tradition of taking totally embarrassing pictures of the kids which they will so not appreciate when they get older, I got some super cute pics of the boys a couple of weeks ago sporting some great bunny ears. Made an Easter card, too. I think it turned out pretty cute!

Sunday afteroon drive

After a nice nap Sunday afternoon we were all feeling a little better. And it was just too pretty of day not to make it outside. I took to the boys for a short walk in their cars. When we got back they "drove" around the culdesac for a while.




Other than a few close calls they did surprisingly well not running into things or each other. Though Ryan kept aiming for the only car on the street. And Connor mainly went in circles. It was really cute and they had a blast.

Rated: N for Nudity

The little houdini figured out how to get his pants off. And I really don't think that's a good thing...



The boys were running a little low on laundry so we put them in some PJ's that are a little too big. While crawling around one of Connor's pants legs kept slipping down swallowing up his foot. The next thing I knew he was running around pants in hand. I put them back on and rolled the pants legs up in the hope that if he wasn't stepping on them that they would stay put. That seemed to help for a little while, but once again I got busy doing something and turned around to find him running around sans pants again. I decided I better put him in something he couldn't get off like a onesie before I had him running around not only missing his pants, but missing his diaper, too.

And speaking of the little houdini, Connor has been pulling socks off, or more accurately just one sock off, almost every night for quite a while. And just about every morning despite that little bare foot the sock(s) is suspiciously absent from the crib. Today while I was changing the sheets and pulling the bumpers off to be washed I pulled the cribs away from the wall and found a whole pile of socks and a teether, too. Apparently he is stockpiling in case of emergency.



While I was changing the sheets the boys played with their blocks and ran around upstairs wreaking havoc. :)



They love to play with the blocks. Unfortunately as we discovered the first time we pulled the blocks out to play they require adult supervision. If left alone for a few seconds the little beavers attempt to turn the faux wood blocks into a combination of wood chips and sawdust. They are quite effective at it, too. Ryan especially.

Sippy Design

I recently found some sippy cups that let you create your own design to put on them. I thought it might be fun to create something for the boys with their names on them so they don't get mixed up. While I was playing with the design in Photoshop I did a quick page layout just to see what it would look like. The pics are about a month old, but I thought they turned out kinda cute, so thought I would share.

Just a little jaywalking

Today was a much less exciting day than yesterday at least in the law department. Other than a little jay walking I don't think we committed any ticketable offenses.

It was a beautiful day and the boys really had a great time playing outside and running Kevin ragged. They tried to eat grass. And leaves. They even weeded a bit, too. I am sure it was an accident. Ryan chased his shadow, and ran from it in turns. Connor kept trying to pick up rocks from the flower beds.

Today was a day of firsts though none were captured on camera of course. I gave the boys each a whole half of a banana this morning at breakfast just to see what they would do with it. And they did pretty much what you would expect - attempted to shove the whole things in their mouths. They didn't choke, so I let the chipmunks do it their way.

Today was also the first day that Connor stood up in the middle of the room all by himself. He was nice enough to give a repeat performance or two as Kevin missed it the first few times. He took his first few steps a week or so ago, but hasn't ventured many since. Given that he can now stand back up if he falls it probably won't be long.

Because there must be pictures

Because there must be pictures, right?

Meet Ryan.

And Connor.