June Happenings

I've been a little behind on the blogging lately because it seems we've been really busy. We've been enjoying playdates, some pool time, and warmer weather. I have several pictures on my camera stick from this month, so they are a little randomly put together!

We'll start with this one. One day Brody looked out the window at the auto body shop we can see from our house. He got all excited and ran back to tell me he found THE car he wanted to drive when he grew up. I was thinking it's be a Camaro or a Mustang, but instead it was this:

 Anyone have any idea what kind of car that is? Brody has been in to classics lately as he likes cars where part of the back wheel is covered. Random, I know, but he searches through all the cars at the store to find them. He's so funny!!

When Ashley was still here we went to the Stepping Stones Children's Museum in Norwalk. It's pretty expensive, but I bought a groupon, so we decided to try it out. You could spend an entire day there! It was so fun and we definitely hope to go back at some point. Here's a little sampling of pictures from our day there:

Parker as a "worker man" as he says:

 Ashley to! ha!

 The area with every type of block imaginable. Brody's tower:

 They have little dress up construction outfits for this area. When you're a small adult, you fit into them also! Ashley is just glowing in her construction gear. It could be her new signature look. :)

 Up in the little house that you could tile, wallpaper, paint, etc.

 Look they built an arch! Parker thought is was hard work.

 Blue Man exhibit:

 I wonder what he'd look like with a shaved head and blue paint. Next Halloween maybe?

 The biggest hit was the water room. The boys LOVED it and made some pretty funny faces with water squirting in their eyes:

 Watching his ball he put on:

 Outside building blocks:

 Parker says this is "Hoppy Scotch"

 Little kids dress up room. It also had a stage, microphone, and TONS of costumes. We were towards the end of our day, though, and all we could get was a really cute little cow:

 Next we have two silly little boys at dinner. This idea started with this guy:

 Continued with this guy:

 Parker has decided that he likes sleeping on his floor. I have no idea why, but we find him like this quite frequently. I showed him this and asked him what was wrong with this pciture? He said, "Silly Parker, I'm supposed to be on my pillow!" Apparently the floor thing is completely normal.

 Lastly, Brody's cute little Father's day card for Jared. He drew these pictures and was so proud of himself. He said Mom and Dad's hair was being sucked up by a drier. I'm happy I have those two extra arms I'm always needing, and Parker has reverted to his bald baby stage. We both thought is was a pretty cute picture!

I hope you're all having a wonderful start to your summer! We've been scorching out here in the Northeast with temps in the high 90's and high humidity. I forgot how miserable humidity is! I may not leave my house for a few days. A/C is a wonderful thing! This month we've also had my birthday (which was wonderful), we got to celebrate Father's day, and my Mom is here for a visit! Hooray! 

Washington D.C. and Kiddo Updates

First of all, happy June! Hope you're all enjoying your warmer weather and end of school (almost for some)! Secondly, since I use this as my journal, I wanted to write a couple things about my kids lately.

 Brody has all of a sudden become full of questions. ALL kinds of questions. It has been hilarious to hear all the little things he thinks about. One of our favorites was in relation to his rather diverse T-ball team. One night at dinner he popped out with, "Guys, when I turn 5 will my face turn black like Jonathans?" (Jonathan is 5) He's been very concerned about his skin changing colors, so we've had some good talks. Some of my other favorite questions/comments:

1. "Mom, have you ever licked a snowball?"

2. He woke up in the middle of the night crying because he dreamed a porcupine had poked him in the leg.

3. After watching some Wipeout with John Henson and John Anderson he informed me that he was going to call his new baby brother John. (NO I'm not pregnant...he just thinks he needs another baby brother because Blakey now has one) :)

4. After dinner one night: "Our bodies are like machines. Do you want to know how it works?" 

Parker:

1. He stacked his animals on top of each other and said, "Look, the leaning tower of Pisa!"

2. Tonight he told me he wanted to grow up to be an astronaut and ride on a space shuttle to Grammy's house. 

3. He has begun to tell really drawn out stories, recounting every detail of what's happened. It's hilarious!

Just a couple pictures from our trip down to D.C. (that we took back in May and I'm just barely getting around to posting!)

They didn't have a nightlight at my cousin's house, so we left the bathroom light on with the door open. Apparently that wasn't enough because when we came to bed, we found them with the overhead light on and the two of them sacked out!

We took a little trip to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport. It was super cool and I highly recommend it. I actually think I like it better than the Air and Space Museum on the Mall. Best part? It was free after 4 o'clock! All the Smithsonians are free, but with this one they are tricky and make you pay $15 to park. However, after 4 it's free, so we took advantage of it!

Overlooking Dulles Airport from the tower. Virginia is beautiful (just like the rest of the East Coast!)

They got to watch what the air traffic controllers look at. The little dots and numbers are all the flights coming in.

Entertained.

Part of the hangar that housed tons of different airplanes. It really was neat!

I wish I had written down what kind of huge airplane this is. You can see my munchkins in there somewhere!

The coolest part, and actually the whole reason I wanted to go there was to see the Space Shuttle Discovery that just was moved there. It was just moved here in April, so we were some of the first to come see it. It was a lot bigger than I expected it to be and the boys really enjoyed it. In fact, tonight when we were reading a book, Parker spotted a picture of a space shuttle and got all excited to tell me about how he had seen one. He had his excited, shocked, etc. face on a lot during this D.C. trip:

With Ash-a-bash

Have I ever mentioned how fun it is to try and take pictures of these two sometimes?! 

The back with the boys in the lower right:

Since I spent a part of my childhood also aspiring to be an astronaut, I probably enjoyed this even more than my boys!

The next day we headed to the Natural History Museum downtown. All of the 8th grade classes on field trips and us really enjoyed it. Parker talked about this elephant for a week.

The Hope diamond. Largest diamond in the world. Yes, please!

My cute boys :)

They both loved the dinosaur bones but Brody was mostly too busy looking at them to take pictures. So, Parker it is!

The Capitol building

Our new signature look:

White house:

I really love this picture of the boys :)

Visitors Center at the D.C. temple:

It was so fun to see my cute friend Sarah!! We are friends from college who I hadn't seen since her wedding when I was pregnant with Brody. She's amazing and it was so fun to meet her sweet little girl, Kate. My boys thought she was great to! They had fun playing together.

These got a little out of order, but a few more from our trip downtown:

This is how Parker rides the Metro (eating treats):

This is how Brody rides the Metro (brushing up on the sights to see so he could be our tour guide):

Ashley got to see her old roommate who is a missionary at the D.C. Temple Visitor's Center.

My boys really love their Aunt Ash

Checking out the place with Ms. Kate

This little one refused to leave. He loved it there!

What it looks like coming up from the freeway. One of my favorite views of any temple!

This is Parker and my cousin Christy's little girl Katelyn (who is a month older than Brody). Parker and Katelyn struggled a little getting along with each other. It was pretty funny because Parker had met his match and vice versa. This picture says it all:

Brody, on the other hand, thought Katelyn was great! They had tons of fun playing together. Katelyn is just the youngest in her family and I don't think she was quite used to someone smaller than her wanting to play with her things. Funny kiddos!

Love these two! :)

These next couple are from after we got home. I just thought this picture was funny. Ash's face says it all! This was Brody's very first time finger painting I believe, so it was a big deal! I think he's finally getting past not wanting his hands to be dirty (hopefully!). 

Mr. Rascal thought it would be fun to drag his face across the carpet several times in a row and gave himself a nice rug burn across his nose. 

Upside down!

If you made it this far, I'm impressed! Sorry, I know that wasn't the most exciting post in the world, but I guess that's what happens when you have lots of pictures, a trip from a month ago, and a busy Mom with not a lot of time to put into this post. Hope you enjoyed it anyway  (Grandmas and Grandpas the most I'm sure!). Have a great week!