More birthday fun!

Last weekend was Aunt Ashley's birthday celebration and this weekend it was Nathan's turn.  Drew and Anna Kate have decided they quite enjoy birthday celebrations. They get to play with their cousin and to make a good time even better, there is cake!
Happy 3rd Birthday to cousin Nathan! We are happy we got to celebrate with you!

 The boys. Poor Hayes was sick so he didn't come to the party. And "the princess" wasn't feeling like having her picture taken.

 Anna Kate says, "You may have gotten me in the picture, but you aren't going to get me to smile"!

The part that makes birthday parties so great! Well, cake AND balloons. Drew and Anna Kate love balloons. Nathan was nice enough to share his balloons with us so we came home with a pink one and a blue one. 

Take me out to the ballgame

John Clay has decided to play softball with Parks and Rec this Spring.  It is a win-win for everyone. He gets to go have playing ball and we get to go have fun watching him and playing in the park.  His first ballgame was Monday night. We chose to sit on the hill since we were having a picnic so we were a little far from all the action but they still had fun. I think they will like it even more if we sit closer so they can actually tell which ones are Daddy and Uncle Aaron. Drew found a baseball and wanted to get in on some of the action too. He isn't quite accurate with his throwing yet so throwing a hard ball with him makes me nervous. He also found a stick he called his bat and wanted to try to hit the real baseball with a stick. I think we will bring his plastic ball and bat next time just to avoid the stress over making sure he doesn't knock someone out!

 It is still a bit chilly in the evenings. Hopefully, the weather will get a little warmer soon.

Discussing their strategy.  We were at the top of a really big hill and they kept pushing the boundary until they finally made their way down to the bottom. They chased a ball up and down that hill no less than ten times. It made me tired just watching them!

Happy Birthday to Aunt Ashley!

I have been a bit absent from blogging the last couple of weeks.  We have been busy enjoying the spring time weather. We are not enjoying the spring time allergies as much but I guess that goes with the territory!
Aunt Ashley's birthday celebration was the past weekend and we are always up for a good party! Anna Kate and Drew made her some birthday cards Saturday morning after breakfast complete with lots of "kitties" from Anna Kate (tiny circles that she calls kitties) and some heart stickers from Drew.  They sure do love their Aunt Ashley. The day was even more special because the whole family came to celebrate with us. Mimi Jo, "Uncle Norma & Uncle Papaw" (Drew and Anna Kate are excited they are home from Florida), Whitney, Todd, and Price and Hayes came! They spent a lot of time running and playing on the swing set with their cousins and even did a little painting and bubble blowing!

 Helping Grandaddy put the tractor away. He was so proud of himself. The bush hog was hooked up and Drew kept saying they were pulling the wagon. Ha!

 Someone didn't get her way and felt the need to pout in the corner.

 Dinner with cousins.  They are getting to the age where there is more of a distinction between the boys and girls. My sweet girl really needs some girl cousins! She does have baby Rylee on her Daddy's side of the family.

 My little Picasso  She loves to paint. And her artistic-ness is another sign that she is just like her Aunt Ashley! She definitely didn't get it from me.

Stealing some of Dad's banana pudding. He also did some serious damage to a cupcake. The boy loves cake!

Let's go fly a kite???

We went for our usual Sunday afternoon at DotDot and Grandaddy's house yesterday. We headed straight outside again because the weather was too good to pass up.  Drew and Anna Kate helped Grandaddy feed the birds, played on the swings and slide, went for a wagon ride. Then we had lunch and painted before a very short nap (I'm not sure they slept any since they fell asleep in the car on the way home).  After naps it was back outside! Drew and Anna Kate got a kite from the Easter bunny and yesterday was the perfect, windy day to break it out.  Our kite experience didn't go quite as planned (see below).  DotDot and Grandaddy's neighbor Ryan came down for a bit to play with Drew and Anna Kate and we played ball, blew bubbles, watered the flowers, and had popsicles. We topped the afternoon off with a golf cart ride before dinner.  Drew was having some stomach troubles yesterday but hopefully they are over with and he didn't share with Anna Kate. There was a mean stomach bug that took everyone in the Garland family out after our Easter celebration except for me and the babies. I meticulously sanitized everything in our house to ensure John Clay didn't give it to anyone else after he was sick on Monday night. I am hoping this nastiness goes away very, very, very soon and doesn't come back... ever. There is lots of fun to be had and there is no time to be sick!

 The kite was kind of crazy! It took several tries to get it up in the air. It would go up and do crazy spirals and then dive bomb us. We were all ducking and running. It would have been funny to watch, I am sure!

 Anna Kate and Aunt Ashley supervising.

 The kite fun was short lived. The string got out a little too long and this happened. It wound itself around the power lines several times and I feel pretty confident it will be up there for quite a while!

 Drew helping Grandaddy assess the situation.

Hahaha! Anna Kate was determined she was just going to jump up there and get it.

 They moved on from their stranded kite pretty quickly to the swings.

 Popsicle break with Ryan the neighbor. Anna Kate and Drew enjoying playing with him.

 Watering DotDot's flowers. That yellow flower should do well because I think that his the only one he put his several cans of water on.

Anna Kate stepped on and broke several flowers while she was watering. I'm not sure she didn't cause more harm than she helped. But she tried!

"My daddy playin' the drums"

Saturday night John Clay's band played at a Mexican restaurant that was family friendly so I took Drew and Anna Kate to see them. We have been talking about going for several days and they were both very excited.  From the very first day we talked about it, Drew has said he is going to play the drums and guitar and Anna Kate said she is going to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. The weather was perfect Saturday night and I think they had a great time. They were both a little shy and I think a bit overwhelmed by all of the people that were there but after about 30 minutes they got comfortable and really started having fun. Drew sat on Papaw Hubert's lap and just kept pointing and saying, "My daddy playin' the drums!" They were also excited to see Papaw Tim and Uncle Kris up on the stage. They danced and danced (or jumped up and down) and clapped their hands. Drew started to play his own drums on my legs. And when a song was over they would clap and yell "good job"!  It was pretty cute! We had to work hard to keep Drew off the stage and finally when the band took a break, we let him go up there and see John Clay. Drew climbed right up on his lap and "played the drums like Daddy does"! He is always beating on things with sticks so I feel pretty confident we may have a future drummer on our hands. I don't know if our house can handle two of them!  I hope we will get out to see the band play several more times this summer.

They both felt a little shy at first but got over it pretty quickly!

Dancing their cute little hearts out. They were definitely worn out by the time we got home and in bed!

Easter 2013

Drew and Anna Kate celebrated their third Easter this past weekend. They are really starting to catch on to the Easter egg hunting.  As with all holidays we were super busy with family get-togethers but had lots of fun.

The sun and warmer temperatures did return for Saturday. It was still a bit wet for getting to spend  time playing outside but we did have a little egg "hunt" (that term is used loosely because it was more like eggs thrown in the yard!) at Whitney's house after lunch.

 And their off! If you look way down the hill you can Whitney and Hayes. For some reason he took off like he had just broken out of jail as soon as we got outside. As he was headed down the hill he fell and rolled and all of this blue Easter grass went flying from his basket. It would have made it on America's Funniest Home Videos had someone had their video camera out!

 Drew got one!

 I think they were after the same one.

 Getting some help from Price. He is such a good big cousin!

Proud of her finds. She looks so big in the picture! 

Sunday morning was nice and we were happy we got to church and then played outside for a few minutes at Mamaw and Papaw's house before the rain moved in. Perfect timing to go home for a nap (even John Clay and I snuck one in!).

 Family pic. We're going to have to work on Anna Kate's "cheese" face. 

 With Aunt Teresa

 Papaw Tim came in with too many toys... as always!

 Figuring it out.

After naps we went to DotDot and Grandaddy's house for dinner with Aunt Ashley.  I am so glad we live so close to family and get to celebrate these special days with ALL of them.

 Seeing what the Easter bunny brought them at DotDot's house. A baseball!

 She dug way down to the bottom to make sure she got everything.

Again with the crazy "cheese" face. This doesn't even look like her! She is kind of obsessed with this glass bunny candy dish. She wanted her picture made with it. Ha!

Concentration. Drew is quite serious when it comes to cake. He thinks if there is cake it must be because someone has a birthday so we always have to decide who's birthday we are celebrating.