Trains, Bicycles, and Mother's Day

This weekend was gone before I even turned around good.  Our two days filled up in a flash and I got nothing that was originally on my list of things to do done. But that is quite alright because we had fun instead!
There was an arts and crafts show in the shopping center where Grandaddy's office is this weekend and he had his tractors there on display. After Drew and Anna Kate got up Saturday morning we went to check it out.  DotDot met us there so we decided to also have some breakfast.  We have been very busy and Drew and Anna Kate have been staying up way too late so it was 9:30 before they even woke up Saturday morning. By the time we got there and visited briefly with Grandaddy before heading across the parking lot to Drew and Anna Kate's regular breakfast spot* it was 11:00!  You can deliver my Mother of the Year award later.  I think they could probably go a few days without eating and not care so they didn't notice at all. After we ate we went back to see the tractors. Grandaddy also had a little gem that he has been holding out on us! He has train cars to pull behind his small tractor. Drew hopped right in and went for  ride. Anna Kate had to watch him go first to make sure it was going to be okay. After Drew's first round she decided it would be okay for her too. They loved it! They took several rides around the parking lot and then took a little break. The line for rides got kind of long so we went to run a few errands before coming back for one last ride and then home for naps.

 Loving it!

 They think the "train" is the best thing ever. We have requested it for their birthday party in August!

Sweet picture of Drew and Anna Kate with their DotDot and Grandaddy!

*Midland Restaurant is right across the parking lot from my Dad's office. You could probably count on your hands the number of days over the last 30 years that he has NOT eaten breakfast there. I am pretty sure I have called there in the morning before and he is the one who answered the phone! A few months ago, Hubert and Katherine decided they would start taking Drew and Anna Kate to eat breakfast on the days that they kept them and that is where they decided to go. They have stolen their Grandaddy's limelight and  come right in and act like they own the place! They love it and apparently eat an adult size portion of food which is huge for them considering they don't eat much of anything.

Sunday was Mother's Day so we left for DotDot and Grandaddy's a little early for lunch so Aunt Ashley and I could cook for DotDot.  The weather was chilly but sunny and nice so we spent a lot of time outside. Last week I got Anna Kate a new tricycle to keep there and it has quickly become her favorite thing. They already had the one that was Aunt Ashley's and mine when we were little and they have both been riding it for a couple of weeks now but it a little big for Anna plus they had to share. "Uncle Norma" and Uncle Papaw joined us for lunch. After what was supposed to a nap that Drew and Anna Kate decided to skip, we went to Mamaw & Papaw's house for dinner. Since there was no nap, they were completely exhausted by the time we made it home last night and I had to finally wake them up at 9:30 this morning so we could leave. We are going to have to work on an earlier bed time this week!

 Relaxing and watching a little Barney before leaving for DotDot and Grandaddy's. They chose to sit in this chair together. The moment was sweet but didn't last long. A few minutes after this picture I heard a thud and Anna Kate came to me crying that Drew had pushed her out of the chair. He is so rough!

 Riding like a big boy!

She loves her "bicycle" and part of the reason may be because it is pink. And because she can carry her baby in the basket. Anna Kate is truly a "girly" girl that loves anything pink and babies and pretty clothes, shoes, and jewelry. 

And another birthday!!

It seems our birthdays come in clusters. This weekend was Grandaddy's birthday celebration. It was also our second weekend in a row for nothing but rain all day, both days. Ugh! One thing the rain is good for is keeping John Clay busy mowing. So, I guess for that we should be thankful.
For some reason, I didn't get any pictures from Grandaddy's party. I haven't been good about taking pictures lately. I was also called out by Aunt Ashley yesterday for not being so on top of blogging so far this year.  So, I guess I will make this a catch up!
We have been pretty busy lately. We have a contract on our house! Hopefully, everything will go well this time and we will actually get to closing! If everything goes as planned, we will close on June 14th. That is only 6 weeks away and we have lots of things on our schedule between now and then! I have never moved an entire house before so I don't really know what to expect. We hope to build a new house. We will be moving in with Mamaw Katherine and Papaw Hubert while we build. Anna Kate and Drew will be in heaven! I don't know if Hubert & Katherine realize what is about to hit them!
John Clay has been playing softball with Parks and Rec and Drew and Anna Kate are loving going to watch him play. That has been part of what is keeping us so busy and out late during the week.  But we all have fun so it is worth it!
Drew and Anna Kate are getting smarter by the day. They amaze me at the things they know. They are so observant and nothing gets by them. Anna Kate especially likes to tell stories but it seems as though a lot of her stories are just that, stories. She told me the other day after I picked her up at Hubert & Katherine's house that John Clay hit my car with his lawn mower. I asked him about it and he said he had not done such a thing. She is so funny! Their imaginations are really starting to come to life. Drew will line up his riding toys in a straight line and tell us he is "working" on them. They both have very good manners and will thank you and each other  for doing things for them or if you get them something. They also will thank you if you tell them they look beautiful/handsome and are so sweet and will hand out compliments. I wore a dress the other day and Anna Kate kept telling me how pretty I looked. Drew likes to call people "Honey" and will also tell you to be careful if he deems something you are doing to be dangerous like leaning back in a chair. I attribute that to spending lots of time with his Mamaw Katherine! :)  When the land line rings at DotDot and Grandaddy's house, they will both yell that it is a "courtesy call".  Again, they are listening! I love hearing them talk to each other and watching them play together. They have started wrestling which most times starts off as playing but ends up with someone crying so I don't love that so much. They are also very caring for one another and get quite concerned if the other gets hurt or is upset. Anna Kate fell and skinned her knee last week and DotDot said after she got her all cleaned up and they went back outside, Drew told Anna that he was sorry. She told him it wasn't his fault and he told her he was sorry anyway. Precious! They are very sweet and affectionate kids that love life and have a great time doing anything. Everything is so new and exciting to them and I love getting to experience it with them.  They may drive me crazy sometimes but I love those little boogers so much I am okay with being crazy.

 Pretty girl! She got herself all dressed up after baths the other night.

 Its kind of blurry but Drew took all of his cars and strategically lined them up. He seems to like lining things up these days. John Clay says that is something he gets from me.

 Having fun at the ballpark. Anna Kate was talking to Helen and was rambling on and on about something. I am sure Helen didn't understand a word of it. Haha!

Watching a little Barney. They kept trying to put their chairs in front of each other.

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!