A Day at the Park

This afternoon one of Anna's classmates had a birthday party up at the local park.  It was a really fun party!  Wallace wanted to go along, and both kids ended up having a great time!  

Hommie is up for any party where there is icing and ice cream involved.  

This is kind of funny.  Anna and her buddy started crowding Wallace out on the bench.  Believe it or not, he's actually sitting on the bench between them.

Anna even ended up sticking her elbow in his cupcake icing.  He wasn't thrilled...

Haha!

Ha!  So apparently Anna doesn't even know the girl in the Pokemon hat.  She's just super friendly.  I heard one of the other kids tell the girl "oh...that's just Anna...she likes to hug."

There's a splash pad at the park.  This is the first time we've gone and it's been on.

Check out the super awesome kite!

I may suck at flare...and focus apparently, but I managed to get a rainbow on my son's forehead!  That counts for something!

Wallace was maxing out his social skills today.  I was so proud of him.  :)

And he took so many cute pics for me!...with food on his face.  ;)

Anna ran so hard.  She was also fairly pissed that I let Wallace come to this party, but I didn't let her go to the one party we've attended for one of his school buddies....  So, now I've had to promise her that she gets to go to the next one.  She's probably going to be a little disappointed.  The parties have gotten quite a bit cooler as she's gotten older.  These parents have really upped their game!  

Wallace's Birthday!

Wallace turned 4 yesterday!  I was a terrible mother and scheduled his annual checkup on his actual birthday.  "/  He ended up getting 4 vaccines!  Handled it like a champ though.  It ended up being a ridiculously busy day.  I took some donuts up to his school in the morning, so we had a small celebration up there.  And then they happened to be having a special Dad's thing in his class that afternoon, so Josh went to that and then took him up to work with him for the rest of the day until his doctor's appointment.  And then he had swim school with Anna last night!  Talk about a long day...  Josh was nice enough to take all three kids to swim school which gave me a little time to quickly frost and decorate his cake.  :)

It was hastily put together, but I think it turned out okay.  Wallace liked it!  

He was all worried Meredith was going to blow out his candles.

Meredith is a birthday photobomber.  Anyway, the best part about this cake was I didn't have to slice it!  :)

Since it was such a late night, I only let him open one present, a train engine, and I let him take it to bed with him.  He'd already opened his awesome gift from Jen the night before anyway.  Plus, I apparently like to stretch birthdays out over 3 or 4 days.  :)  

Tonight we opened the rest of his gifts.

Awesome new train stuff!

Meredith is such a pill...

She just wouldn't stop tearing up the tracks.

You tell her, bud!  "Back off!  It's my birthday week!"  :)

The Neighbor Horse

Our next door neighbors have a horse, and my kids just love her!  I'm so glad they have her.  The kids get to kind of experience having a horse around, and we don't have to have one ourselves.  :)  We had horses when I was a kid, and although I know there were probably all sorts of fun things that happened with them, I was pretty young, and so most of my memories are of my foot getting stepped on (which likely only happened once), me falling off the horse (again...likely only happened once), my Mom getting kicked (that actually happened a few times...), getting bit, and colic...  Even as an adult my luck with them hasn't been much better.  Josh tried getting me on one of his uncle's horses once, and the stupid thing ran me right through a mesquite tree.  Needless to say, I really prefer to look at horses from the other side of the fence these days.  ;)

Our next door neighbor also happens to be our babysitter, so we've learned that the horse's name is Blondie.  When they see her, the kids usually bolt over to the fence and spook her away, but today Wallace listened to me when I suggested he walk up to her rather than storm up on his tricycle.  She actually stayed near the edge of the fence!  

Pretty soon the girls noticed what was going on and came over.  

They stood there picking up blades of grass saying "Blondie" over and over for like 20 minutes.  

And she kindly obliged.

What a sweet horse.  She certainly doesn't look like a kicker or a biter.  I'll probably just keep my distance anyway though.  ;)

Weekend with the Littles

Josh and Anna headed to Gilmer this weekend, so I've had the littles all to myself.  :)  There was a t-ball game this morning, which almost all of the parents were pretty sure was going to get called on account of the weather.  It was misty and gross, but not raining hard, and there was no lightning.  I heard just about everyone saying they were checking their phones the entire way to the ball park for a cancellation text.  I figured since I was just going to have Meredith with me and Wallace was "playing" I could try to get some pictures of him.  He surprised us last weekend and actually played in the game!  With the promise of ice cream of course.  Every time he'd start losing focus and getting ready to just leave the game or not go up to bat we'd remind him that some ice cream was on the line, and he stuck it out.  I was so proud of him.  :)  I thought we might have a repeat performance and had already put some more ice cream, chips, and donuts on the table if he played again.  

I was worried with the rain, and without Anna that he just wasn't going to be up for it, but he went in the dugout without too much of a fight.  And then, he was first up to bat!

This week he refused to swing by himself...  

And then he didn't want to run to first.  Instead he wanted to play chase with his coach.  "/  Great...now he's going to do this every time...

He ended up hitching a ride to first.  But then he didn't stay out there and run the bases like he did last week.  Oh well.  

He got ready for fielding without too much prodding, and he had a pretty good time playing with the other kids in the dugout.  

He even took the field!  :)

And then he played in the dirt the whole time.  :)  He seemed a little miffed to be coming back to the dugout.

His second at-bat was similar to the first.  But this time he walked up to his coach and just straight up dropped his bat.  Sometimes I wonder if he's just looking for a reaction.  

At the end of the game he actually participated in the high fives!  This was an improvement over last week.  :)  However, this was right after we had fielded again, and his hand was all covered in dirt.  "/  Oh well.  He's come a long way.  Two weeks ago he wouldn't even go in the dugout and instead proceeded to hang out with Meredith rather than participate in the game at all.  

Oh yeah...Meredith.  She was there too, but it was wet and nasty, so after just a few minutes of chasing her my Mom decided to take her to the car and parked right up behind home plate so she could watch the game.  :)

Bubbles, Bubbles, Bubbles!

For Meredith's birthday Rachael got her a bubble machine!  Oh my gosh...we have gone through so many bubbles with it!  Every night I bribe the kids to eat dinner with the promise of going outside and playing with the bubbles as soon as they are done.  :)  It's highly effective.  And I don't have to sit there and hyperventilate blowing bubbles the old fashioned way.  This also frees up my hands to take some pictures!  

It's pure luck that this is even in focus!  

See what I mean.  ;)

Of all three kids, I can say with certainty that Anna loves bubbles the most.  The other two will eventually get bored and start riding their bikes and stuff, but I'll look back over at the bubble machine and Anna will be dancing around it and adding more bubble fluid.  :)

She tries to pop them and eat them and even sometimes hug them  :)

The girl LOVES bubbles.

Hommie likes to watch them and ride his bike through them.

Anyway....the bubble machine wins for best birthday present this year.  :)