Lately

You may want to grab a cup of coffee & get comfortable...this is probably going to be a looooooong post as I try to catch you up on our May happenings. :-)

It's hard to believe it's the last day of May. It seems like just yesterday we were celebrating Christmas, yet here we are filling our days with swimming, playdates & outdoor projects around the house. As the kids get older we find ourselves wishing time would slow down a bit, but it seems to pass quicker than ever.

School ended early last week, and while the boys all love school they are excited to have some down time this summer. Thankfully they're already learning about the joys of sleeping late (well, if you consider 8:30am late).

Jacob at the end of school party:

Cole at the same party (they refused to take a photo together or with their teacher):

Recently Jacob & Cole have starting playing games on my old laptop. They love the Disney Junior website, and it amazes me that they can already navigate to the website and remember the password to log into the computer. I grew up using computers from the time I was a toddler (thanks, Dad!!), so while we do limit their screen time every day, it thrills me to think of all the information they will be able to discover (supervised, of course!) as they grow.

Here is our big guy on his 7th birthday:

That's right, I said 7th birthday! How did this happen??? Our adorable, happy, squishy baby boy has turned into a caring, bright, amazing big boy. He's lost almost all of his baby features over the last year or so, but I can always depend on my good friend Michele to remind me how his laugh is still that same chuckle he's had since babyhood. Thank goodness for that!!

Owen really, really, really wanted an iPod Touch for his birthday. We teased him for weeks that we were going to get him a Barbie Dreamhouse instead. Don't all good parents torment their children about their birthday gifts? We went so far as to wrap his gift in a giant box, and when he opened it he did indeed find a Barbie Dreamhouse. In the form of a picture. On his new iPod Touch.

As you can see, he wasn't amused:

Finally, after years of not having any patio furniture (thanks to a hurricane that destroyed our last set), we've started building some. As a family of 5 with who occasionally likes to have company over, we struggled to find anything ready-made that would seat enough people that wouldn't also break the bank. Then one day I was browsing a website and inspiration struck. Poor Marshall. He ends up doing most of the work on these kinds of projects, and he won't admit it but he's really good at it. We've had to build around work, baseball & taekwondo schedules, so we're only halfway done, but it looks great so far!

A few shots from day 1 of the project:




I'll be sure to update with photos of the completed project very soon!