Jewels After the Rain

I do not like spiders, but I do find their webs to be a work of art, especially when they have gathered after the rain jewels.

Bryce at the Academy

Bryce has been at the academy this last week taking a training class.  He loves being there and not being a cadet!  The moustache is courtesy of a bonding experiment all the officers in his office are doing this month.  The one with the best moustache wins.  Bryce will be on vacation so he is not in the running but he grew it anyway, just because he could!

Danny at the Park

Danny loves it when Austin has baseball practice because we get to play at the park while we wait.  Yesterday he was being so cute I just had to snap some pictures!

It's All Martian to Me!

Austin loves to check out books from the library.  Last week his class took a field trip to the main library.  They got their very own library card and were able to check out a book.

This is the book Austin brought home:

I thought - Okay, this should be fun.  I'm sure it will have some fun facts about Mars that we can learn.

But then I opened it up, and it is a text book, probably for Astronomy majors, because I couldn't even explain the pictures to Austin!

I think next time we will have to pick out a bit more age appropriate book!

The First Day of Spring: A Wedding

Miriam

and

Gatlin

March 20, 2010

Sacramento LDS Temple

For Time and all Eternity 

♥

And then the reception . . .

Happy cartwheels!

Oh, By the Way . . .

For the last week Austin has talking about needing to build a leprechaun trap.  Both Bryce and I didn't think anything of it because Austin is always making plans to build things.  Well, it turns out that he really did need to build one: as homework.  His teacher sent home a note last week but Austin never gave it to me.  This evening, after our beautiful afternoon outside, I opened up Austin's homework folder and found his homework schedule for the week and lo and behold, he needs to build a leprechaun trap and it is due tomorrow!  Yikes!  So off we go, for an emergency trip to the dollar store to get supplies because I have nothing at home that is green and gold and sparkly (and those are the things that attract leprechauns).  Of course, all of their St. Patrick's Day supplies are already gone so thank goodness for the party section and we were lucky to find one lone shamrock necklace stashed in the corner of the register counter!

Here's the supplies we gathered:

And here is his Gold Mine Leprechaun Trap: 

The leprechaun will see the rainbow and follow the shamrock trail, up the ladder and discover the gold mine.  Leprechauns are known for doing the opposite of what they are told, so it will hop in the bucket to go down to the mine.  When he jumps in, the stick will move, the door will fall and the leprechaun will be trapped.  The leprechaun will have to share some of his magic with Austin in order to be released.  Austin is planning on still letting the leprechaun have one or two of the gold spray painted rocks.

Grumpy Photo Shoot

It was such a beautiful day today that we spent the afternoon outside. I took some pictures of new flowers I got and then I wanted to take some picture of the boys. Danny wouldn't stand still for more than 2 seconds so I gave up on him and turned to Austin. Well, Austin didn't want to have anything to do with it! He was being so grumpy! But I loved the grumpy looks he was giving me so I just kept shooting!

 

Finally, I was able to get some smiles out of him when I threatened to tickle him!

My Little Monkeys

Our old couches died.  They were not new when we got them.  They had been passed through several other family members, but my boys (and the dog) finally just ran them into the ground.  We put the couches out in the driveway so we had room to put in our new-to-us leather couch and chair.  Of course, the boys, were all over the couches in a matter of minutes, jumping and climbing to their hearts content!

His socks were to big and kept falling off too.  Poor kiddo!

And here is my monkeys snuggling together on the new couch.

Morning Walk

Danny and I took a walk this morning, through the Redwood Loop in Henry Cowell State Park and then to see the trains just right next door at Roaring Camp Railroads.  It was beautiful; sun shining, blue sky, sparkly drops of water all over everything from the rain yesterday.  Danny ran, almost the whole trail.  He had fun spotting squirrels, listening to the birds and finding the creeks.  But best of all for him was the trains.  He loves trains!