Memorial Day, Birthday, Visits

I hope everyone had a wonderful Memorial Day. It was the last day of our family visit. We had a great visit. It was a nice balance of activity (zoo, restaurants, outdoor play) and just hanging out at the house (lots of erector set building, good conversation, and general horseplay with the children). Ava joined in the conversations with everyone else. It was really the first time we've had houseguests since Ava's started talking so much. She did a pretty good job of communicating. Most of the time, our guests were able to figure out what she was trying to say. I took comfort from that.

We spent some time outside in the sprinkler. Traditionally, my children are extremely suspicious of sprinklers and treat them with great caution. Today, we seemed to break through and the kids started to run through the sprinkler and laugh and giggle with glee. I loved watching them play. As I looked back at the pictures I realized how similar in size the kids look right now. I understand why people occasionally ask us if they are twins. There were many things that were difficult about having children 15 months apart, but it is starting to pay off now. I love watching them play together and talk together more and more as peers.

(Yes, Michael does indeed have his swim pants on backwards. He did that after a trip to the bathroom. When we pointed it out to him he said, "I like them that way." We just let it go. It gives the pictures that special, unique touch.)

Yesterday was also my birthday. We didn't do anything spectacular to celebrate, but my husband made sure my day was special in little ways that all added up. First, he let me sleep in. Several times during the day he took care of things (lunch, putting the kids down for nap) letting me have a few quiet moments to myself. Those things sound little, but around here they are much appreciated. It was a nice, quiet birthday.

Erector Set Marathon

Michael's godmother is in town for the holiday weekend and she brought him an Erector Set! He loves it. For the past three days he wants to play with it every spare moment. Of course, what that actually means is that he requests that an adult build something for him. The chosen adult spends 45 minutes building the requested model while he plays with random extra parts. The instant the model is done he plays with it for five minutes and then immediately disassembles it. We have at least convinced him that it is polite to ask the builder if it is all right before he begins deconstruction.

Here are just a few of the models he disassembled shortly after they were completed. We all had fun though.

Going to the zoo.

We have a wonderful zoo in town. Admission is even free. We took the kids several times last summer, but Ava was still a baby really. I'm pretty sure she didn't remember it at all.

We went yesterday and it was wonderful. We have family in town and so the ratio was four adults to two kids which is always nice. The weather was cloudy and cool which is actually better than blazingly hot and sunburn-inducing sunny. Neither child is taking a morning nap any more which allowed us to stay from 8am till noon for the first time.

Highlights of the day included the expression on Ava's face during the carousel ride. It wasn't her first one ever, but I think it's the only one she remembers. She loved it and the smiles and squeals of excitement were priceless.

The children were bored by most of the animals to be honest, but even the kids were excited to see the baby elephant playing in a pool of water. The water came up to about the chest of the baby elephant. The elephant was jumping up so that its two front legs were out of the water and then splashing down. It also would dive totally under the water and jump back up in a huge splash. The pool of water was extremely close to the fence so the view was perfect. You wouldn't have wanted to be closer to be honest. The whole thing couldn't have lasted more than five minutes, but it was amazing.