Hurray For Summer!!!

The boys have been loving summer. Matty asks us just about every day if we can go to Dairy Queen and get ice cream cones. We give in every once in while. I think Mike and I like them just as much as Matty does. Eric, on the other hand, isn't really a fan of ice cream or of sweets in general. But he does like the the cone part. We don't even bother to get him his own ice cream but let him take bites once we get down to the cone and he seems content with that.

The boys love their little pool. The only problem is that they want to keep climbing in and out and it eventually gets full of dirt and pine needles. It is really fun to watch them play together though.
Eric loves to brush his teeth. And he loves to be wrapped up in his Thomas the Tank Engine towel. Isn't he the cutest?
We had a pretty busy week last week. Matty started swim lessons at the pool in town. He really likes going. I don't think he'll really know how to swim by the end of them, but at least he'll have some idea of the basics of it all. He is the best out of his whole class at floating on his back and he loves jumping off the diving board and having his teacher catch him.They practice kicking a lot. First against the wall, then with their teacher guiding them across the pool. Then on a kickboard.

Last Friday we had our end of the Joyschool year potluck. The kids had fun eating, catching fireflies, and running around.
They did sparklers when it got dark. It took a while to convince Matty that they were safe to hold, but once he tried it he really loved it. Eric was too busy running around to stop and try it.
We ended the evening with a slideshow of pictures from the year projected upon the side of the Warehime's house. The kids loved seeing the huge pictures of themselves.
On Saturday we went to a pool party for their friend Haley's 2nd birthday. The boys spent almost 3 hours in the water and still fought me when it was time to leave. I think they had fun!

Put Me in the Zoo!!!

Last week, Matty had a Joyschool field trip to the North Carolina Zoo, so we decided to take the whole family. It was a beautiful day (a little hot though) and we had a great time. I really love the NC Zoo. The habitats are so natural and wide-open. The animals all look happy. However, having the habitats that large also makes the zoo large. It is a 5 mile walk to go through the entire zoo. But we did it- and in the 90 degree heat too. The first animals we saw were the giraffes, zebras and ostriches. Next we saw Eric's favorite animal- the elephants. He was pretty excited to see them. They were kind of far off when we first saw them but then they came a lot closer and even gave us a little show- they used their trunks to suck up water out of the pond and then squirted it all over their backs. The boys thought it was pretty cool.


These are the kids in our Joyschool group: Lily, Matty, Larissa and Emma. They already look beat-red in this picture and we weren't even a quarter of the way through yet!

Here are the monkeys standing in front of the chimpanzees!
Matty thought this chimp was trying to hit him.In the middle of the zoo was a food court and a carousel. They kids were all really excited to ride on it. Matty picked the crocodile, so Eric ended up next to him on the cougar. Eric was pretty sleepy by that time and wasn't too sure about the up and down motion. He fell asleep in the stroller not too long after we got off the carousel.

While Eric was sleeping, we saw the grizzly bear. We wished he had been awake to see it because one of his favorite books is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See. But the rest of us enjoyed seeing it. It was a huge bear and as soon as we walked up, it decided it needed a swim and came down and got in the pond right in front of us.

Something else this zoo has is one of the cutest playgrounds I've ever seen. It is designed to look like you are the size of an ant in a garden. There is a leaf slide, a spiderweb to climb up and vines to climb on. Matty played on a squash for a while.

Then he rode on a praying mantis for a while. Poor Eric was still sleeping at the time, so he didn't get to enjoy the playground and we didn't get to enjoy how cute he was while playing on it.

Eric finally woke up when we were looking at the underwater animals. We saw the polar bear, and then spent quite a bit of time watching the puffins swim (we couldn't seem to convince Eric that they weren't ducks). Then we spent a really long time watching the seals diving and swimming around. The boys got so excited every time they would swim by us.

After the seals, we saw a few more things- alligators and cougars, I think. Then we headed home (about an hour and 45 minute drive). The boys both really seemed to enjoy the day though.

Here are some other cute pictures I've taken of them lately. Matty loves playing on the computer (things such as PBSkids.org or noggin.com) and Eric loves sitting and watching him play. They could do this for hours, which I could really take advantage of, but try not to :) .

I took this picture a couple weeks ago before church. They both looked so handsome I just couldn't resist taking their picture. They are always so excited to go to church. Matty loves being in primary and Eric adores nursery.
Here is my "garden" that I have out on my deck. I have spinach, lettuce, strawberries, bush beans, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cantaloupe, green peppers, summer squash, zucchini, a few different flowers, and Matty has a pumpkin plant growing. It's all doing surprisingly well and I can't believe how many things you can grow in so little space! I think I'm becoming addicted to gardening!