Miscellaneous

As I was going through my iphone, I found a lot of pictures that I decided to make into this "miscellaneous" post.  First of all, I realized I never posted about Darin's birthday.  The reason for this is that Darin wanted a low-key, stay-at-home day for his birthday so he could tool around his garden and relax.  Staying at home is an every day occurrence for Maya, Nolan, and I so it wasn't very photo worthy.  However, we did make a gooseberry pie for him (his request) and the kids helped me sing to him!  

 Another cute picture I found is this (sort of dark) one with Maya and her best preschool buddy, Lia.  When they became buddies early on this year, we realized they had matching coats which Lia's mom and I both bought LAST YEAR at Costco!  I think that is hilarious.  Coats for our girlies that are over a year old.  Lia's is a size bigger than Maya's because Lia is about a size bigger!  She calls Maya her "little Maya" and they make such a cute pair.  On this day they both happened to be wearing black leggings too!  Haha!

 As many of you know, we had a very unusual snow in May this year.  I believe it was May 2nd.  What an experience!  The afternoon started with some sleet as I was picking up the kids from school at 2:30.  Here is the picture I took that afternoon as the snow started to fall.

 Front yard.

 And here is how much snow had accumulated as I went to bed around 10 or 11pm.

 Instead of fretting about it, we decided to have a family movie night (Princess and the Frog) with a fire and some yummy food.  Darin was out of town, so the kids and I just had this fun little party and relaxed!

 Speaking of Darin being out of town, he has had a busy month this month, traveling 3 weeks in a row.  The first week (the week of the snow storm) he was gone from Sunday until late Friday night.  The kids didn't see him until Saturday morning.  I knew it would be a long time for them and so I decided to make a calendar for the kids to see how long it would be until he came home.  Each day, we put a check mark down to get a visual of time passing.  By Thursday and Friday, the kids wanted to make the checks...and I think it was a great way to use our kitchen chalkboard that I painted recently.  We are now working on memorizing our address so it has come in handy for that purpose too.  Lots of uses!

 On some of those non-Daddy mornings, the kids come into bed with me when they wake up.  This morning was so cute the way they snuggled in together.  Such good friends!

 Another pastime has been watching Nolan play baseball in the backyard.  He loves hitting off his tee and playing catch with Daddy.  Both kids recently got some folding chairs which are their size and Maya just loves sitting in hers and watching the action.  She also got these new shades which just add to the look.

 I also got the kids these 4th of July outfits and they were so excited to wear them!  We will get a lot of wear out of them all summer long!

 We have also been enjoying the weather by taking some long walks and bike rides.  I push Maya in in the stroller and walk Piper while Nolan rides his Cars bike.  He is getting so comfortable on it!  I can see him riding a bike with 2 wheels before I know it!

I suppose that wraps up our miscellaneous events!