Mother's Day

Mother's Day was a little different for us this year.  My grandparents were in town (I don't think they have ever been in town for mother's day), so we got to have a little extra celebration.  Ian made breakfast in the morning and let me stay in bed a little longer.  Even though I was already awake, it was nice to just enjoy the warmth of the bed that I never get to.  Breakfast was awesome and then we thought about what to do from there.  We were not expected at my mom's house until the afternoon.  We decided to go for a hike.  It is something we had not really done with the boys ever before, but was an awesome experience.  Ian and I decided that we would like to start hiking at least once a month with them. There was no fast pace, and we stopped to look at a lot of rocks, plants and bugs, but it was a really great morning.  We traveled to my parent's house where we shared a great dinner with the family and had a wonderful time just hanging out and having fun.  It was really nice to have my grandparents there to celebrate with us, I wish they could have stayed longer.

Reilly's 2nd Birthday Party

This last Saturday we celebrated Reilly's 2nd birthday by throwing him a little birthday party.  We were so glad that everyone was able to make it.  The theme was dump trucks and it turned out super cute, the cake was made in an actual dumptruck and although the kids were not over the moon about it I think the adults wound up really liking the cake (much to all of our surprise).  Overall it was a really low key fun day.  Thank you to all our friends and fmaily that came out to help us celebrate, we loved seeing all of you, and missed those of you that couldn't be there. 

Time flies

I started this blog in an effort to stay more up to date on the happenings of our life, but as usual time got away from me and I am once again behind.  So much has been happening, and so little all at the same time.  We have been busy, but nothing out of the unusual, unless you count preparing for kindergarten next year!  That's right I said kindergarten, Patrick will be 5 this September and the time has come for Kindergarten registration.  We are having some trouble with this though.  Not your typical parental stress of the first child going off to their first big kid school, no, we are having school trouble.  Our home school is in what they call program improvement.  This means that the school is not performing well in their end of year testing.  As a matter of fact our home school is an extremelly low perfoming school (none of their test scores were above the 50th percentile in ANY subject, some were even as low as the 30th percentile).  Because of this the district has to offer all parents the option of changing schools.  Obviously we were goign to take this option.  We were given two choices, and then one was promptly taken away from us (which we were very unhappy about).  Long story short we have had to file choice paperwork and will be moving Patrick to a different school.  We have two schools in mind, we went to visit one last Thursday and were pleasantly surprised by the school and the principal.  The principal took all of the incoming kinder parents ona tour of the school.  he presented us with materials showing what they would be learning in the upcoming year, showed us all of the classrooms, the cafeteria and the library.  He was very open to questions and comments and gave all of us the feeling that he is open and loves to interact with his parents.  I think this would be a really great option for Patrick.  We still have one more school to tour later in the month, I hope it is at least as nice as the one we visited last week.  It is proving to be a much more stressful experience then I anticipated, but I hope that we wind up making the right choice for him.  Other than kindergarten stress things have been moving along the same as always.  Busy days and weekends, but nothing too eventful.  Below are some pictures from around the house and our weekend fieldtrip to a kids craft festival thing.  The Craft fest was down at liberty station over the weekend.  It is nice to see the old NTC being used for something while still being preserved, it is an amazing site.  We may make treks down there more often. 

Reilly's Accidents

My child is so accident prone.  I guess that is typical for an almost two year old, but I don't have to like it any better.  Yesterday evening he was trying to climb onto one of my sister's dining room chairs (which are barstool height) and it toppled over on top of him.  He of course started to scream (which leads to breath holding and turning blue) when we realized there was blood coming from his eye (or so we thought at the time).  It turned out to be a cut along the crease of his eye but still scary none the less.  We got him to breath again and then picked him up to look at the cut which was swelling up quite nicely.  We decided a trip to urgent care was needed.  In his short life we have had to make 3 trips to urgent care, 2 of which have been caused by Kelly's house.  One time was the guinea pig biting his finger (that was an interesting visit) and the second was this one.  We think we may have to ban autie's house for a little while (Just kidding Kelly).  Really we can't blame anyone but our adventerous little stinker.  He wants to be a big boy so much, but we just aren't there yet.  Anyway, in the mean time I hope you all enjoy the pictures of his most recent trauma.  The first is while we were sitting in urgent care and the second is from today. 

Our day at the Wild Animal Park 4-10-10

We went to the Wild Animal Park this weekend because it is butterfly time.  This is always my favorite time to go to the park.  If you haven't been, you really should be, there is nothing in the world like it; butterflies everywhere, landing on people, the ground, plants, walls, everything!  They come in all different colors and sizes.  I just love it.  I am pretty sure that the kids do not like it nearly as much as I do, luckily I have  avery understanding husband that takes the kids when they are done (secretly I am pretty sure he is too) and lets me continue to enjoy the butterflies as long as I would like.  This gives me the opportunity to take as many pictures as I please.  Yes, I am one of those people that has my "fancy" camera there and is taking a million pictures of the same bug over and over, but I think you will see that my patience and persistence have paid off.  And I am sorry that I annoy all of you without the fancy camera, but I get there early before the long lines, get my pictures and leave the rest of you alone for the rest of the day.  As for the boys, I think they had a great time there.  We rode the new tram, walked around for a little while, got some lunch, walked a bit more, and then came home for naptime.  I think they just had a good time running around most of the day.  Below are soem of my better butterfly pics and some cute pictures of the boys.