Watermelon, grandparents, and Destructo Baby™…

"Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world."
- Ada Louise Huxtable

Summer is getting close, and that means it’s time for watermelon.  Both of the kids love watermelon, and I suspect there will be many slices of watermelon consumed at our house since Mom love the fruit even more than the kids do.

James is now staring to use spoons.  He’s not good at it, and the food gets on his shirt or the floor as often as it gets in his mouth, but it’s good to see him trying to get more independent.  He’s still cruising around on anything that can move around the floor, but hasn’t taken that all important first step.

Ashlyn is helping out her little brother as best she can.  After gymnastics she taught him how to draw on the chalkboard.  Later she taught him how not to clean up after making a mess with the chalk.

We were fortunate enough to have two visits from grandparents this weekend.  The first was from Nina and Papa.  The original plan was to go to the park, but that was delayed due to rain, so we ordered in some pizza and played at the house.  The kids were everywhere and enjoyed playing with their cousin Ben.  And no, the cornucopia in the first picture was not part of dinner.

We promised Ashlyn that we would take her to the park this weekend, and luckily the weather cleared up on Sunday so that we could make the trip.  Ashlyn went from the swings, to the slides, to various climbing things, to this weird little teeter totter apparatus, and back through them all again.  James played around as he could, but ended up having most of his fun sitting on the ground throwing the mulch around.  If you look carefully in the bottom left picture, you’ll notice mulch flying in the air over his head.  What you have to realize about this is that he’s already grabbing another handful of mulch before the previous throw has even landed.  Destructo Baby™!!

Once again we’re surprised at how different Ashlyn and James are from one another in personality.  Both are great in their own ways, but here’s one example of where they differ.  Mr. Neato is our little robot cleaning friend that goes around the house each day picking up pet hair, mushed up cheerios, pieces of spaghetti, and pretty much everything else that’s small and caused by children.  When Mr. Neato runs, Ashlyn moves to a safe vantage point to ensure that her toes are kept intact.  James on the other hand charges Mr. Neato as fast as he can, and will take a ride on Mr. Neato while he is cleaning.  One safe, one not, and we love them both for it.

The weekend finished off with another grandparent visit, this time by Grandma and Grandpa Wolfe.  Ashlyn read a book to Grandma, and James played "Baker’s Man” with Grandpa.  We all enjoyed some food, wine, and Ashlyn enjoyed her first taste of Strawberry and Coconut milk ice cream.  Yum.

Kites, crawfish, and Aggies….

"That's a Gig 'em Aggie ring!"
-Ashlyn

I don’t really have a story to tell for this set of pictures.  Mom followed James around with the camera taking pictures of him rocking out with his toy guitar and terrorizing, I mean playing with, Nala in a box.  I liked the pictures, and so here they are.

This weekend we made the journey to the home of the Fighting Texas Aggies (whoop!).  The last time we made the trip, Ashlyn was three months younger than James is now.  Here’s a picture from that trip.

When we arrived in College Station we stopped by a new restaurant called “Grub” for some burgers.  It was a cool place, with lots of Aggies, and it felt good to be surrounded by maroon again.  Ashlyn looked cute and received more than the normal number of “awww”’s thanks to the hello kitty Aggie shirt.  James tried to stuff a burger into his mouth.

After lunch we stopped by campus to check out the renovated Memorial Student Center and to show Ashlyn Kyle Field.  Ashlyn was impressed by the large sized version of my Aggie ring, but was not impressed with Kyle Field.  Maybe she had already seen everything in another life, since she told us that she had “slept up on the couch in the Engineering building when she was at school yesterday”.   James was just happy to be carried around.

After the stop on campus we headed over to our good friend Ali’s house for the annual crawfish boil.  This year, because everyone has kids now, he rented a bounce house and a large slide for the kids to play on.  Ashlyn was shy at first, but ended up spending the afternoon playing with the other kids in the pool.  James mainly crawled around getting into everything.

The weekend was finished off with our first attempt at kite flying.  The activity had a rocky start or two.  At first Ashlyn didn’t realize she was supposed to hold on to the kite when it went up into the air, and then a duck made an appearance which sent Ashlyn happily chasing it around the pond.  After those to incidences, we got down to some real kite flying.  James didn’t really know what to think about it, but Ashlyn got into it and had a fun time.

Mother’s Day…

“Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.”
-Ann Taylor

This year’s Mother’s Day festivities started out at the lake.  The kids made footprint artwork, which I think made more mess than artwork.  After art was done, it was time to play.

The lake was fun as always, with one notable exception.  We’ve always liked Ashlyn’s hair, but when a wandering wasp got caught underneath it, Ashlyn received her first wasp sting.  It gave her a nasty little welt, but she was back playing in no-time.  Tough little girl!

The next morning we ate breakfast and had a little family time.  Nina took pictures, and we got one of the rare full family photographs since usually Mom or I are behind the camera.

When we got back home it was time to check the garden. Lo and behold, our first cucumber was ready to be picked.  Not only did Ashlyn enjoy taking the cucumber off the vine, she enjoyed eating it too.  Based on the size of the cucumbers, it seems we planted a pickling cucumber plant.  Since our last pickling experiment failed miserably, I think we’ll just eat small cucumbers this year.

On Sunday it was time for Mother’s Day celebration #2, this time with the Wolfe clan.  The kids had fun as always, and after lots of kebabs and strawberry shortcakes, they crashed out for some much needed sleep.

“A mother is a person who, seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.”  -Tenneva Jordan

And so as another Mother’s Day comes to an end, I can’t help but look back on the way Heather has grown from an acquaintance, to a friend, to my best friend and wife, and now into the Mother of our children.  She’s sacrificed more sleep every month than I lose in a year, and she does it without complaint .  How she accomplishes this, I’ll never know.  It’s just one of the many reasons I love her, and it’s one of the million reasons why she’s an awesome mom.

Happy Mother’s Day!