Watermelon in the backyard.  What's better?

John Paul ate like, 6 pieces.  Cecilia took half an hour to make it through one.

But she certainly ate it with gusto!

Happy Pentecost!

We celebrated with a church picnic (because we go to Holy Spirit, so it's their birthday!).  John Paul finally got the hang of the moon bounce, despite the serious face!

Cecilia spent most of the time crouching...

And then got scared and had to get off!

So we got a "snow cone" without any flavoring - big hit!

Andrew was there too...

John Paul showed his sharing skills - these kids are ALWAYS willing to share food.  Toys?  Not so much...

Just love that pensive face...

While grabbing a mouthful of ice!

And then it was time to stick her hands in a bucket full of ice water.

John Paul's favorite part?  The moon bounce and the band - he joined a group of teenagers for a while and danced circles around them, it was pretty hilarious.  And he was excited to eat a hot dog.  

Cecilia's favorite part?  The bucket full of ice water.  She played there for like, 10 minutes, and didn't want to leave!

Just say Yes!

To a baby who things lying on the steps and kicking the wall is the FUNNIEST thing!

To the toddler who asks Mom to set up the wading pool...  indoors!  

The kids had a BLAST - it was several hours of nonstop fun while I got to sit on the couch reading a book.

To the boy who begs for some time alone with the digital camera.

He also took about 20 videos of his feet, most of which were about 2 seconds long.  

Easy to please

You know your kids are easy to please when...

The big boy happily exclaims, "COLD VEGGIES!!!" and insists on holding the bag of frozen vegetables at the grocery store because he's SO excited to be buying them!

The big boy asks for "Cold veggies" (frozen mixed vegetables) as his first snack of the day, immediately following a large breakfast.

The baby insists on getting out of her high chair in order to share the "go wedgies" (cold veggies) with her brother.



Makes it easier to maintain their lunchtime diet of cold cuts, cheese, and crackers when they're willing to much on uncooked frozen veggies all day long!

Too cute!

Just had to take a picture of John Paul's Sunday outfit...

Don't the lopsided sunglasses just make the whole thing?  

For some reason he always insists on putting one side on top of one ear...

And later on we had some amazing sibling coloring time - they are just too cute!

Smile!

Okay, she ALMOST has the hang of this whole "smile on command" thing...

I think that's a pretty good one!

Also, she kept begging me to pick her up...

"Up!  Pows!" (pearls)

So I picked her up.

"Pows!  ONE!!!"

*touches pearls very delicately with one finger, as I taught her to do with flowers*

Pretty adorable!

Pictures!

I'm gonna blame the recent lack of posts on this pregnancy...  1st trimester is kicking my butt but it'll be over soon!

So...  here's a photo dump for you.

Cecilia hijacked John Paul's new hat WHILE in her high chair.

Then filled it with food.

And dumped it back out.

I let her have frozen blueberries for breakfast.

But the blue beard doesn't show up so well on camera.

She decided to eat lunch in John Paul's chair (don't you love those sleepy post-nap eyes?).

And gave me her "smile" for my trouble.  That's what she does when you ask her to smile...

And of course, John Paul couldn't be left out of the fun!

Chick-Fil-A

They just opened a new Chick-Fil-A right near us.  We're pretty psyched!  John Paul was particularly pleased with the hats they were handing out last night at dinner.  What a cool kid!

Self-portraits

We'll just call these "artsy"

Cecilia's first ice cream!

It was GORGEOUS on Sunday afternoon, so I decided it was time to head out for a special trip...

To get Cecilia her first taste of ice cream!

She was perplexed.  

But kind of loved it?

I think the spoon was the most exciting part.

But I'm pretty sure she still prefers yogurt...

And John Paul might too, but I didn't mind eating his leftovers...

The best part was definitely reading all the flavors with him while he jumped up and down excitedly, proclaiming EACH flavor as the flavor he wanted!

Then we headed to the playground to burn off those calories.

John Paul, of course, went straight for the word building activity...

While Cecilia re-discovered the joys of bouncing on a bridge!

And of course, the kids did some awesome swinging.

I can't believe John Paul handles himself so well on a big kid swing now!  I'm always convinced he's going to fall off, but he's great!  Just needs to learn how to pump...

And of course, he found this and was VERY excited about it.  

"X!  10!  XX!  20!  XXX!!!  30!!!!"

Think he might be too big for the baby swings...  But Cecilia still loves them!

Happy Easter!

I mean, we're still in the Easter season, so I'm still allowed to post about our holiday, right?

I was pretty excited about our Easter outfits.  I mean, I've had my dress for years, but the boys were in matching seersucker suits and Cecilia and I both had awesome hats.

AND they had matching bow ties!

I sent them outside with bubbles so I could cook.  Cecilia thinks that's a "smiling" face.

Then, several hours later (and several layers of clothing missing), we were reading for an Easter egg hunt!

Because, you know, Jesus died on the cross so that we could eat candy.

No, seriously, the kids know the story.  Or at least John Paul does.  We don't do any "Easter bunny" stuff because the Easter bunny is creepy.  And not actually based on anything...  And we don't need to use "be good or the Easter bunny won't bring you any candy" as a guilt mechanism because instead we can use "be good because JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SINS!"

Anyway, we had an Easter egg hunt.

And by "hunt" I mean I tossed a bunch of eggs onto the front lawn and it took the kids FOREVER to figure out what they were supposed to do.

But they finally got it and were excited!

Although it took even longer for them to realize there was anything IN the eggs.  Fruit snacks, marshmallows, raisins, and ONE Peep.

John Paul would open the eggs, cram any candy in his mouth, and leave the egg on the ground if it had raisins.  Cecilia ate all of those...

And we did a fair amount of dumping and "re-finding" the eggs, since that was apparently really fun.

I just love that dress!

John Paul found the Peep and was VERY excited.  As you see, he hasn't yet learned the concept of "small bites."

Which one to choose???

Both!

Everyone was out there helping.  I actually "hid" a couple, one in the crook of the tree, one on top of the hose...  But nobody looked there!

So I had to subtly point them out.

And Grandma thought there might be some buried under the wood chips...

This one had raisins in it.  It was quickly discarded.

But Cecilia was happy to eat them!

And there we are.  Andrew and I left shortly afterwards on our trip to England, leaving the babies with the grandmas!