Mother's Day

Things I learned / realized on

Mother's Day 2014...

1. Due to working weekends at the winery, I haven't spent Mother's Day with my boys since 2010. I am not working regularly at the winery anymore, and it's about time I get to spend Mother's Day with my monkeys. We spent the day in South Haven. We'd never been there, so it was fun to explore. 

2. Evan DOES NOT like the sight of his little boy battle wounds. He tripped on the walk out to the lighthouse and scraped his knee. He was recovering from the fall, UNTIL HE SAW IT. The sight of the wound elicited a more dramatic reaction than the actual fall did. Here's a picture of Evan trying to hold it together, with Mama mad at his boo boo for making him so sad. 

3. Ryan is always happy to explore new places. He loves to walk piers, see lighthouses and simply watch the water. 

4. We don't take enough family pictures. This is only our third family picture of the year. 

4. Ryan and Evan are entering this wild-boy stage. They run, jump, scream, spit and other little-boy behaviors. Good thing they're so cute!!

5. There is an excellent, very busy ice cream shop in South Haven called Sherman's Dairy Bar.

I definitely had a memorable Mother's Day. 

I hope all the moms out there enjoyed their special day too. 

Special shouts out to...
Missy (my mom)
Pat (Burke's mom)
AND
Christine (my SIL who celebrated her FIRST Mother's Day this year)

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Summer Haircuts

Yesterday, they got their summer haircuts...

BEFORE

AFTER

Their hair has literally never been so short.

They are looking more like little boys and less babyish. Sniff.

As much as I'd like to sometimes...can't stop time from passing.

Book Hounds

Our local library is running a monthly program called Book Hounds in partnership with an area obedience training facility. Owners bring their well trained pups, who attend the obedience school, to the library and kids come in and read to the dogs. I love this program for Ryan and Evan. It's a great opportunity for exposure to gentle dogs of various breeds - not to mention, excellent out-loud reading practice. 

In February, the boys read to Mr. Spock - a young doberman. Mr. Spock is the obedience school's owner's dog.

In March, there was a significant snowstorm on Book Hounds day. Ryan and Burke had a snow day, but they still ran the program at the library. So we went, despite the snow. It was nice because Burke got to go with us. This time we read to 3 pups.

Summer

an older Golden Retriever

K.D.

a small, mixed pup

and Mr. Spock again, 

who's trying to give Evan kisses

I really had to gently coerce the boys to go to the April session. They agreed to go, but only wanted to read to one dog. So we read to Queenie. She is a medium-sized dog, who thinks she's a lap dog. She sat on my lap most of the time.

The May session is this week. We'll see if we end up going, or if the boys need a break. Maybe I should go by myself...

Since we're talking about reading... I'll update you on where Ryan and Evan are currently at in their literacy development.

Ryan, in my opinion, is reading slightly above average. He easily knows many sight words and uses pictures for clues as needed. He is starting to break down bigger, unknown words too. He mostly spells phonetically, but spelling accuracy is increasing. His handwriting has drastically improved this year. He's figuring out where letters are positioned on the line in relation to each other. His bookshelf has evolved to no more board books, mostly picture books and now, a few chapter books.

Evan learns incidentally. He doesn't look like he's focused or trying, but you read a book to him once or twice and then the next thing you know, he's "reading" it to you because he's memorized it. We are working on consistently understanding how to rhyme words. He is starting to say the first letter sound of a word when he's reading. His writing, letter formation is amazing - has been for a while. He likes to copy words, but I'm not seeing invented spelling yet. Evan's book shelf is about half board books and half picture books.

The teacher in me thinks this watching-your-kids-learn part of parenting is very fun and exciting!

Easter 2014

We celebrated Easter with my family the same weekend we had our family celebration for Ryan's 6th birthday. Ryan's reality - He will periodically need to share his special day with the Easter Bunny!

Coloring eggs was a pretty casual experience this year. Ryan really got into it. He especially liked putting stickers and gluing sequins on the colored eggs. There were too many other interesting things going on for Evan to focus on coloring eggs. Uncle Steve worked really hard on dying a Maize & Blue egg to show his U of M pride. 

On Easter morning, the boys searched all over for eggs and their baskets. 

Evan found his basket!

Ryan opens plastic eggs.

Evan shows Grandma a big chocolate bunny.

Ryan & Evan with their Easter goodies.

Ryan opens a basket from Nana.

Evan looking adorable with a treat from Nana's baskets.

[I love this picture - his eyelashes, slight smile and Michigan shirt! 

Can you see why I call him "sweet face"?]

Enjoying their Easter treasures. Evan paints in his Bubble Guppies [TV show] water color book. Check out his "thinking tongue." Ryan and Grandma play with his new "numna". That's his invented word for those little round stuffed animals. It's also the "sound" they make.

He also got a tornado tube in his basket - a science-y gift. We have a lot of fun swirling the water and watching it cyclone down into the bottom bottle. 

If you hadn't noticed, the boys are wearing shorts in the Easter pictures. It was a warm, lovely day this Easter. Very much appreciated after our snowy, cold winter and slow-to-arrive spring. So, we went for a walk. 

[Joey, Steve, Christine, Burke] 

Ryan & Evan rode their scooters.

Our Easter story would not be complete without a little spotlight focus on the ever-growing, changing Mr. Caleb, who was almost 8 months at Easter. He loves to kick those little legs; he's getting up on hands and knees and rocking in that position; he's eating solids; sitting up; rolling over; and just generally being adorable and awesome. He also recognizes and responds to his name. Since Easter, I've heard he's started crawling, and fast. Teething is probably on the horizon. Early words aren't too far off either. His demeanor is similar to Ryan's.

Caleb opens his Easter present.

Cousin Caleb out on the deck, enjoying the nice weather.

Cute Baby!!

Christine distributed Caleb's six-month-pictures at our Easter gathering. Even though he's already 2+ months older and bigger than he was in this picture, I still had to share. This is Christine's personal favorite shot of her little man!

We had a really lovely, enjoyable Easter weekend!

We hope you did too!