Botanical gardens

Pictures from our visit to the Botanical Gardens with my parents. Amy and Grace also joined us at the gardens to see the scarecrows on display.

Scary Housing Market with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as the reapers!

Lion tamer

Nathan (tiger), Bailey (lion tamer), and Colin (lion)

Bailey in the lion costume!

Colin and Nathan have a new friend that lives in the neighborhood. Her name is Bailey and she came over with her Dad and step-Mom one night for dinner. After dinner the kids went upstairs to play. After a while, Colin came downstairs and whispered in my ear, "I want to put on my lion costume". So I sent Bob upstairs to help them.

All three came downstairs dressed in costume. Bailey found the knight outfit and looked like the cutest little lion tamer.

Pizza night

Another sleep-over, this time Nicolas came over to our house. For dinner, Bob had a great idea to have the boys make their own pizzas. So here are the pictures from that adventure!

Adding some cheese:

Nathan putting tomato sauce on:

Bob helps with the parms:

Nathan decides to put sauce on his apples:

Nicolas goes for peperoni on his pizza:

Nathan adds more sauce:

Nicolas's pizza is ready to bake:

Colin adding the final touches before baking his pizza:

Colin's first sleep-over

A couple of weeks ago, Colin had a sleep-over with Edward, a little boy from his class. It was a lot of fun for everyone! Colin has learned the joy of "knock-knock" jokes and passed on this knowledge to Edward. So all night long, we heard "knock-knock" jokes, four-year style. Let me give an example, (this is the first "knock-knock" joke that Colin created):

Knock-knock?

Who's there?

Mr. Orange.

Mr. Orange who?

Mr. Orange Ding-Dong!

And then they would laugh and laugh. I guess you have to be a four-year old to really get it, because I told the joke at bootcamp and everyone just looked at me!

And of course, Colin and Edward were up really late. I really didn't mind because they were just laying there, talking calmly, no horsing around or anything. There was a little issue with Dat Dog, Colin's lovely. Dat Dog makes music which bothered Edward, so I turned the music off. But Edward was convinced that Colin would turn Dat Dog back on. We resolved everything by putting a white noise generator in the room.

But Bob really was the one to get them to sleep when he went in and suggested that they count to 100. "But I can only count to 29," says one of them. "What's after 29?", "30!" There you go! It was very entertaining listening to them in the monitor, "89, 40, 41 .... 49, 60, 61, ..." It was like a perpetual counting system. And eventually it got really quiet.

This coming Friday, Colin is invited to Edward's house for a sleep-over there. I hope they have as good of a time there as they did here.

Nathan, Colin and Edward in the art room before bed.


Working hard.

Harrison's new school

When I picked up Colin from his first day of school, I had to break some pretty bad news to him. Colin's best friend, Harrison was going to a different school and would not be in Colin's class anymore. Colin was devastated. Luckily we had a playdate planned that afternoon at the park, so Colin could see Harrison. Colin has requested that there be more playdates with Harrison than we've had in the past.

Aiden, Harrison and Colin at the playground. They had nicknames that day, Aiden was "Number Two", Harrison was "Number Three", and Colin was "Number One".

Botanical Gardens

Another playdate with Edward, this time at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens where there is a great little water fountain that the kids can play in.




This is a sculpture at the Botanical Gardens that Edward's dad made! Impressive!

Hot-lanta

When we returned from a cool, 60-65 degree Paris, we found that summer had arrived in Atlanta, and the temps were triple digits -- yikes! First day back, I planned a playdate at Edward's house, a little boy in Colin's class. His mom, Elizabeth got a tub out to fill with water and squirt bottles to occupy and cool off the boys. Colin and Nathan immediately took their clothes off to jump in the tub. This is what it looked like!

I've got a secret ...

and I'm going blast it in your ear with this cannon!

Fun with beads

It's Spring Break for Colin, so I scheduled a playdate with some friends that live up by the old house. We got there in the morning and didn't leave until late afternoon (and got stuck in traffic on the way home).

Just to recap some of the highlights, the kids played inside at first doing paints which Colin wanted to bring from our house. Then free play where the grown-ups got to catch up on grown-up talk, and the kids did their own thing. After lunch, the activity of choice was more crafts consisting of stringing beads this time. Finally, time to go outside for some good old running around, jumping off tree stumps and riding tricycles kind of fun.

Park playdate

Springvale Park was the destination for a playdate with a boy in Colin's class. Edward is a really sweet little boy and has a little sister that is about one year younger than Nathan named Tuesday.

Even though the park has a playground, after 10 minutes on the swings and playground equipment, everyone ended up playing the majority of the time around the pond. Nathan really took to Edward's little sister Tuesday and gave her a big hug and kiss! It was so sweet even if she didn't appreciate it (she almost got knocked down by the kiss).

Then Nathan stepped in a great big muddy hole near the pond. I'm surprised that he didn't lose his croc in there!

Summer update

Well Colin's swim lessons are done and just this morning he asked when he was going back! So I am probably going to sign him up for more lessons in July. Colin did very well except he didn't want to put his face in the water (except when Mary Glen did it!). Mary Glen is one of the girls in his class that Colin really liked. Mary Glen's mother, Kara would watch swim class with me up in the bleachers with Nathan and Mary Glen's little sister, who is 9 months old. After swim class one day, we all went to Chick-fil-A, which the kids really enjoyed. Colin's teachers also commented on the romance going on during swim class, whereas Colin would always ask to be next to Mary Glen!

Right now Colin is taking 2 weeks of Camp Ladybug, the summer camp offered by his school. Next week will be like a reunion week at camp, there is going to be so many of his friends from school at camp with him!

While Colin is at camp, I'm taking Nathan to swim lessons. Nathan's lessons are more of a "mom and me" variety so I have to get in the water with him. However, Nathan's lessons are not going as good as I had hoped. He is very good at getting in and out of the pool, but is not very interested in kicking or floating on his back. Today he commandeered all of the rubber ducks in the pool and was not about to share them with the other boy that is in his class. I felt like the other mom was giving me one of these looks like "oh, your child doesn't share, how nice."

Colin has had lots of playdates with the kids in his class. Last week he got to see Harrison, his best friend at the Botanical Gardens (now, that's a place we have to spend more time at -- so cool!) Today we have a playdate with Schuyler and Ainsley. Two weeks ago, we went to Sidney Marcus Park with Kai and Agnus.

Gotta go and pick up Colin at camp!

Playdates & suitcases

So Colin is invited to a playdate over at a classmates house. The night before we talked about it and at first Colin said he didn't want to go, but eventually he thought it was a pretty good idea.

The next morning, Bob goes to wake him up and can't find Dat Dog, Colin's favorite stuffed animal. Then Bob sees the suitcase next to the door. Dat Dog is packed in the suitcase with a blanket, some books and a car. We tell Colin, it's not a sleep over, so Colin takes Dat Dog out of the suitcase but still wants to take the suitcase.

At least he was excited about going on the playdate!

Zoo Atlanta with Harrison

A couple Fridays ago, we went to the zoo with Colin's friend from school, Harrison and his dad, Wes. First we went to Savage Pizza for lunch with Harrison and Wes after school and ran into another boy from school and his mom, Nicolas and Ute. So all 8 of us had pizza (me, Bob, Colin, Nathan, Wes, Harrison, Ute and Nicolas).

Then off to the zoo. We started at the flamingos, then the elephants which I always think look like rare red elephants from Georgia because of all the red clay on them! Then we saw the rhinos. After just seeing the elephants, rhinos are really pretty small, at least compared to an elephant. I guess most things are small compared to an elephant.

While we were looking at the rhinos we heard a "ROAR" ... a lion! So off to the lions. I think I ran faster than the kids! The lion was on top of this big boulder just roaring away. It was so cool! Colin and Harrison were impressed too.

Next the gorillas and monkeys. Nathan thought the monkeys were dogs. He kept doing his "whoo whoo" sound that he does for dogs. No Nathan, that's not a dog. So he did his "cat" sign. Nope, not a cat either. Confused look from Nathan. I guess he thinks everything is either a dog or a cat.

Colin and Harrison took turns pushing Nathan in the stroller which was pretty cute. In the reptile house, Nathan would look up at Harrison and just smile and laugh, which I got a picture of.
Lastly, we saw the pandas where they have a baby panda, Mei Lan who is only the 5th baby panda to be born in the United States. Mei Lan is only 6 months old and weighs 24 pounds. I thought this was incredible considering she was only 1.4 pounds when she was 19 days old!

When asked later on about the zoo, the things that Colin talked about was the mama panda walking right past him and seeing the panda's poop. Sounds like a 3-year-old's answer to me!

C.O.L.I.N.

During the winter break from Colin's school, Colin was finally able to get together with some of his old playgroup friends. We met at Leslie's house, and Donna was there with Aiden and Gracie. Charlene was also there with Alex, but they had to leave early. Anyway, the moms were sitting around, and Donna was telling us how Aiden was learning how to spell his name. Aiden, being a typical 3 year old was not cooperating in showing off his new skills (we sometimes forget that kids are not trick dogs and don't perform when you want them too!) Colin came in the room, and I was curious if Colin could spell his name. I've never asked him before, but I knew that we spell it a lot with him. Much to my surprise, Colin says "C .. O .. L .. I .. N". I was amazed and also felt bad. It was not my intention to try and out do one of the moms. I'm sorry Donna!