Early July

Another catch up post about our stay with my parents. (and a couple of our first few days at our house) Mainly just some random pictures I want to be able to look back on.

I love my parents house, I love all their land and how pretty it was. It was so peaceful to go out on the porch. Well, as peaceful as being on a porch with two toddlers can be. ;)

The boys have desks set up in one of their rooms at my parents and they love to sit and color. They each colored my parents anniversary card. I love not having the pressure to write something touching in cards anymore, I just hand it to the boys and let them color away! :)

The boys love Papaw, and they have him wrapped around their finger. Anytime Carter could, he'd sit in Papaw's lap and have Papaw feed him. And Papaw would do it.

The boys played hard at my parents house. You know they're exhausted when Evan is laying his head down. During snack.

This was the best picture I could get on 4th of July. Seriously. They're outfits were cute, they looked so cute, but I could not get a decent picture.

Evan in his shirt from Grandma Westover. I love these shirts and think they're so cute.

We went to the mall a couple of times. The play area there is so much better than the mall we went to in Charlottesville. The boys have such a blast there. (another shirt from Grandma Westover that the boys love so much and have actually fought over a couple times)

We went furniture shopping with the boys to get a new couch and love seat (and ottoman) to replace the set we sold in Virginia. Furniture shopping with the boys was not fun, and they felt the same way.

Greg thinks it's so creepy that I check on the boys before I go to bed, but they're so cute when they're sleeping!

The boys could jump all day every day, especially Carter. He told me the other night when I was trying to brush his teeth, after I scolded him for jumping while I was doing it, "I just want to jump, mom!"

The boys will make up the funniest games. They will pretend to be babies, monsters, crocodiles, pirates, wizards, super heros, cats, etc. It's so funny.

More mall pictures. I think they like it so much because there's so much to climb.

Carter always makes me so nervous on this giant golf ball, he'll climb up there and stand on it like king of the mountain.

The boys LOVE the fountain at the mall. I always have to make sure I have plenty of pennies for them to throw in when we go to the mall. I have actually made it to the mall and this fountain, several time, with both boys, by myself and they have yet to jump in! I consider that a parenting win!

Every single time we leave the mall (even if it's raining) the boys have to climb this wall and walk the wall out to the parking lot and jump down.

The two parks we go to most have little splash pads at them, so we've started carrying two pairs of swimming trunks in the car, in case we make an unexpected stop at the park. It's been so cool the past couple of days and all the pumpkin stuff is out in the stores. I love fall and it's hard not to get so excited, but I'm trying to enjoy each season. I hated last winter-it was so cold and rainy and I couldn't wait until summer and seeing pictures of them playing in the water makes me in no rush for fall. I know the boys just love being able to do things like this.

The splash pad isn't very big and there's usually only a couple kids playing in that area.

They love this thing that you can use to aim the water at people.

After we went to the splash pad that day, Greg and I took the boys to Mellow Mushroom. I have to post the pictures of this because the boys were so good and ate so good. Eating out isn't a breeze and there's still times when we go and they are impatient and wild, but overall, it's been so much easier lately.

I think they are just so cute when they're sitting and coloring at the table.

I had the hardest time getting a clear picture (if only I had a phone with a better camera)

We toured a preschool and the boys and I loved it. So, they are signed up and start Tuesday, September 3rd. They'll be going three days a week, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. We've done the tour, dropped off the paperwork, and had parent orientation. It's also the place where I have bible study every Tuesday morning, so the boys are very familiar with the area and when I dropped them off today for bible study, they just ran in and started playing and couldn't care less that I left.

More pictures of the mall

The boys and I went with Aunt Caroline to a Farmer's Market that's held at the park. It was fun to go through and check out the booths and let the boys play afterwards.

Harlem Park

While staying with my parents a couple months ago, I took the boys to the Harlem Park. It's the closest park I know of to my parents house. I don't think I've ever seen anybody there, ever. The boys like it and we have been there every time we go out for Thanksgiving.

 

It's a pretty good sized park with lots to do.

 

I got the boys Sonic before we went and they were running a special where a large was cheaper than a small, so the boys each got large strawberry lemonades.

Evan loves the seesaw, but Carter could care less about them.

Carter climbed up here and I wanted to get a picture of him up.

And then he did this. They think it's hilarious to about give me a heart attack!

They are definitely part monkey! ;)

I don't know if it's the massive cup or the fact that these pictures are 2 months old, but he look so tiny to me here. :(

This is what I deal with when trying to get them to smile. Evan squinting his eyes and grunting "cheese"

But I ended up getting a cute one.

I have no idea what this is, but I don't think it was something that was supposed to be at the park. The boys got a hold of it and had the best time rolling it across the park.

Probably shouldn't have let them mess with it, but they were showing such good team work. :)

This is the only park that we've ever been to that has a Little Tikes play house at it. The boys love that.

Inside the house, red cheeked and hot.

After playing at the park, we met Aunt Caroline for Mexican. She didn't know what to expect as far as eating out at a sit down restaurant with two wild boys, but they actually did really good. Now, if only the food was half as good as the boys behavior, it would have been a good lunch. I was not impressed with this restaurant. I don't think I've ever said that about a Mexican restaurant before.

But, it was nice to have a little lunch with the four of us.

I know these recap posts are especially boring, tons of pictures of each park we went to with commentary on what the boys thought of it, what I thought of it, blah, blah, blah. I know it's more boring than my normal posts, but I really just love having these in depth posts to look back at. I'm almost done with the recap posts. Very soon!

Parks in Grovetown

While the boys and I were staying with my parents, we checked out a couple new parks pretty close to where my parents live. I found these parks on the internet and had no idea what to expect when we got there.

The first park we went to was so old school and I loved it! All the equipment reminded me of stuff I used to play on as a kid. But, there it was pretty open and there was no shade and it was SO hot.

I haven't seen one of those dome things in forever. Also, notice the straight, metal slide?

There were several different things all spread out, I thought it was a fun park for the boys.

The boys loved these things. I have no idea what they're called.

Eep! Look at this old school merry go round! I didn't think parks had merry go rounds anymore. I thought Carter was going to make my mom push him on that all day.

This was before Greg had moved down, so I took even more pictures than I normally do, so I could text him little picture collages so he could see what we were up to.

I swear Carter would have let Meemaw do that all day long.

It was so hot, I think the boys would have done even more, like more climbing, etc. But, it was miserable and right in the sun.

We decided to check out another park I found online since it was so close (like a mile or two away) hoping that it would be in the shade and it was!

This one was similar as far as equipment goes, but there were a few different things. A lot of the park was in the shade, it was still hot, but it helped.

The boys love any kind of bar that they can climb.

How cute is this dinosaur riding toy?

The boys always want to swing while we're at the park. I actually like it when parks don't even have swings. I want the boys to be running around and getting that energy out.

Evan loved trying to figure this thing out.

It twists in the middle.

Carter had Meemaw push him on this most of the time we were there, but at least it was in the shade. And it was Meemaw that he wanted to push him and not me. ;) (Thanks, meemaw!)

I've never seen a merry-go-round thing like this, but the boys loved it.

I liked both of these parks, I can't wait until the weather cools off a little, and we can go back to that open one. I had actually forgot about these parks until I started going through these pictures, so I'm glad I saw them and I can add these parks into our rotation.