Even though my boys will always be MY babies, I can safely say they are no longer babies.  I mean look at these boys – they are not babies, but little boys!

I am amazed at all the boys are doing now. They love cars, trucks, trains, etc.  But mostly, they love to play outside.  Now let them take their cars outside and play, they are in heaven!

The boys absolutely love to be outside – it doesn’t matter that it’s 105 degrees outside, they want to be out there! It’s been a struggle to let them get their outside play time in before it gets too hot, and then not let them stay out too long.  My parents got them a water table to play with and its been nice because we have been able to take it out on the front porch in the evenings under the shade (another reason I love our big front porch).  The boys love water.  They love to swim, slide into it, splash in it and anything else you can imagine.

Hayden has found a love of sand – he could sit on the patio all day and play in his “sand box” we made for him.  We’ll probably end up getting him a real sand box when it cools off some, but for now he has our home made sand box. Ian isn’t too interested with the sand and would rather just run around the backyard.

This age is so fun and when our boys play, they play hard.Their little personalities are definitely beginning to shine and everyday we see new little quirks they have, like Hayden who likes to wear a bucket on his head or Ian who loves to hold on to his cars.

 

They love to sit by the window, on top of their little recliners and especially like to do this when we vacuum, so they can escape the evil monster that they think will get their toes!

Hayden, who is Mr. Serious to everyone else, is quite the ham! He does so many things that crack us up, he’s hilarious. This picture of him was after their bath one night, he just started throwing his hands up in the air, then would lean back and fall to the ground.  It kind of reminds me of that video that was going around in the 90’s of the dancing baby…

You never know what he’ll do next. Hayden also loves to push things around the house.  Usually his trucks or wagon, but sometimes its chairs, he reminds me of a little linebacker.

Ian has become quite the momma’s boy lately.  He always wants me to hold him and loves to sit in the chair with you.  He also LOVES to read, he always wants you to read to him and it’s not unusual to find him just looking at a book on his own.

 

Wow, this has become a lengthy post…I guess once you get me talking about my boys, I won’t quit. I’ll just leave you with a picture that pretty much sums up our life with the boys!

Our boys love being outside, so telling them its too hot to go outside and play does not go over too well, and its only June.  So, since its been hot outside and such a hassle to go to the neighborhood pool every weekend, we just got a little pool for our backyard and the boys have loved it. I’ll just let the pictures do all the talking:

       

We have made it to the big pool a few times and they boys took some getting used to it because there were a lot of kids and they would get splashed in the face. We also have a neighborhood “splash pad” and they got to play in that for the first time a few weeks ago.

For Memorial Day we went over to our friend’s house and the boys got to swim in the pool with their kids. I think they boys liked playing on their big swing set and run around their big backyard the most, but they did enjoy the pool too.


I’m sure there will be much more swimming happening this summer, but so far we are off to a good start!

Today started out much like any other typical Sunday.  We woke up, got everybody ready and headed to church.  After church we decided to try and get some photos of the boys in the bluebonnets.  We got a few but not really any keepers.  It was really bright outside and the ground was still wet and muddy.  We brought the boys home and put them down for their nap.

Hayden

Ian

After the boys woke up, we ate and just played around the house for a while. Jonathan has a new game with the boys where he pulls them around on an old dolly.  They absolutely love it!

A little later we decided to try and retake the boys pictures in the bluebonnets, this time turned out much, much better.

My Boys

Trying to run away from me

Hayden

Ian

After pictures, we went to the park and let the boys play for a while before coming home and putting the boys down for their 2nd nap. So much for that! Hayden didn’t want anything to do with a nap, while Ian slept for about an hour. I didn’t get any pictures of the boys at the park – I was too busy chasing them and making sure they didn’t break anything climbing up playground equipment.

After dinner, we went outside and the boys had a blast playing in the water in the bird bath. Needless to say, they were wet and dirty! So I just let them play more in the back and get as dirty as they want. I filled up the bird bath in the backyard with water and let them splash all they wanted.

A much needed bath was due and then a fun time reading books and playing with blocks before bedtime. I absolutely love days like this. I love spending time with my family and this was a perfect spring day in my book!

For almost a year and a half I have had no clue what to do with the boys room. The room is rather small and when you add 2 cribs in there, it is even smaller and crowded. So my dilemma (well 1 of 2 dilemmas) has been how to arrange the cribs that optimizes the space and gives them more room to play in there, especially now that they are older and playing A LOT more in there. Oh how nice it will be when they are old enough to move them into much smaller, toddler beds…and then bunk beds – but that’s another story for another day! Anyway, back to my dilemma, I have tried probably 3 different options on how the cribs are arranged. I’ve had them end to end on the same wall, the cribs on opposite walls from each other and now in an L shape in the corner. I think the L shape has worked the best as far as optimizing the space in the room, but the least aestheticly pleasing – I’ll just have to live with it.

              

So I have figured out what to do with the cribs, now onto dilemma #2 – the walls. We had this really cute tree decal that I put on the wall when the boys were itty bitty, but one of them decided to pull them down one day during their “nap”. Well I moved some things around and got that wall taken care of, it has their names in wooden letters on the wall. But there was still this big blank wall staring at me every time I walked into the room. It was driving me crazy because I had no clue what to do.

I was walking in Hobby Lobby one day and saw some of those vinyl lettering phrases and thought, that would be cool…so I found one that Jonathan and I really liked for their room. I came home and put it up – I loved it! The only problem is that our walls are textured and the paint we used on the walls is a semi gloss. Put those 2 together and vinyl letting does NOT stick to the wall. I was back to square one…..or was I? Since I really liked the phrase that I found, I decided to trace the letters and then paint them on the wall, viola!

If you know me, you know that when I decide to do something, I want it done yesterday. Well, the optimal time to do something like this is when the boys are sleeping. The boys sleep in the room I am painting…
So, it took me about 1-2 weeks to get it all painted. Once the letters were all done I added a few stars to it and then got some pictures printed that we had taken of the boys to put around the phrase. It turned out great!

I am in love with it and its something that can stay on the boys’ wall for a while and won’t have to be changed when they get a “big boy” room.

Here is what the wording alone looked like:

And, here it is with all the pictures around it: