A is for Ant!

After making Apple Pie, we ventured outside and went hunting for Ants!! We brought Aubrey Rose’s bug catcher and searched everywhere! I am talking everywhere! I have noticed, since we moved to this house, that I don’t see ants much at our house, but who would have thought we would not be able to find ANY!!! Finally after A LOT of searching we found one, then two and finally three Ants!! It was sweet success. :) I think it might have been even sweeter to see Christopher and Aubrey Rose’s expressions when we finally did find them. So cute!

We went searching high...

and low for Ants...
Who would have thought how difficult this simple task could be??

But, when we finally did find one, it was soooooooooo exciting!!!
It was so fun to watch them crawl everywhere in the bug catcher.
It was so cute how they just watched their every move. So cute!

After hunting and finding Ants, we went inside and did an Ant craft. More tomorrow on this one!

Cousin Day!

Today we started what hopefully will begin a wonderful tradition. My cousin and I got our little ones together and we played a little school. :) We decided to start with the letter A. Today we learned about Apples, Ants, Noah's Ark, Angels, and Animals. We had such a FUN time together!! Between Andrea and I we took almost 200 pictures! Ha!! (I will separate the posts because I don't have time to do them all right now! Sorry!)

After watching Leap Frog Letter Factory, we went to "school" to learn about the letter A...We began by making an Apple Pie! They rolled their dough out... Peeled the apples... then, cut the apples... Of course made time for a couple of breaks in between... Then, we added some sugar and flour... And nutmeg and Cinnamon... Stirred it all up... Poured it into the pie pan with the dough on the bottom... Then, put it in the oven to bake!
Their masterpiece! Not the best smiles out of the kiddos, but we all had the best time!
The pie baked, we played, we ate lunch, played some more and then it was time to eat the Apple Pie on our Animal plates!!! EAAAAAAAAT!!!
These two made the day sooooooooo fun!

These two are only 10 days apart. God obviously had a wonderful plan with that! We love it!

(Tomorrow I will continue with some more of our fun Cousin Day!)

Water Basketball

Not sure if my brother and cousins are good influences on Blake OR...well...let's just continue with the fun memories. :) Lately, water basketball has been a HUGE hit around here. The guys have even been talking about creating tournaments, traveling to each people's pool just so the teams can have home court advantage. Oh geez. :) All I know is they LOOOOOVE it! It is quite entertaining to watch. This game took place at my brother's house.

It gets incredibly intense. No rules. No fouls. Just crazy, intense basketball...in the pool. At break time, even Aubrey Rose gets to play! Auntie Allie and Aubrey Rose
Whether it takes time away from being at home, or time away from the things we should probably be busy with, we are making memories to last a lifetime and we are having fun with family. We will just look at it as a win, win.

Happy Birthday Bradley!

We celebrated early for Blake's brothers 23rd birthday with a delicious brunch at Copper River Country Club. Linda's parents (Mama and Papa) and Linda's brother (Uncle Gary) joined as well.

Blake, myself, and Blake's sister and brother (Blair and Bradley) Birthday boy, Aubrey Rose and Blake Daddy loves being silly with his little girl! Happy Birthday (tomorrow) Brad! We LOVE you!!!

Family...so blessed!

Family is such an important part of life. Blake and I are blessed to have both of our families so close to where we live. Both parents live about about a mile (maybe two) away from us. Not only do we live close to each other, we also love being together. Here are a couple of pictures of this past week. Talk about sweet family time.

Auntie Allie (my brother's wife) or as Aubrey Rose says "Al-la!"Auntie B, Aubrey Rose and Mimi (Blake's mom and sister)
Big Papa was so sweet and came out to swim lessons this week!
Aubrey Rose and Opa. They play hide and seek with each other, with a blanket or with stuffed animals. They hide the bunnies (Aubrey is holding) and then the other has to find it. Pretty entertaining for a 2 year old, well and all of us watching. :)

I wish I would have taken more pictures from this past week! Such a blessing!

Her favorite way to shop...

Aubrey Rose's favorite way to shop is to be on two feet with all the freedom in the world. It is very rare that she is NOT in a cart at the stores. This time, we were with Daddy, so I had 2 extra arms and 2 extra eyes. This girl had a ball!

Hidden talents

That's what I'm talkin' bout!! Do these guys look like engineers or what?!! (Maybe not Michael Jackson in the background...and yes, he is still apart of our decor.) :) Well, Blake held a little class for his buddies. What kind of class? A class on how to bring an XBOX back to life after the DREADED red ring of DEATH!! Blake fixed his own XBOX last year, so here is Blake's experience coming into play.

Below is our wonderful friend Josh (left) and my hilarious brother Jesse both at Blake's class. (Love how my brother purposefully pushed his glasses down to make him look like his is absolutely brillant. Good thing you can't fool everyone Jesse!)

After taking apart, uninstalling, intense cleaning, some overheating (not them, but the XBOX), new screws, new washers, after TONS of patience and determination...these brillant men became XBOX engenieers! Not sure if Josh and Jesse can hold their own class to teach others, but I think they would be able to do a darn good job too because of Blake's great teaching! At least now they have a refurbished XBOX to prove their hidden talents. (Okay, okay...they all watched the youtube video on how to bring the XBOX back to life.) Hey, it worked!!!