Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Flowers, Rocks, Water and Sand

We had a great weekend, spent mostly enjoying the spring weather that we've been waiting on for months and months.  We began with a trip to Volante Farms to buy seedlings for our raised beds.  Elliot and Leah were very happy to help Craig push the wagon around and Leah enjoyed all the PINK flowers.

Somewhat helpful.

Gratuitous (PINK) flower shot.

Our first vegetable garden!

On Saturday, we went to a birthday party for a boy turning four years old.  Elliot was thrilled with the balloons and both kids loved the treasure hunt that was set up in the back yard.  It makes me so proud to watch Elliot and Leah get in there with the other kids, even though they were relatively young, and participate in these activities.  Leah especially was excited to find a rubber ducky with a PINK hat and some little plastic buggies.  They loved going through their goody bags in the car on the way home and showing off their stickers and pencils. 

Later in the day, we stopped by the local Kid's Festival.  Leah and Elliot were especially into the little dance floor that was set up with tons of hula hoops.  When a song would end, Leah would get sad until another one started up again.  Elliot tried to abscond with multiple hoops, but we managed to reign him in.

She would like to know how to use these things.


"Don't even look at my hoops."
 On Sunday morning, I drove the kids to JP to cruise around Jamaica Pond with nanny.  We enjoyed watching the ducks and doggies, but mostly throwing pebbles into the "big water!"

Gifting some rocks to Nanny.
Snoogling with Nanny.
Sunday afternoon, after a failed nap, the family shipped off to Home Depot to buy sand for the new sandbox (thanks, Nanny!!).  Leah is very meticulous in her sandbox play.  Making appropriate use of the buckets and shovels and toys.  Elliot is not so much meticulous as he is aggressive, throwing sand everywhere, including into Leah's face (which resulted in an ineffectual time out). 

A sandbox moment of zen.
Elliot was actually a bit challenging all weekend.  He is honing his skills as a master of pushing limits and pressing buttons.  He is an adorable sweetheart, but man, can he get Craig and I riled up.  Welcome to the almost-twos, I suppose.  Elliot is also a comic genius, I'll have you know.  Last night he ran over to me and instead of jumping into my lap, like I expected him to do, he fell like a board on top of the book I was reading.  It was pretty funny, so I laughed.  He immediately got up and did it again and continued to do it until I had tears running down my face and Leah was saying "poor Mommy!"  He kept a totally straight face the whole time he was doing it, just looking over to make sure I was still laughing at him.  It's hard to explain why this was so funny, but it really was. 

This kid is a clown.

And she's my sweet little love bug (tantrums excluded).