Spring Break

V had the entire week off, so we tried to have a little outing each day.

Monday:

The library had a program based on the movie "Tangled." The boys watched a little play, ate donuts, and played games.

Even B got a little treat:

 

Wednesday: 

We visited a fire station. The firemen did a great job showing us all their tools and gadgets. They even ingeniously sequestered the kids in a raft they use for water rescues:

 

Thursday:

We visited the zoo.

 

 We saw the wild dogs that replaced the white tiger. C was upset that we didn't see the white tiger. He kept telling me we forgot to look at it, and didn't understand that it was gone.

We saw the first bull elephant they've obtained for their new exhibit.

 

The boys' favorite part was playing in the new play area:

And yes, B managed to find some sticks to chew on.

Friday:

We went to another library program. This one was based on "Alice in Wonderland." They boys were super excited about making their Mad Hatter hats.

We had fun all week, but it wore me out and I was more than ready to get back to our regularly scheduled program.

A really nice day

After being cooped up for so long, we were finally able to get outside as a family and enjoy the lovely weather. We started the day by planting seeds in our little garden. One of R's friends has lent us a bit of his yard to grow some vegetables. Thanks to the boys, I think our garden will be a bit free-form, it will be interesting to see where all the seeds ended up.



B spent his time eating dirt.

   
Afterward, V had his first T-ball practice. It was amusing. V was practicing base running when a ball went by him, he forgot about the bases and started chasing the ball. He also kept trying to bat left handed. He had fun though, and was excited to keep playing.

Later that afternoon, we went on a scavenger hunt sponsored by the newspaper. We had a lot of fun walking around the park trying to find all the items.

 

V enjoyed holding the newspaper and acting in charge. C did the best at finding all the items; he had a good eye. B was happy as long as we kept moving. 

It was fun seeing other people out with their newspapers, trying to find things also. Some were helpful and cute with the kids, others were very competitive and accused us of following them to get items (then tried to get us tell them where things were without returning the favor). It was pretty funny.

I scouted out a few places to do family pictures on the way home (hopefully we'll get them done before B is three). I took a few pictures that were cute, even though the boys were a mess (C was asleep by then so no pics of him):

This last one was of V looking tough:

We got ice cream on the way home, then watched Phineas and Ferb until bedtime. It turned out to be a really nice day and I'm glad I was able to spend it with my favorite boys.

Eating dirt

During a recent gardening expedition, V was very concerned about B eating dirt. He was shocked when I informed him that he also used to partake of the earth, so I found some proof:

 

 I also found these pictures of all three boys in the same shirt and about the same age:

 

 It seems, at least to me, like they each have a very distinctive look. At least it makes it easy to tell the baby pictures apart.

Recovery

I haven't blogged in awhile, but I am just beginning to feel like we are reentering the real world. Yep, pretty much the entire month of February was taken up with this:

R was fouled at an indoor soccer game at the beginning of the month, after which, I received a phone call where R simply stated, "I think I messed up my knee." 

What followed was a lot of driving around (I got to know downtown Birmingham really well), shuffling kids around, and waiting at doctor's offices.

Anyway, it turns out that R had torn his ACL (our doctor friend informed us that he wasn't an orthopedist but even he could see that the knee was really messed up), and had to go under the knife.

The kids had the hardest time adjusting to the whole situation. It was very difficult to have Daddy getting a lot of Mom's attention:
  
The day of R's surgery, V was complaining about how much his finger hurt. I found out that it was just a  paper cut, and I told him that he'd live. V, however, had different ideas. He kept complaining about it for another 3 hours, at which point I finally had a few minutes to get him a band-aid.

After about 10 minutes of blissful silence, V came up to me and said, "I forgot, that was the wrong finger."

Thankfully we have a lot of friends that stepped in and helped us out. It ended up being a very long February, but everything is going well, and I have high hopes for March...I guess we'll see.