homeofthebudds

I forgot I never finished up the post about the feeding of the geese.

I love when birds take off or land in water.

It's just so cool to me. And I love that these canadian geese always stick with their buddy. Or spouse. Or mate. Or friend. Whatever. I like it.

After we'd seen enough geese we headed over to the park.

!!! I'd already forgotten about the mullet!

I do believe Brennan has had enough swinging.

Op. Nope. He's just a big tease.

I think Dave took this one. I like the positioning.

I definitely took this one.

While at the playground we overheard other parents talking about the ducklings in another pond. And since ducklings were what I was hoping to see in the first place, we quickly abandoned the swings and teeter totter the kids were on ("But Mooooom! we already saw ducks!!! I wanna play!" "Shush kids. There's baby ducks. you're gonna like 'em. Or at least not complain about them.")

!!!! Yay! We found them! One family of ducks.

I love ducklings. Especially in a pond.

Especially with their parents.

I told Dave it was his job to make sure I made it into a picture here and there so he took over camera duty.

When I got it back?

There were something like 600 more pictures on the card - all of them with me in them.

Including this one where I've finally noticed he's holding down the rapid fire button and being a silly.

Fan fun

What can I say, it's been hot.

Well, actually we'd been talking about gravity and they wanted to have the fan defy gravity by blowing the paper up and not allowing gravity to win.

Brennan thought this was super fun. He shrieked and clapped the first twenty times and then of course when I finally got the camera - he started taking it seriously.

And getting bonked by flying paper.

colors i'm loving

I love the blue sky behind the white blossoms.

I love the green of the grass framing the sides of this spider picture.

I love even more white blossoms.

70 degree days rock

I'm ready for some more of this.

It's been kinda rainy lately. Which I like. I do. Really.

But it seems about to time to get a little glimpse of sun again.

And warmth. I'd like some skirt days please.

Cause sun and warmth means meeting up with the neighbors for some good old fun in the mud.

And it also means the chickens get to move outside.

I'm pretty ready for them to spread their wings and fly out the basement door.

Maybe next week.

the last of the tulips. until next year.

After looking at every single tulip in the world,

We actually came to the end. The end of tulips.

Which was good cause Brennan had started smelling every single one.

The kids had become more interested in photos of themselves than the tulips

Some kids were so interested in photos of themselves they tried to get into every picture.

Other kiddos didn't like that.

We decided to head over to the festival part of the action.

where we found some water pump rubber duck races

and a huuuuge slide

Ellen has never really been one to enjoy huge slides

Bu with Dave behind her

She thought it was "awesome!!!"

And then we saw horses.

Well really Brennan saw horses.

He started off just peering through

And then kept trying to get closer and closer

After a few minutes the other kids thought he had a pretty good idea going there.

We had a repeat of the cow situation. We sat here for a really long time. Dave had been holding the stroller up so Brennan could put his face through the fence, but by the time we were trying to leave Brennan was holding himself and the stroller against the fence and refused to let go. We had to pry his little fingers off the fence. After all, it was time for lunch.

See ya later tulips.

Even more tulips

I'm not sure how many tulip varieties there are, but I'm pretty sure we saw most of them.

And we were excited about it.

Brennan started thinking he'd like to smell one of these tulips.

Dave helped him out.

Ahhh look at my little tulips.

(Dude. There's still more. Seriously.

Tulips farm part 2

So the tulips.

We saw lots of tulips.

Brennan, however was interested in something else.

Can you guess what??

Cows.

Of course.

They are pretty interesting.

He sat here for-e-ver.

We asked if he was ready like five times. Finally, about 15 minutes later, we had to drag him away from the cows. Crying.

So. Does anyone have a cow Brennan can stare at?

There are a ton of tulips at the tulip festival. Believe it or not.

We went to the Tulip Festival today.

And, well, I took a few pictures.

Actually Dave took quite a few too. I shared.

They're just so darn photographable.

Tons of people thought so.

(We thought it was funny how all the photographers were ignoring the signs)

I'm not gonna subject you to all the pictures I uploaded. Cause there's a ton...

At least not tonight.

But I think things are going to be a little tulip heavy around here for the next few days.

A little spontaneity

Yesterday I read on facebook about the Steele's taking a spontaneous trip to the coast.

I read that and thought, Now that is a good idea.

So today we had our own spontaneous coast trip.

Summir and Joey came with us

which was lots of fun.

It was nice to have another adult around

especially during treks to the bathroom.

Guess who's started posing for the camera?

Yep. This little stud right here.

Summir was brave and took the kids to the water

while Brennan and I held down the fort.

Lots of treasures were found. Some were released and some (bottlecaps) made the trip home.

The kids found the start of a big hole and added their muscle power to the dig to china project.

"Look!! Birds!!!

Brennan thought falling in the sand was hilarious.

He did it over and over and over

And over again.

it was a good day.

Today was the nicest spring weather ever (again with the way too many pictures. I can't help it. I'm sorry.)

After the zoo and some lunch and finding a functional hose, the kids let loose with the water fun.

A neighbor friend came over to help

Brennan was happy to watch the action near my gonna-stay-dry-camera.

Isaiah stayed dry behind the bush.

And from behind the hose-holder.

Ellen did some over-the-sprinkler jumping

And Isaiah ventured in...

Even Brennan left the safety of the dry-camera zone.

More jumping ensued

And more watching

Isaiah got a hold of the sprinkler

at which point Brennan decided the porch really was the place for him.

I loved the weather today. Perhaps even more so since I know it is temporary and next week will be full of rain and even a possible thunder storm.

(And by the way, sometimes these pictures I post make our days seem like constant fun. Just want to assure you we have lots of tantrums and fussing and complaining and boredom too. But they don't like it when I take pictures of that anymore.)