If it can walk upside down, can I?

We were so lucky to be invited to a private little park in my friend Sarah's neighborhood. Along the chattahoochee, not a soul to see, playground, a deer sighting, peanut butter and jelly and great company. Thanks Sarah, Jake and soon-to-be-John.

They were looking at a spider in the first one. Aidan being adorable the the mighty two 4 year olds.

Amy in the Middle

Brendan, Aidan and I were so excited about seeing Amy and the Underwood Clan in Kennesaw on Monday night. We drove out to meet Amy, Aaron, Mrs. Underwoo and Rob, the new graduate at Brusters. So fun. Brendan impressed all with his ability to inhale his "chocolate baby cone with eyes and sprinkles" in about 30 seconds and then demand to eat mine. Aidan also showed all his ability to climb up and down the benches (nearly giving the Underwood/Aponicks heart attacks) and his demand for raisins instead of ice cream.

Then Amy nestled herself between Brendan and Aidan in the back of my blue car, while Amy's Mom rode in the front and we went to Barnes and Noble where the kids could play with the trains, Aidan could remove all the stuffed dogs/bear/giraffes' and curious georges's, kiss them and return them all. Brendan instantyl fell in love with Amy's mom and is still talking about her and the stack of locked books. Gotta love treasure!

In between chasing the Aidan (Brendan and Mrs. Underwood were playing together) and trying to prevent both bodily harm and merchandise damage, Amy and I got to chat in person instead of over 3 time zones. We are so excited about you moving back to the southeast, Amy and Aaron.

The ever precious Turtle

So about 4 and a half years ago on a thrify night, Bryan and I took this turtle out of a neighbors trash and brought it to our house. They were throwing it away, we needed one eventually (it sat in bushes unused until last summer) and we decided to recycle. The boys love it, love playing in the sand, throwing the sand, dumping the sand, sweeping the sand, delivering the sand in various dumptrucks and trains around the deck, serving the sand with all my serving utensils and feeding the sand to our fish in the pond. They also take great pride and joy in standing, jumping, playing under and sitting on the turtle lid.
The sand, $20
The dump trucks, $5
Plastic toys, $5
Ways to entertain your brother and mom, priceless.

So cute. So darn cute

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originally uploaded by bjbassett.

And finally my baby turns 4!

Brendan turned 4 this past weekend and I can't believe it. It sounds so cliche', but it's true. Time just flies. He was really excited about his birthday and his dinosaur party. He says now that he wanted " a shaped cake in the form of a tyrannasaurus rex, not just a cake with dinosaurs on it" and his favorite part was "whacking the fake triceratops to get the candy inside". Such a 4 year old.

Oddly his favorite gift was this plastic recorder/flute I picked up at Target a few months ago. I saw it and thought, 'huh. i bet brendan would get a kick out of that'. boy, did he. His eyes lit up when we gave it to him at 7am at breakfast but he really hasn't put it down except to go to school. He sleeps with it, drives with it, runs with it, tortures his mother with it :), i wish he was alittle more musically inclined. because all it is to him is a train whistle or some version of a train whistle or railroad crossing.

He loved his party, was not excited about really opening gifts, more with playing on the playground and running around. It's so interesting. Here are some pics of the birthday boy.

The Peony

I love peonies. They are so delicate and dainty and yet for some reason this certain type of ant loves the blooms before they open. I just love how each bulb before it opens for weeks has little black ants crawling around on it and here is what they look like. I love Spring.

Grandma and Grandpa's visit

We were so excited to see Grandma and Grandpa Bassett two weekends ago and celebrate Grandpa's birthday with him. We were also thrilled to hear that there will be another cousin for Brendan and Aidan to play with. Daniel and Shana, congratulations again!

The Siler girls visit us ~

So we were so excited to play grown up and have the siler girls, Julie, Katie and Caroline over for dinner a few weeks ago. Steve was out of town, so Julie braved the traffic and as always impressed me with her ability to converse with a toddler, kick the soccer ball with a preschooler and hold an infant at the same time.
Click on the picture below to see more!

easter in bloom

So, since I completely was not into blogging for the past month or so I'm going to pretend now like I was and start with Easter and work up from there.

We had a great time on Easter with the kiddos. The easter bunny arrived and hid some eggs in our side yard and Brendan and Aidan both LOVED looking for them and finding them. They love to play outside, so we got some shots of them in our yard(read:weeds).

We also got to go to Mumma and Poppy's house for dinner and it we had another easter egg hunt there. so fun.