I had a little help planting the pots on the patio this year.
Her mama helped, too, and also enjoyed snapping a few pictures with my camera.
The one photo I still need to get it the finished product.
Everyone needs a little help like this once in a while.
Free Time is good for a lot of things.
Fort picnics.
Swings.
Slides.
Reading books...and yes, he is reading the book.
And more swings.
With the grandbabies here this week, Ollie has had plenty of people to play with.
But my youngest granddaughter, Caroline, has just fallen in love with this dog.
She will crawl right up to him, grab his rabies tag on his collar and start to shake it. She will grab his ears. She will put her hands right in his mouth and giggle hysterically when he licks them. Notice, however, the slightly shell-shocked look on his face.
She will work her way backwards to get as close as possible to him.
And he is totally and completely gentle with her. But all the while he's looking at us with this slightly puzzled and half-way pleading look in his eyes. "Please....make her stop."
Patience like that deserves a pancake.
It's just stunning to me how the grandbabies can change and grow in such a short period of time. I don't think I noticed it in my own kids as much because I was around them all the time, but when you don't see them like that, you really notice it.
One of my grand-girls recently turned one and I just couldn't believe how she's gotten from this...
To this so quickly. Really.
And she reminds me a little of her daddy at the same age...at least the hair does....and the smile a little bit as well.
On our last day with the boys, we went to the zoo. I remember taking my boys to the zoo when they were small. They loved the zoo, and these boys did, too. It also set off an interesting chain of events with The Girl, which had started when she got to move the rental car we were driving (a Dodge Durango) out of the driveway. She thought the car was very cool and said, "I want a Dodge Durango!"
At the zoo, we started with the 3 baby tigers that were born last year. "I want a baby tiger!" (As an aside to my sister, who wanted to know about DH's fancy hat....we bought it there and he was so pleased about how much shade there was when he wore it. We left it there.) Doesn't my grandson have the curliest hair??
And moved on to other cats. "I want a cat with fuzzy ears!"
And the orangutan, and BTW, I'm thinking this is just a really good picture even ugly as he is. "I want a big hammock like that!"
When you're the mother of a herd of boys, pictures like this just hold a special place in your heart.
Really, they do. But strangely, The Girl didn't want a gorilla picking its nose. Go figure.
Then we moved on to the baby elephant and yes, "I want a baby elephant!"
It was so cute to hear this one say the word "elephant". It came out sort of like "efflant". In the elephant enclosure there was a water area that had a big waterfall at one end...."I want a waterfall!" Ah, if we all could only have everything we wanted...and yet, she survived not getting any of it. Amazing.
After getting the garden boxes all done and filled, we decided to take in one of the local landmarks as part of Family Home Evening. We headed for the original Route 66, and there we found Pops:
This is from the back side, but the front looks fairly similar with the lines and lines of bottles. The bottles hold hundreds of different varieties of soda. It took us a little while to each pick out something.
The kids went with Orange Ne-hi. I thought it only came in grape. Silly me.
And root beer.
The adults went with a little more exotic stuff. Butterscotch soda? My boys will understand when I tell them that this smelled exactly like like the bear bait...and I do mean exactly. I settled for a diet black cherry something.
Out in front of the place was a huge 66 foot lighted soda pop bottle. You might not think it was terribly remarkable until you see it do this:
And this. Oooooooooo, Aaaaaaaaaahhhh....
First off, it was a very happy first birthday to this little one. Miss her, and she's changed so much since I took these pictures.
We got the garden boxes done and filled finally. We did a little tilling under the spots where they'd sit. Look at how red the dirt is.
Really, there's no better project for little boys to be involved with.
There's dirt.
And wheelbarrow rides.
And interesting places to sit. And when you're done, you even have a place to grow some vegetables.
The question is almost what didn't I do? I can tell you that I took over 200 photos in the past 10 days...probably enough to keep the blog busy for the next 2 weeks. I need a day to sort and gather my thoughts for posting. I will leave you today with just one of my most favorite shots of the grandboys. The box they are in will be explained soon. It's a little hard to see, but the SGB has his arm around his brother.
DH walked into the house last weekend with this in his hand:
It's a "Polly Pockets" type dress, Disney Princess version, for one of the SPGB's little dolls...I'm thinking Aurora. He found it in the toe of his hunting boot when he went to put it on Saturday morning the for the day's hiking around. It must have been dropped in there during the time they were here with us in the fall. I'll be putting it in the mail to go to the Back East this week, but it was a sweet little reminder of one of our grandbabies.
In a related story long ago story, my FIL bought a can crusher for aluminum cans several years ago. All the kids were fascinated with how it worked, and loved to take turns squishing the cans. One day he went out to the garage on his way to take a water turn irrigating some section of the farm. He put his foot into one of the irrigating boots and found it to be part-way full of grape soda. SD Boy and his cousin had apparnently emptied several cans into his boot so they could crush them.
So this is just a friendly reminder to watch where you put your feet.
This is what was going on then at my house.
