Grandparents, bubbles, and bottles

Wow, it's been a while!  I'm on Facebook now, and my friend Carrie Reynolds encouraged me to do a new post :)  This post is very picture heavy since I've got a lot to share.  These events are from the last couple of weeks.  Griffin had hidden the compact flash card reader *and* stuck something in the slot where the reader goes in my computer, so uploading pics to the computer was an adventure tonight.  I also wanted to include a picture of him and his bedtime friend, a stuffed dog named Wylie, but the kids informed us Wylie is "at the neighbors" after we couldn't find him.  I think Phoenix shared him with our next door neighbors by throwing him over the fence.  We'll have to look tomorrow, since we didn't want them to think there was a burglar if we used a flashlight to look in their yard.

Two weekends ago, we spent a day with my parents, my kids call them Granny and Granddad.  Griffin loves to play with Granddad.  Phoenix wanted to try on Granny's reading glasses.

   

Mom and Dad bought them a bubble making machine.  All the fun of bubbles without all the work (is it really that much work to blow bubbles?!). The real fun, though, is that it makes many, many more bubbles than you could blow yourself before they pop.

   

This next picture is something that makes Phoenix and Griffin happy but not Mama.  They like to swing on the rope we use as a drying line (Griffin isn't happy in this picture because he doesn't like to wait for his turn).  I don't like my strawberries squished when they jump down (in the flowerbed behind them).  I've given up on the strawberries this year, however, since Griffin picks and eats them as soon as they have the slightest tinge of red.  Plus, there's this bunny that keeps coming in our yard... (That makes the kids happy, too!)

   

For Mother's Day, we went to a nearby restaurant and ate bagels.  Phoenix loves to eat out, she's very much a foodie.  Then, we headed to the park. I picked some magnolia blossoms along the way for the kids to play with and smell.  The stuff on their foreheads is marker (drawing on themselves is also in the category of "makes Phoenix and Griffin happy, but not Mama" lol).

   

On Mother's Day, we also drew on bottles we store our filtered water in.  We drew happy things and wrote happy words.  Here's why: http://www.godsdirectcontact.org/eng/news/131/ss2.htm .  A man did an experiment and water made beautiful crystalline structures when it was exposed to prayer or nice words were written on paper and taped to the bottle it was stored in.  The water apparently turned beautiful from the beauty it was exposed to.  Since this falls into the category of it might help your health, and definitely won't hurt it, we decided to make our bottles happy bottles.  After these pictures were taken, we bought some glass gallon jugs and decorated them, too. We're replacing the plastic jugs with glass ones.

   

This is a random cute picture of Griffin I took while we were outside drawing on bottles.

We made brownies this week. Everyone enjoys cooking and eating them.

Phoenix and Griffin posed with Newton, the stuffed animal Phoenix sleeps with every night, since Newton makes Phoenix happy.  Newton is named after the turtle on the show Peep and the Big Wide World, which is one of Phoenix's favorites.  She watches it online from Chris's office after her nap.

This is a picture of Newton that Phoenix took by herself.

Remember to enjoy the small moments :)