Father's Day and Time to play

Today is Father's Day.  These kids are truly blessed and lucky to have such a great dad.  (Tim and I each are too!)

After leaving Daddy in peace this morning while the rest of us went to church, we came home and showered him with presents to show him how much we appreciate all he does.  Emma made one of her trademark wonderful cards.

Among other gifts, we gave him a frame with photos of the kids with their dad, and this picture in the center:

It's a nice perk to have a professional photographer living down the street with lots of fun props!

We spent a nice day out shopping and playing in the backyard, topped off with tacos for dinner -- an entire family favorite!

Now, back to catching up on old photos...

Speaking of playing in the backyard, a few weeks ago we spent some great time outside with the kids.  They started by drawing in the driveway.

Later, we brought some water toys, the chalk, and some bubbles out back and let the kids do whatever they wanted.  Emma had a blast with the water squirter.

She wanted to see how high she could get the water on the back side of the house.

After awhile, she decided it was getting hot and asked Daddy to help her cool off.  He sure did!

Meanwhile, Drew did his own thing...mostly chasing bubbles, playing with the chalk, and practicing going up and down on the stepping stones. 

The fun ended soon after this, when both kids decided to play on the neighbors' swing set.  Let's just say that Drew learned the hard way not to get in Emma's way when she is swinging!

Girls' day out

Still in the process of catching up with all of the pictures we have to share, but we're getting there.  A few weekends ago, Emma and I used some passes we won at a silent auction to go to the High Museum in Atlanta.  The boys decided to stay home and hold down the fort while we went and enlightened ourselves.

Emma enjoyed the Marta train ride as much as the museum itself.

I knew she'd enjoy visiting an art museum, since she absolutely loves anything to do with art.  But what I didn't think about was the fact that she might not be able to appreciate walking around and quietly looking at painting after painting.  (She didn't really.)  Thankfully, the people at the High Museum DID think of that and made a special area just for kids to get their hands on some of the cool stuff they see throughout the museum.  Emma's favorite part was playing with these huge oddly shaped blocks.  They reminded me of Tetris pieces!

 We took a self portrait in the kids' area, so that we could remember how much fun we had there.

They had some clear pieces of plastic set up so you could draw on them with crayon, wipe it off, and draw again.  If you can't read this, it says "I love every buddy."

Emma's second favorite thing was running up and up on the ramp that goes between the four floors of the museum. 

She definitely liked looking at the contemporary art the best, especially the Howard Finster exhibit (folk art made from discarded items, like bicycles, silverware, broken tiles, etc.).  I think next time we go, we'll head straight for that section and skip the Renaissance art.

Snapped this photo when we went to Best Buy last weekend.  I think Drew thought he was actually steering the car!  His favorite phrase lately is when he points to any type of vehicle -- car, truck, rocket, airplane -- and says, "VROOM VROOM!"  Maybe I'll catch it on video sometime.


The other day I was helping Emma get in the car after strapping Drew into his car seat.  When I looked back at him, he was proudly wearing an old pair of my sunglasses.  Don't you love the rhinestones on him?

And one current picture for you... Emma's class had a luau party at summer camp today.  Feeling bad because I totaly forgot about packing her a towel and sunglasses for Wednesday's beach party, I made a special trip to the store for a few luau items to make sure she was festive today.  Lucky for me, Target has a bunch of hawaiian-themed stuff for $1, so Emma was decked out from head to toe!

Kindergarten Graduation #1

You can tell my Blogger phone app isn't working by my lack of posts lately.  But the kids are away at Grandma and Grandpa K's house this morning, so I had some time to download a few photos and finally make a post about Emma's graduation.  It's only 2 weeks late!

There were only seven kids in her graduating class, so the ceremony didn't take very long. 

After the kids sang to us, they entertained us with their recorder skills.

After the "will definitely make you cry" photo slideshow, it was time to give out the diplomas.

Our proud Goddard School graduate!

Emma and her teacher

I hate that Emma and her BFF Elizabeth will be going to different elementary schools next year.  At least they will see each other occasionally afterschool. 

Emma and her friend Charlie

After the reception, we went out for dinner with Grandma & Grandpa H.  Emma decided to have a little fun with Drew's spaghetti.  Look at those eyebrows!

 And since Drew hasn't appeared once in this post, here he is showing his latest favorite food: blue blues!  (blueberries)  He asks for them every day, whether we have any or not.  Thankfully he hasn't realized yet that he can squish them and make a big mess.  It's only a matter of time, though.

 Time to go pick up the kiddos, but hopefully we'll be updating you with another post in less than two weeks this time!