Two super cute boys + a juicy watermelon = 

The beginning of a fun summer!

The Good, The Bad and The Crazy

First we'll start with the bad stuff... 

Brian found a copperhead in the studio the other night.  Is was super windy outside and the wind blew the doors wide open.  Evidently, the snake was attracted to the warm building, so he crawled right in.  Brian had gone over to let the dogs in for the night and he saw what he thought was one of the boys plastic snakes... until it moved.  He came back in the house, changed his flip flops to boots and after trying to chop the head off with a blunt garden hoe type thing with out any success, finally got the snake outside and chopped the head off with an ax. Yikes!

Now to the crazy stuff... Brian came home on Friday and told me (and I quote) "I did something today that you're going to roll your eyes at."  Honestly, he does stuff all the time that I think is silly/funny/weird/crazy, so I had no idea what to expect.  Evidently, he had gone to a local nursery and they had plants on sale.  They had quite a few left, so he offered to buy ALL of them if they gave him a deal.  The boy came home with 7 flats (just keep in mind that a flat is 12 plants) of pumpkin plants, 5 flats of canteloupe and hundreds of corn plants.  When I say hundreds, I am NOT joking.  Amongst these gillions of plants, we have a few varieties.  We now will be growing regular sweet corn (like corn on the cob that you eat), ornamental corn (the pretty multi-colored corn that you see as decoration around Thanksgiving), some other kind of colored corn and popcorn.  The two pictures below show what he came home with.  He had to go back and get more because it wouldn't all fit in the bed of his truck and the enclosed trailer.  Seriously.

(Just a side note, since he bought all the above plants, he has also bought a lemon tree, and orange tree and two blueberry bushes.) 

Here is a (far away, but current) picture of our garden now.

To plant all of that stuff that he bought, he's going to have to plow up a lot more land but I'm sure he's all about it.  He told me yesterday that we 'needed' a hay baler.  Have mercy.

Lastly, I just had to include this because it's the good stuff.  :)

Blevins Carnival 2010

What a great day for a party!  Saturday was mild and beautiful - perfect for an outdoor birthday!  

I had a lot of help decorating and it really turned out cute.  The downside was that since I had planned the party on Easter weekend, a lot of people ended up not coming.  The upside was that I planned a lot of things that Reed liked and after all had calmed down on Saturday night he told me it was the best party he's had.  :)  That's ALL I needed to hear.  (Yes, it was a joint party for the boys, but Hudson is two.  All I would've had to do is give that boy a cupcake and he'd have been tickled pink.)  Mike and Susan kept the boys for me that morning so they could walk in on the party and be surprised at how it looked.  Here they are getting ready to head to the back yard.  Reed was "helping" me by getting Hudson to look at the camera. (Side note: Here's a big thank you to my sweet friend Becky for all the pictures!  She took hundreds...literally!  I had so many to choose from for this post.  My slow internet was about to make me crazy, so I just did a few of my favorites...)
Reed has been wanting a pinata for a while and I just keep forgetting!  So I decided this year would be a good year to do it.  I have video of it that I'll try to post later...pretty funny stuff.

Grabbing the pinata candy!

I was planning on doing a big carnival/circus type cake, but Reed asked for his own Star Wars cake.   So he got his beloved Star Wars and Hudson got his Wow Wow Wubbzy.  You can see my 'popcorn' cupcakes in the background... that turned out so cute, too!  To see a closer picture, click here. The messed up polka dot on the front of Hudson's cake it where he crammed his chubby little finger into the icing before we got around to cutting it. :)

Having less labor intensive cakes really took a lot of stress off of my shoulders, so it really worked out for the best. 

Opening gifts...

We were able to borrow a popcorn machine and cotton candy maker!  Here I am trying my hand at the cotton candy...

It wasn't pretty, but the kids evidently enjoyed it - they got out of the trampoline long enough to wolf some down. :)

When I was at the dollar store picking up some things, I came across this...

and I knew Reed would love it.  I bought 12 cans and it turned out to be so much fun!  We ended up having a mini silly string war.  The next picture cracks me up (you may have to click on it to enlarge it).  Hudson didn't like the silly string at all. It was either the smell or feel of it that he hated because every time we sprayed him he would gag.  At first I thought he was sick from eating too much junk (cake, popcorn, cotton candy, etc.) but it was only when he got the silly string on him.  It was HILARIOUS!!!

A few more pictures...

Bean Bag toss

Labels for the water and lemonade

The kids favors

We had a great day and the boys had so much fun.  I am so blessed to be the mother of these two precious boys.  They are so different and they complement each other in such an awesome way.  Reed is the best big brother - he watches out for Hudson, holds his hand in the parking lot, tries to explain things to Hudson that he doesn't understand, shares his stuff with Hudson constantly and truly loves his little brother.  On the flip side, Hudson adores Reed.  "Bubba? Where you?" is a phrase often said at our house - first thing in the morning when I get him out of bed and all day while Reed is at school.  Hudson squeals with delight when the school comes in to view in the afternoons when we pick Reed up.  Hudson wants to do exactly what Reed does - things like wearing the same kind of shoes and eating the same food.  They are such great friends as little boys and I hope their relationship continues to grow and mature so they will be great friends as men.  Happy Birthday to my sweet little guys - I love you both to the moon and back!

Reed's First Field Trip

Today I went with Reed and his Kindergarten class to his first school field trip.  I was very excited about it because I don't like missing 'firsts'.  Especially with my kids - that's one of the main reasons I stay home with them!  Anyway, we went to the FW Zoo and it was SO much fun.  I asked for a season pass for Christmas and this was the first time we had been.  After today, I promised myself that we would go a lot more often.  The kids rode up on the school buses and we had drive our own vehicles.  My mom and Hudson rode along with me and they went and did their own thing while I helped chaperone.  Reed's class has 20 kids and there were 14 chaperones!  Wow!!! So I only had Reed and a sweet little girl named Sydney.  They were both so well behaved and we covered a lot of ground!  Here is Reed with the flamingos.  I tried to get him to stand like one - balancing on one foot with the other leg bent, but he was having none of that.

Sydney and Reed checking out the elephants

The kids in front of the new reptile house which I have to say is amazing.  They have a place to sit and eat that has large glass walls and you can see a huge crocodile, turtles, fish and all kinds of stuff swimming around while you eat.  It was so cool!

Reed and the Komodo dragon

Reed riding the alligator

When 1:00 hit, I had to take Sydney back to the zoo entrance to ride the bus home. I signed Reed out and we met up with my mom and Hudson and we spent another 2 hours walking around and checking things out.  This is me and the boys on the train.  With my membership, we got the train fare for 1/2 off!  Awesome!  (Check out their dirty faces!  I guess dirty = fun!)

Turtle sculpture in front of the reptile house

This is looking out one of the windows of the cafe I was talking about above.  This crocodile was HUGE.  I tried to get a picture of the boys by it to give a little perspective, but it still doesn't look as impressive as it did in real life!

Here we are outside the reptile house.  We were all starting to fade a little at this point... :)

Reed wanted to go back to see the birds and buy a seed stick.  (We were instructed not to buy anything for the kids we had in our groups to insure that no one got any special treatment, so I had to wait until Sydney was on her way back to the school.)  Reed loved it.  He quickly learned to walk very slowly up to the birds to get them to eat from the stick.

I got a bird to actually step on the stick and then I handed it to Reed...

Hudson was mesmerized...

A couple of girls squealed when the birds whizzed by their heads, so Hudson started to squeal, too.  The bird freaked out and I was afraid it would get scared and fly off so here's me telling Hudson not to scream like a girl...

A pretty turquoise parakeet

We had the best day.  It definitely made me want to go back again soon!

Just some tidbits

On Tuesday, we attended a retirement reception for Mike at the plant. It was from 10:00 - 12:00, so we decided it would be easier for Reed to not go to school at all instead of going for an hour, picking him up and then going for an hour at the end of the day. I really didn't feel bad about it since it was only the second day of school he's missed all year. It was a great little party and I was glad that Reed was there so he could hear the great things that were said about his DadDad. Anyway, last night at church, Janna (Reed's music teacher and a dear friend of Gammy's) told me that when Reed saw her at school the next day he informed her that "Yesterday I was at a retirement party for DadDad... just in case you missed me." Oh, that kid.

I could tell that Hudson got used to having Reed home over Spring Break. He would get up in the morning and when he saw Reed he'd say "Hi Bubba!" On Monday, he walked around the house all day saying "Bubba... where you?" and then all the way to the school to pick Reed up. As soon as we turned on the road to the school, he sucked in a sharp breath and squealed "Dere is!" It was pretty sweet. I love how my boys are with each other (most of the time)! :)

Lastly, today I am going with Reed's class to the zoo for our first field trip. There are 20 kids in Reed's class and 14 chaparones are going -WOW!!! I thought it would be me and like, two other parents herding all 20 of these kids around! I need to get in the kitchen and start lunches for the boys. I have to drive my own car, so my mom is going to go and take Hudson around the zoo while I'm with Reed. I'm so glad that I get to enjoy being with my son on his first school field trip. I'm looking forward to a great day.

Good Times

Hudson is feeling much better and we've had a fun couple of days at our house.  Mimi came over to watch Hudson while I went to the dentist Thursday morning and she brought some paper bags for the boys.  Reed loves any sort of "gift",  so he was super excited to open it...

What were these bags full of, you ask?  Halloween candy. Reed's even included a giant gummy foot with "crunchy candy bones" (yes, the package says that.  Ewwww.)

Hudson was also a fan - you can see his "Oooooooo" face he's making at all the candy...

"Look Mom!"

Reed wanted to tell Mimi thank you... Yes, Mimi, thank you so very much.  A giant pile of candy is just what we needed.  :)

Moving on, next week is Red Ribbon Week at Reed's school and Friday is "School Spirit Day".  He doesn't have any pirate shirts, so I just knew I had to make one!  I think it turned out really cute (sorry the picture is turned).

And lastly, the boys were playing yesterday evening and I don't know how these next few pictures happened, but I wasn't surprised when I saw it. It was funny, though. :)  Yes, it's Brian, our coffee table and the boys hanging on for dear  life.

But these, well, these are my favorites...