Love it!

I love my man!

Our backyard is a mess. We haven't done much back there for sometime now, there's a lot of bike parts & leaves left over from the fall, a couple of plastic crates that have filled up with water...just an all over messy job that I haven't wanted to do.

Well I mentioned to him a couple days ago that I wanted to start our 1/2 barrel pond back up...we had one a couple summers ago & it was going fine until the neighborhood raccoon & skunk decided it was their personal food dish & did away with the whole lot: an awesome fantail & some rosy red minnows.

So Fred has spent part of today cleaning up our backyard, a big messy, icky job
that I want no part of! The first half of the day he spent taking the younger kiddos to the park to play & run around in the woods so I could sleep in & the house would be quiet.

He also has spent time this weekend carving & sanding down wood blocks into cars for the girls for their Awana pine derby race at the end of the month.

I just gotta say it again...I LOVE MY MAN!

The Girls' Spring Portraits

I finally got around to uploading these...

Sunnie's Kindergarten Spring pic
Thorra's 5th Grade Spring pic

Mr. Smiley

My happy little man!

Val's Vocab...

I've been meaning to get to this for a while now so I have someplace I can look back on & see what he was saying since his vocabulary has expanded so much in the week or two...this is what I can come up with:

mommy, daddy, sissy, dunnie (Sunnie), doe-da (Thorra), grama, Skye (a neighbor's little boy) puppy, kitty, fish, cup, juice, plate, lunch, eat, apple, up, down, side (outside), ball, phone, mote (remote), arm, elbow, knee, toe, tummy, cheek, mouth, nose, fo-head (forehead), hair, ear, teeth, elmo (his favorite!), ernie, (Big)bird, cookie (monster), popple, bunny, moo-bie(movie), jump, mart (smart)...I know there's much more but right now I'm drawing a blank.

He is just like a little sponge, just about anything you say he can repete it! He's my little myna bird!

As promised, the rest of the zoo pics...

One of the hands on areas... Sunnie loves this pony
Val got a kick out of the tractor
Thorra on the pony
Val on the pony...

The flamingos

They have an awesome glass panel so little ones can get their own view of the flamingos...

The Tamarins aka:little lions

He though these guys were pretty cool & vice versa.

The Bear

Val & the bear Rosemary, he thought it was pretty cool that he could see her with no help this time.

The Monkeys

My monkeys looking at the monkeys...

Val shares his drink with Ernie...

Such a generous little guy, sharing his juice with Ernie...a minute ago he was "feeding" a bear with a spoon under his high chair!