A taste of summer

We've had gorgeous weather lately so the boys have gotten a lot of outdoor time.  Playing outside makes for happy boys and lots of sleep!

My favorite new trick

The boys have been trying to talk for so long.  For the last several weeks they've been saying "Dat?"  or "Whaddat?" when they want to know what something is.  They also use "Dat!" as an exclamation when they want us to look at something.  Sometimes Brady gets so excited that he almost splits our eardrums.

They've been able to say Dada for a while but this week they finally started to say Mama.  Ian gets so proud of himself when he says it.  However, they're selective about when they choose to say it.  I was able to get both of them to say it for the camera last night.  Ian even said Dada too, but Brady said Nana instead.  Of course Nana is OK with that!

Our "new puppy"

We got a new puppy today - a plastic one, that is.  Even though we don't have dogs, the boys knew exactly what to do with their puppy.  They knew how to walk it...

and pat it on the head...

and spend time with it...

and love on it.

That's my puppy!

The rocking horse

Here are a few pictures of the boys on their rocking horse.

Pictures from the past several days

We've taken lots of pictures recently but haven't had much time for posting them, so here's a bunch at once.

The boys had a little bit of a fever this week so we had to get the thermometer out again. They've started to giggle when they get their temperature taken, and now they want to take their own temperature (and ours too).

Dr. Brady makes house calls.

The boys take a lot of pride in noticing when things are out of place, or are slightly different than normal. For example, they love to find the cats' toys in their room and bring them to Jeremy and I. They get so excited finding the tiniest pieces of fuzz on the carpet. Here, Brady found a piece of paper and proudly presented it to me.
I call this "the fort that Ian built". He pulled all the pillows off the couches, arranged them in a circle, and sat inside for a long time.
This is a very rare moment.

Aunt Sopa taught the boys a new game called "Where's ducky?". She would hide their rubber ducky under the pillows and let them search for it. They enjoyed it so much that they played it themselves for days. Here's Brady hiding the ducky.

Where's ducky?
Found it!
Brady was very serious about reading "There's a Wocket in My Pocket". He tried to read it but Ian kept taking it from him. He got very frustrated so we put Ian to bed a few minutes before Brady and let Brady read in peace! He flipped through the whole book.

Sunday

The boys had a good day.  They went to church and played in the nursery, had lunch with Nana and Granddad, and got to go outside a couple of times.  This evening they were very hyper and brought Dr. Seuss' book "Hop on Pop" to life!

Ian got his first real boo-boo this week.  He fell on the brick sidewalk and scraped his nose.  It's been 3 or 4 days and he still has quite a scab.

Mabry Mill

We went for a drive on the parkway on Saturday and stopped at Mabry Mill.  We had lots of fun and the boys were so excited to see new things.  

This would have been a great picture of both boys but Brady ran away at the last second. 

It is almost impossible to take posed pictures of the boys.  We've given up on trying to get them both to sit still at once.  Sometimes they'll sit with us long enough to snap a picture or two.  Here, Ian had lost a shoe.

Brady and Ian watched a man and woman demonstrate how to use a spinning wheel.

Ian loves to pick up sticks and leaves.

Brady had a great time shaking this chain.

Here, the boys are watching the blacksmith work.

Ian is watching the ducks swim in the water.

The boys love to play with their toy ducks, so they were very excited to see two real ones.   They kept pointing and saying "duh" (they can't quite say the whole word).

We had two tired little boys in the car!