Catch Up.

All of a sudden it's June 16th? How did that happen? Wasn't it just early May? I know we've been busy lately, but how did a whole month go by and I didn't notice?

This week was niiiiiiiice. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. We are taking the month of June off of school and plan to start again after the Fourth of July holiday, so we didn't have any schoolwork to do. It was nice to hang around the house and get things done (read: cleaning) that needed to be taken care of.

Since Colson's birthday we've:
*visited grandparents,
*organized a used curriculum sale for homeschoolers,
*prepared and executed the Amazing Race,
*attended two vacation Bible School programs during the same week (and helped teach at one of them),
*attended baseball and T-Ball games,
*awakened at 6:00am for daily early morning swim practices.....

Okay. I'm starting to understand where the past month went.


Now I have a blog photo backlog, so here's some of what we've been up to. More photos will come soon.

A couple of weeks ago we took the boys to an exhibition of emergency service vehicles. Volunteers showed off their cars, trucks, and helicopters and explained what various equipment was used for. They gave demonstrations and speeches, and we got to watch the dog who searches for explosives do his thing.

Here are the boys sitting inside an ambulance listening to the paramedic give a tour of the equipment. Brogan's second from the right, in the grey shirt. Colson's to the left of the paramedic in a stripey shirt. To his left you can see Braden's hands and legs.


I felt a little sorry because the paramedic was trying to explain all the cool medical things in the back of the ambulance, but took the time to respond to children's questions at the same time. Colson especially loved asking questions.

**********************************************
Colson: What's this? (Holding up a box of kleenex.)

Paramedic: That's a box of tissues. I would use them if you needed to blow your nose.

(After a few moments.)

Colson: What's this? (Holding up a band-aid.)

Paramedic: That's a band-aid. I'd put that on your owies.

(After a few more moments.)

Colson: What's this? (Holding up a sharpie pen)

Paramedic: That's a pen. Why don't you come sit over here.
****************************************

That paramedic was wonderfully patient. Thankfully Colson quieted down and he was able to explain some of the more interesting parts of the ambulance.

Braden got to sit in the back of a police car and learned that crime doesn't pay.


Crime also doesn't seem very photogenic. Look at that face! I think he's trying to look like a hardened criminal here.


In May, Colson turned 4. My baby is four! *sob!*



Grandma E. and Grandpa F. sent him a Star Wars backpack and a stuffed german shepherd puppy. Colson uses the backpack as a puppy carrier and wears it all over the house.

Here he is with his new puppy: Pooky Doggy. (And no - I don't know how he came up with that. Colson just says that it looks like a Pooky Doggy.)





Colson is learning to go down the fireman poles at the park. Up until this photo, he would grab hold of the pole, and simply jump down to the ground, scaring observers with every jump. It took several tries to get him to understand he was supposed to slide down the pole.



Brogan loves the monkey bars.




Colson tries to do whatever Brogan does, but he got stuck two bars in on the monkey bars. Of course, being the good mother I am, I stopped to take a couple of photos before helping him down.