Zoo

I realized I forgot to post pictures from our trip to the Sacramento zoo a few weeks ago. We bought "memberships" this year, so hopefully we'll be making quite a few trips there this summer.

One of the best things about the Sacramento Zoo is that they put animals out on the grass (with zookeepers) for the kids to touch. Ayden knows to only use two fingers to touch the animals

Warm Weather!

We went to a friend's birthday party and Ayden was super excited that it was warm enough to swim!
They also had a trampoline, so between swimming and jumping, he was in heaven!

Outside!

We have had some great weather lately, so we've been spending a lot of time outside - sometimes working, sometimes playing!

Uncle Matthew & Aunt Dominique gave Ayden a very cool bug vacuum with bug catching tools. I think Matthew was more excited to try it out than Ayden was...they caught a bee, a couple of roly-polys, a ladybug, and a spider (who had babies all over her back!).We planted a vegetable garden on our side yard - tomatoes, carrots, green beans, sugar snap peas, spinach, lettuce, yellow squash, and zucchini. We are hoping for lots of fresh veggies this summer!

Ken leveled out a new spot for the swimming pool this summer and Ayden was so excited to help. He loved watching the tractor dump the sand in the back of the truck and helping to shovel it out!Before setting up the pool, the boys played a little bit in the sand. The larger tractor actually was Ken's when he was a kid - Ayden says, "Daddy, this tractor was yours when you were a little boy like me?"

Once the pool was filled, he kept asking and asking if he could go in. He did not accept our answer that it was too cold. Finally, Ken stripped him down and let him go in. He found out for himself that the water was cold!

Happy Mother's Day!!

On Friday, Ayden's preschool had a Mother's Day Tea. They sang a song and then we had lunch together before I had to head back to work.

They did something similar last year, but he was a little more willing to sing this year!

On Sunday, Ayden Ken & Ayden made me chocolate chip waffles and let me sleep in! As if that weren't enough, Ayden also picked out a necklace, bracelet, and earrings for me. He is not very good at keeping secrets and I knew about them almost as soon as they got home from shopping :)

The funniest thing was that he continued to sing "You are my Sunshine" all weekend and with all sorts of different voices.

Thanks to my wonderful husband, I had a relaxing day and a wonderful dinner with my family!!

Let's Go Fly a Kite...

Ayden has been obsessed with kites for about a month. Every time there is a slight breeze, he asks if we can fly the kite the Easter Bunny brought him. Finally, we had a good day with just the right amount of wind. One perk of having an unfinished neighborhood is that we have a lot of empty lots, which were great to fly kites!

Easter

We went to my Aunt & Uncle's house for Easter. We always do a big egg hunt, but this year the weather was not cooperative. We managed to hunt for our eggs while it was still only a little drizzly. Ayden had fun finding other people's eggs and looking at the letters to find out who the egg belonged to. He would then run to that person and tell them where their egg was. Found his egg!

We also do a hunt for the little kids with plastic eggs.

Excited about the big chocolate bunny!

Even though it was raining off and on, he still managed to get Grandma to play badmitton with him.

Ayden & GrandmaWe played games inside to stay out of the rain.

Ayden & Uncle Matthew

Happy Easter!

Ayden had a ton of fun coloring eggs this year - and it was a lot cleaner than last year.

Posing with his eggs - and a mouthful of sandwich.

We had a visit from a certain bunny!He totally forgot about the Easter bunny when he woke up and we didn't remind him until after he was dressed and ready for church.

He got some cool home-made pajamas from cousin Anneke.A nice family picture after church.
Part 2 pictures to come in a couple of days - we're heading to my Aunt & Uncles house later today for the annual egg hunt with the family. We'll see if the weather cooperates, it looks like it's going to start raining any minute - we might be having an indoor egg hunt this year.