May- Part 1

Here is what our family was up to the first half of May:

We signed up for another kids' build workshop at Home Depot. The project was an Angry Birds birdhouse. The shape of the final product was a bit strange, but Jaden and Cody still enjoyed the process. We were happy that Daddy could accompany us on this Saturday morning. He helped out Jaden...

...while Mommy worked with Cody.

Once the birdhouses were done, the boys got to decorate the outside with stickers.

After building these birdhouses, Jaden and Cody were intent upon filling them up with food right away! So, on our next trip to the store, we bought some birdseed for their creations. I think that Cody and Jaden were a little disappointed when birds did not come immediately flocking in hordes towards their generous gift of birdseed. It actually took a few days before the birds even seemed to notice the birdseed. Eventually, though, a few birds visited the new neighborhood birdhouses, and Jaden and Cody were satisfied. :)

Each time Daddy mows our yard, Cody and Jaden love to be part of the process. Often they like following him with their toy mowers even though the mowers are a little short for them now. On this day, Cody was thrilled to be allowed to push the real thing!

On Mother's Day, Cody and Jaden surprised me with sweet cards and tickets to go to Sea World in San Antonio as a family later this summer. How exciting! I sure love my sweet boys (and their wonderful daddy, too!). 

One Friday in May, I had my first personal encounter with a Texas snake. I was just entering the school building to teach piano lessons when, quite accidentally, I happened to shut the door on this snake! The most disturbing part of the encounter (other than the fact that it reeked since I had partially smashed the thing) was the snake was actually on its way OUT of the building. Who knows where it had been before?? Thankfully, one of the school maintenance workers took care of the wily reptile for me!

On Star Wars day (May 4th), one of my piano students gifted our family with Star Wars themed cookies. Yum! Jaden and Cody especially enjoyed the dark black-frosted Darth Vader cookies.

Sometime this spring, I had the idea to start up a neighborhood playgroup. It seems like our neighborhood is full of young families, and I was eager to meet some new people. So, I put out a message on our neighborhood Facebook page and started a bi-monthly gathering for moms and kiddos at our neighborhood playground. We've had anywhere from 4 to 10 moms join us, so it seems to be successful so far. At the beginning, some moms would volunteer to provide snacks to share, and I would plan a few games for the kids. Now, we've started bringing individual snacks due to allergy issues, but I still organize a few kid games for each gathering. Here, one of the moms brought some bread for feeding the ducks.

Our games are always VERY simple since we generally have a young mix of kids. On this day, the kids raced across the grass while balancing a cotton ball on a spoon. I've really loved meeting some wonderful moms this way, and we've found new playmates for the boys too. 

One of the biggest things about this month was ALL-NEW hairstyles for Jaden and Cody! I've been wanting to cut their hair shorter for quite some time, especially with how hot they always get in this Texas humidity, but I was unsure of how exactly to style it. After watching a haircut tutorial on youtube that my sister sent me, I gained some confidence and was ready to give it a whirl. I figured I could always buzz the whole thing if I screwed it up! Jaden was my first guinea pig....

I've always let the boys watch a couple short videos when cutting their hair in the past, and I could generally trim them both in the time frame of two Curious George episodes. For this new haircut, however, I was still teaching myself what to do along the way, pausing for reminders from the tutorial, so it took much longer. Jaden and Cody didn't complain at all when they got to watch four videos during this evening of haircuts!! :)

I used a combination of clippers (at the bottom) and scissors (at the top) for this haircut. Cody was a pretty patient model, too.

In the end, I was pleased with how both boys' haircut turned out. Mostly, I just felt good that I didn't have to go crawling to a professional stylist to fix up all my mistakes. The end result was good enough in my book! :) The short do certainly makes both of them look quite a bit older.

One day this month, I happened to capture a pretty precious playtime moment with Jaden and Cody. I don't think they even realized that I took out the camera. :) Gotta love these heart-warming moments that remind you of the joys of raising kids!