A glimpse of the future???

This is Micah and his friend, Ryann.  They've been in preschool together the last two years.  Tim took this picture this morning during the first day of VBS.  The important thing to note is that no one else in his class is holding hands with anyone but the teacher.  Apparently, Ryann and Micah wanted to reconnect after some time apart. Judging from the picture, he obviously had something very important to tell her. :)

Happy Birthday, Mum-Mum!

Sorry we can't be there on your birthday and sorry this is grainy, but here's a little birthday wish from us.

This. Park. Rocks.

Confession time.  My friend Harmony told me about this park a year or so ago.  She described this as something akin to a children's nirvana in the middle of Lakeland.  If you know Lakeland, FL, you know that's saying a lot - Lakeland isn't exactly a destination hotspot for, well, anyone.  So I filed it away and didn't give it a second thought until this morning when we were trying to think of something to do before it got so beastly hot.  I remembered this park and we hit the road.
Turms out, Harmony was sooooo right.  This park is the best park in the world.  I took tons of pictures, so be warned - and this is only a small portion of them. 
The park is called Common Ground

because it's a handicapped accessible parks with lots of little trails and different play areas so that kids of all kinds of abilities and ages will be able to have fun.  They even put this chart up at the entrance so you'll know if your child can do something or not.

A general theme of the park is butterflies, and there are lots of statues of them all around the park.

 

 

I even found a real one lounging on a rock.  Considering this picture was taken from about 20 feet away, I thought it a pretty good shot.

 

Just check out all the stuff you can do.

 

Needless to say, the boys jumped right in, climbing rope ladders

and venturing through tunnels with Daddy close behind.

"Anything you can do, I can do better just as good but it takes me a little longer."

When did  Micah become old enough to be able to climb this? 

Because I swear it was just yesterday that this was the extent of his adventures at the park.

The boys found this super cool circle swing that they could ride together.

Gettin' ready to slide.

Daddy checked out part of the playground too and waved to his boys.

Micah could see me through that tube and asked me to take a picture of him looking at me.  He thought it was pretty funny.

Daddy and Liam tackle the slide together.

Snack break.  Water, blueberries, and goldfish.  You can tell how hot it was from Liam's face.  Poor little guy.  I guess he inherited the Williams family red-face-when-exert-yourself gene.  Don't worry, son.  It's only mildly embarrassing.

Do you think he's having fun???

And do you think he's having fun???

What about this guy in the spinny thing?

 

Then Micah took his turn.

This is what happens when you get out of the spinny thing.  Walking becomes quite a challenge!

Super cool seesaw/balance beam thing.

Check out Liam's face.  I think he's saying, "Yeah, I can take this slide."  And he did. 

Both boys actually took the whole park.  They were so bummed to leave, but it was getting really hot by 10:30.  We promised to return soon.  Oh and Mum-Mum and Pop-Pop?  This park is probably about ten minutes from where you're staying when you visit, so get ready for some fun!!

What I think isn't what my kids think

Sometimes I think what is best for my kids isn't what they think is best.

For instance, I thought Micah should be napping.  He thought he should come out of his room, after an hour of no sleep, wearing his blue hat and playing with his yellow monster pickup truck.

I thought we should wear pants while we played.  Liam thought just a diaper would suffice.

I thought we should play anything but cars and trucks...again.
Micah thought we should get out every single Matchbox vehicle he owns and park them all on the carpet.

I thought Liam should look totally adorable. Okay, we both thought that.

Look Who's a Big Boy, Take Two

When we went to the library this morning to retrieve my card that I left there the other day, Micah asked about swiping his own books through the computer checkout system.  So I asked him if he wanted his own card, and he said yes.  After learning that it's up to the parents what age the child gets a library card, we signed him up.  This has been a week of milestones. I love the library, and hope both he and Liam learn to love it too.  There's nothing like getting a new book out and not being able to wait until you get home to start reading it.  That's what traffic lights are for, right?
Here's Micah with the first library check-outs of his life.  Pretty appropriate, don't you think?  A book about trains and boats and things that go, and a video about garbage trucks.  If you look in his right hand, you can see his new library card.  Way to go, Micah!

By the way, Tim doesn't yet have a library card, so Micah beat him to it.  Challenge extended...

Look Who's a Big Boy

Someone's been keeping a secret.  It seems that Liam can drink out of a big boy cup.  I found out this morning when I dropped him off at daycare and he started consuming his second full breakfast for the day.  (Visions of huge grocery bills danced in my head...) Miss Ashley handed Liam a cup with milk in it and no lid and he gulped it right down.  It's not a secret any more!  No more sippy cups for us! Well, except in the car.  I think we'll keep that rule for a little while longer.

Sometimes I miss this

Happy Fourth of July!

Although it's pretty hot in Florida in July, we braved the weather and headed to Disney as our family-only time this holiday weekend.  The boys were really excited since we hadn't been in a month.  I know, I know - we're totally spoiled.  They await their beloved monorail at Epcot.

We put this one in for Pop-Pop Williams - that's the Marriott Surf watch visor that Micah is sporting on the train around the Magic Kingdom.

We found the jumping fountains at Epcot.  Water just jumps from spot to spot in this one garden and one little boy in particular thought it was hysterical!

Here they are watching it; you can see the water on the left side of the picture.  Pretty cool, huh?

Seems like a perfect time to dance and spin and twirl and scream!

In honor of "Cars 2", which Micah has already seen twice (but it was his first movie in the theater so it's not as bad as it sounds!), Epcot did a topiary with the two main characters - Lightning McQueen and Mater.  This was the best picture we could get with the boys in front of it.

When we ask Liam to say "cheese", he always obliges.  If you ask him a few times because you haven't quite gotten the picture you want, he seems to think that means he's not close enough to the camera so he does what you see in the picture below.  I've deleted most of these for obvious reasons, but check out the color of his eyes in this picture, which doesn't even do them justice.  This kid has beautiful light green eyes.  He's going to be a real ladies' man one day with those!

I asked Tim to take a picture of this because I just thought the contrast of the fire and the sky and the horizon and the moon and the water was really beautiful.  Even Disney can be pretty!

And this is what we're taking to a cookout today.  A slight twist on the usual dessert fruit pizza because this one has a brownie crust.  And it's gluten free!

Go ahead - dig in!!

Weekend

We're taking it easy this holiday weekend, just lounging around

and enjoying the little gifts.