a happy mother's day

i got to celebrate mother's day a little early... natalie's class hosted a mother's day tea party last thursday!

and believe me when i say that they thought out every detail:

when we first arrived, there were paintings hung in the main office. each child painted a picture of their mom and underneath there was a sheet that listed questions about their mom and their answers to them. we had so much fun reading them while we waited for the kids to come out and get us. the funniest question natalie answered about me was "my mom is not so got at...MAKING COFFEE." sadly, she's right!

when the kids came out to get us, each of them ran to their mom and placed a fancy [tissue paper] bouquet hat on our heads. then we went into the room and sat down at the lovely decorated tables. on them, were paper gift boxes that each held a bracelet that each child made for their mom. after i put mine on, natalie catered to me as she poured my cup of tea, then went to get our mini cake loaves that the kids had all baked in the kitchen cafeteria. she brought it back to our table on top of a silver tray with a small cup of icing for her to decorate it with. after we ate the delicious treats, we were serenaded by the kids as they sang "you are my sunshine" to us. lastly, we went outside and each mom got to hula hoop with their child. we got some major kicks out of that!

it was such a fun afternoon, one that i will always remember and i have a feeling natalie will too :)

***this thursday, the dads will have their turn as they celebrate with an early father's day lunch

last weekend:

typical friday evening at brooklyn's...

i love the expression on my mom's face here: "help!"

a grandma moment

heather's "baby" turned 1! little miss lauren is growing so fast! feels like just yesterday we went to the hospital to meet her for the first time...

i think natalie was staring at the cupcakes.

they were so beautiful, you almost didn't want to eat them...almost ;)

another trip to the beach --

i think just about everyone in jacksonville thought it was a good day for the beach last sunday, because it was ridiculously crowded.

and ridiculously windy too!

this boy loves his watermelon!

following grandpa to the water

natalie wanted to be buried in the sand:

she sat like this for quite some time. i would have been dying of claustrophobia!

fishin'

russ has been taking the kids fishing in the back yard lately. when he was younger, russ was pretty big into fishing. he would fish all the time and even had a boat. when i was dating russ and heard that he enjoyed fishing, i thought it was the weirdest thing. it's just not something that my family ever did, let alone something i imagined myself doing. for some reason i thought it was a southern thing, but of course i was wrong and can laugh about that today. but fishing was definitely in his blood, so now he enjoys passing it down to the kids. they love it. and i'm so glad they aren't afraid to touch those slimy [disgusting] fish, like i am!

they caught one!

an important message

to all my "blog" readers who only read the notification e-mails (instead of going on the blog itself), do you know that you're missing out on other updates?

please click on this link to see (because i know you will be reading this message via e-mail, haha):

http://calascione.blogspot.com/

comments welcomed :)

thanks!

and thank you for being loyal readers!

love you guys

our trip to the MOSH

The Museum of Science and History, that is.

a new exhibit all about the human body

this was the entrance, through a mouth:

not quite looking like a turtle...

this one's better:

natalie said that this is where the princess sings out the window:

a lot of the facts in this museum go way over their head, so when i saw this carousel horse, i asked natalie if she wanted to take a picture of it to get her excited about something:

bon voyage!

yay a picture with me in it! thanks natalie:

posing under the baby whale's tale:

outside the museum, on the river:

walking to the car, i called out to russell to turn around so i could take a picture because it just hit me how big he's gotten!

finally -- THE ROOM

i said i would post some pics of the kids' "new" room when we first got the bunkbeds, and i finally remembered to take some last week!

view from the door:

natalie's nook:



russell's area:

the view from their windown

the garden we planted -- sunflowers, green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and something else i can't remember...