All Saints Day: Henry as Francis

Henry chose to be St. Francis for this year's All Saints Day parade.  A child's monk costume from Amazon provided the basic look.  As a finishing touch, Elise picked up some clip-on birds and wooden beads from Michael's.  This year we also had to prepare a class report on our saint, and Henry made an impressive poster of scenes from Francis's life, including a detailed rendering of Francis receiving the stigmata.

 

 

Halloween 2014

Scenes from the Halloween season: the St. Anthony's costume parade, the Taylor Run block party, pumpkin picking at Butler's Orchard (very wet this year) and trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  In case you couldn't tell, Vivian was Queen Elsa and Henry was a blue ninja.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Memorial Day 2014

Elise and the kids traveled to Howell, Michigan to spend Memorial Day weekend with Mimi Pauline (Bryant stayed behind to catch up on some house projects).  Just before departing, we learned that Henry had been selected as the "superstar of the week" at school, which meant he got to keep the class mascot—Mr. Wise the Owl—for the long weekend.  Fortunately, Mr. Wise did not require an extra seat on the plane.  Once in Howell, Henry, Vivian and Mr. Wise enjoyed a weekend full of activities, including a trip to the Howell Nature Center (where they got to see a real life snowy owl) and a visit to the Detroit Zoo.  The water play area at the Howell Nature Center was an especially big hit (see the photos below).  Back at Mimi Pauline's house, the kids enjoyed riding around in Mimi's green gator, petting the neighbors' horses and catching up with the resident Labradors.  Below are some photos from the long weekend—be sure to keep an eye out for Mr. Wise!

 

  

  

 

  

Easter 2014

We spent Easter with Mimi and Paw Paw in Alabama.  It was our first time back in Mobile since our ill-fated beach trip of 2012 (see Labor Day 2012).  This time the weather was perfect, and we took advantage of the spring sunshine with lots of outdoor activities.  On Easter morning, Henry and Vivian awoke to discover that the Easter Bunny had brought them roller skates!  After a few turns around the neighborhood, we went to church with Mimi and Paw Paw and spent the rest of the day playing with Bryant's childhood toys (check out the vintage sit-n-spin below).  The next day we headed to Dauphin Island for a day at the beach.  We planned to stay only a few hours but ended up spending most of the afternoon playing in the sand.  On the way home, we stopped at The Mariner restaurant and picked up some fried Gulf seafood for dinner.  The beach was hard to top, but we came close with a visit to Alligator Alley in Baldwin County the next day.  We were expecting a tourist trap, but this place was beautifully maintained and very informative--well worth the hour drive across the bay to get there.  We just missed the 1:00pm feeding but were still able to see some massive gators.  On the way over, we stopped at the "world famous" Dew Drop Inn for chili dogs and fried onion rings.  The only thing we needed to complete our Mobile visit was some of Mimi's sausage balls--and we had those on our last day (see Things We Like: Sausage Balls).  By the time we got back to Washington, the kids were already asking when we could visit again.

Planting jelly beans to grow into lollypops (see below).



  

 

 

 

  

Hanging out at Mimi and Paw Paw's house.

 

 

 

Fun in the sun at Dauphin Island.

 

"Captain Crunch"—the biggest gator at the farm.

St. Patrick's Day 2014

Each year our neighbors host an elaborate St. Patrick’s Day party complete with beer kegs, a moon bounce and Irish music and dancing.  This is always a great occasion to reconnect with neighbors after a long winter hibernating indoors.  Despite a really rough winter, the weather this weekend was perfect—sunny and seventy degrees.  Below are some photos of the kids and us enjoying the festivities.  Just to be clear, the keg in the picture below is filled with rootbeer.  Slàinte!

 

  

 

 

Valentine's Day 2014

We're getting accustomed to school projects.  This week's assignment was to construct a container for Valentine's Day cards.  Inspired by one of his new favorite movies, Henry decided to make a minion container.  Elise found some examples online and the rest was from our imagination.  As you can see, the final result wasn't half bad.

New Year's in Huntsville

Morris cousins photo-op

We flew to Huntsville at the end of Christmas break to visit with Uncle Kevin, Aunt Templa and the girls.  Mimi Joanne drove up from Mobile to be with us.  We discovered that Baby Regan is no longer a baby and is very fond of her uncle; she climbed right up into Bryant's lap.  As always, Henry and Vivian enjoyed seeing their older cousins.  While we were in town, we visited the local children’s museum and all went to the movies one afternoon (Walking with Dinosaurs for Henry, Micah and Rylan and Frozen for Vivian and Regan).  Mimi bravely agreed to watch all five grandchildren one evening while Bryant, Elise, Kevin and Templa went for dinner and drinks with their cousins Carrie and Quitman Turner.  We are especially grateful to our Alabama peeps for introducing us to the Nook, which we later learned is ranked as one of the best bars in the country.  Below are some photos of our brief visit to Huntsville.