May 11

Today was a long day, but so much fun! The kids and I celebrated Mother's Day with my mom and dad at the Botanical Garden where my dad works. Caleb was so excited that the first thing he said when he woke up this morning was, "I want to go to the Pa'tannical Garden!"

At the garden, they're gearing up for a lantern festival that looks a-mazing. Caleb was pretty impressed by this Fu dog.

Here he's too busy showing Grandma all of the fun stuff to smile for a picture.

Caleb and Grandpa chased a bunny (Peter Rabbit, according to Caleb) in the Iris garden.

In the Children's Garden, Daisy discovered Caleb's sunglasses. She grunted and pointed and fussed until I put them on her face.

Then she immediately took them off. What a stinker.

But then she fussed until Grandma put them back on...

and boom! She whipped them right back off again.

Apparently she really wanted to do it all by herself.

I'm pretty sure she was just happy to be playing with Grandma.

Daisy has really mastered the pointing thing. Also, her language is really blossoming. Today she started saying "bird". Her other words right now are hi, bye, mama, dada, cat, dog, eye. She's working really hard to master the "s" sound, and has started mimicking me a lot. What fun!

Soon we discovered the best part of the Children's Garden - the splash pad. 

Only Caleb wouldn't go near it. Three ten-year-olds were playing, and he wanted to wait until the girls left. He was terrified! We tried everything to convince him to try it out, because we knew he would love it. Finally, Caleb said he wanted Grandpa to splash with him.

My dad was downright giddy when Caleb insisted that Grandpa play with him. With the slightest provocation, he became a big kid, splashing and playing with Caleb. Caleb was delighted!

Daisy was fascinated by the water.

She tried desperately to grab it, but was upset when her attempts were successful.

I love this girl.

And this boy. This soaking wet, goofy boy.

I tried putting Daisy down to let her explore the water, but she was completely uninterested. She scooted right back over to me and raised her arms to be held.

Caleb's last request before we left the garden was to see the "wind wheel". Near the wind wheel, we also found some musical instruments. Caleb and Grandpa had a pretty nice jam session! 

I'm not even kidding when I say that I'm pretty sure Caleb managed to somehow play "Chopsticks" on the marimba. It was crazy!

Then we dragged one wet child, one tired child, and one excited grandpa out of the garden to eat lunch. Daisy fell asleep in the car on the way home, but Caleb was wide awake. Luckily, my blessed, blessed mom put him down for his nap. It was only three hours late!

After dinner, Chris and I took the kiddos on our first family bike ride. See? A long, but fun, day.