Dozer Days!

This year we attended Dozer Days as a family! This was Sean's first time going, and both boys had so much fun...

The boys posing by a huge wheel

We had to wait in line for a turn to drive an excavator for about 45 minutes.
Sean kept himself busy building things out of rocks.

Mark has been to Dozer Days every year since we moved here. 

Mark, driving a real excavator!

Mark got to use the controls to dig a hole

Sean driving a real excavator

Sean moving the lever that moves the bucket to dump the dirt out

The three Bradley guys

Of COURSE they wanted to make faces!

Waiting for our ride in the huge dump truck

Mark and Sean playing in the tracks of an XL excavator

Sean could almost stand up inside the tracks

Mark's opinion of how fun this was

I am sure this will be something we do every year for MANY years...

Ouchie!

Mark is the proud new owner of a(nother) scar. On Saturday he was at a birthday party at a gymnastics gym, and while swinging tarzanishly off of a platform via a rope into a pit full of foam cubes, he managed to get bonked in the face pretty badly. Face wounds always bleed like crazy - we were relieved to see that his teeth and his nose were fine. Unfortunately, he bit is lip badly in a few places. In one spot below his lip, he bit all the way through - involuntary piercing! 

"You have owie there, Mawk!"

After a visit to Urgen Care, where they cleaned and glued two spots, we brought a fat-lipped but content boy home. By dinnertime he was fine, and all appears to be healing just fine.

Another good game for Mark

Mark had a GREAT game last Saturday: He scored 4 points for his team! His team won with 12 points, total. My friend's Dad took this awesome picture of Mark when it was his turn to bat:

Look at that focus!

It's interesting to me how much better Mark plays in his morning games... I think on Wednesdays he's already tired from a long day, so he isn't as focused. He had no problem hitting the ball on Saturday.

Easter Egg hunt and attempted photo op

Easter is almost a month past... and I still haven't gotten around to posting pictures! I was going to do a cute write up about the chaos of trying to photograph 2 little boys... instead I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures. Again. Enjoy!

Let's play ball!

Mark is having a lot of fun in Little League baseball. Today I took a few pictures during practice - I wasn't allowed to have  the other kids in the picture (unless they were very far in the background), for permission reasons... but I promise, there are 11 other boys on his team. :)

Focused, and ready to swing!

Mark has good focus, and he has a good swing, too. Since I myself am horrible at this kind of thing, I'm always a little surprised that he can hit that ball with such ease!

Running to 1st base

In the background you can see Mark's coach and the pitching machine.

...made it!

Mark's 'real' games start April 8th, so I'll hopefully have some pictures of him in uniform then.

Good job, Mark!

Snips and snails...

We have been blessed with a few GORGEOUS days this week... which meant we got to spend lots of time outside! Sean loves searching for worms and snails... and this afternoon Mark joined us for the fun.

Little boy profile

Snail, Momma! Me found snail friend!

Me touch feelers!

Too serious about his snail to smile for the camera...

Mark then also found himself a snail friend.

...while Sean moved on to digging up giant worms.
("Me found Dada-worm!")

...Mark getting slime trails on his hand...

Mark asked for this picture

Snail races on our picnic table? Fantastic!

Product Review - Puj Big Hug

Sean gets to be a product tester for the Puj Big Hug towel! One of the requirements is that I write about it on my blog... so here we go!

Sean being BIG, drying himself off with the Big Hug.

We were so excited to receive our brand-new Puj Big Hug towel in the mail!

This is a wonderful, premium quality fitted big-kid towel. It is made of thick, ultra-soft cotton (none of that thin baby towel nonsense!). The seams are all reinforced well, with extra seams in the 'heavy wear' areas.

The Big Hug has a nice large hood, little pockets for the hands, and it is so easy to use that Sean dried himself off with it after his bath this evening. Once he was dry, he decided to 'lounge' in the towel for another half hour... he obviously loved the soft feeling on his skin, and it kept him warm.

I was surprised that the towel didn't feel wet after he was done - it is SUPER absorbent. The tab on the top of the hood made it easy for my son to hang the towel up himself when he was all done.

I love that this towel is easy enough to use that my 2-year-old could independently dry himself after his bath, but it's also big enough that my 6-year-old can use it.

I would definitely recommend it to other families - if you are interested, you can purchase one directly from Puj, or on Amazon.

Our garden is coming alive!

This year my garden took a little while to come to life, in spite of our mild winter. However, now it is finally showing off some beautiful colors! Although these aren't as cute as our boys, I thought some of you might enjoy seeing what is growing right now...

A tiny, wild-type tulip. It's the size of a crocus.

Alpine snowdrops - each came back this year with a friend.

The ever spreading crocuses

Pink Lenten roses (hellebore)

Purple prim roses - they come back every year, with more flowers!

Red prim roses

This hellebore is some fancy variety -
more flowers, multicolored flowers, red stems and leaf veins... 

I have tiny violets everywhere...

This is SW Washington - we have moss on all the surfaces!

My favorite, "freckled" Lenten roses (hellebore)

Miniature daffodil, anemone, and johnny-jump-ups

More crocuses

A bee collecting nectar from one of the pink-speckled hellebores

A drift of ever-spreading johnny-jumpups

My philosophy in gardening is to remove unwanted weeds as they come up, but to plant only plants that care for themselves after planing. I really only spend about an hour or so per month, if that, in the garden "gardening"...