SIMPLIFY

The boys camped in the backyard this weekend. If you look closely, a piece of the fire blew into Easton's lap and burned a hole through his shorts and his manhood. (unfortunately he wasn't wearing underwear). Poor kid.

The twins hiding under Cache's bed.

We went camping at our all-time favorite site in Virginia Beach - First Landing State Park.

Aside from the major rain storms (which required a trip to home depot to cover the tent) and David's kidney stone (and subsequent need to leave a day early)...we still managed to enjoy the trip.

99% of all trips revolve around some type of creatures.

The beach was loaded with sand crabs and the water with minnows.

Xander loves to sing songs up close and personal.

The campsites are only 50 yards from the boardwalk to the beach.

Trying to stay dry during a 5 hour major downpour!

As David stayed in bed on major pain killers when we got home, I unloaded the wet, dirty, massive amounts of camping gear and proceeded to clean everything up. It took literally all day. After the rain jackets were clean I threw them downstairs to hang up later. Later, I spotted David go to the pile, pick up his jacket and hang it up (not giving the other jackets in the pile a second thought). The question is...is he golden for picking up his own jacket, or completely clueless for leaving all the others?

Declan takes forever to go to the bathroom. Since he can't read a magazine yet, I usually give him something to help occupy his time. Today's toy a choice...handcuffs.

Declan likes to pull up his shorts like Steve Urkel. Maybe it keeps him warmer when he has no shirt on.

Liquid watercolor. A classic art activity.

A typical day at the table. The boys are waiting for breakfast...watching tv. It is pretty typical that at least one kid is sitting on the table and another is standing.

Favorite breakfast...homemade chocolate chip pancakes with buttermilk syrup.

Kensley, our 11 year old mothers helper has even learned the art of holding twins.

I tried to tell him the twins were too young for Jenga. Oh well...

I love my Groupons and Certifikids. This month we went to a local petting zoo, which is regularly too expensive to justify a visit, but absolutely worth it with a coupon. We even took two of our summer helpers.

This is helper #1, Kensley. Claimed by Declan.

The giant tortoises are my favorite.

On the right is Marcy, claimed by Xander.

It was free fishing day. They had poles and bait all ready to go. Easton and Cache love to fish. Unfortunately for Cache, it seems like Easton is the only one who ever catches anything.

Here is his big catch for the day (apparently the largest fish caught by a kid so far that day!)

Almost big enough to eat!

Declan was the first to climb up this structure and slide down the pole in the middle.

Eventually, Easton made it to the top too!

A face only a mother could love.

The boys love goats. Cache decided this one was his favorite.

Easton decided he liked all the goats and insisted his picture be taken with every single one...

Declan wasn't happy with just petting the goat, he was trying to find a way to ride it.

Xander is under the box on the left and Declan on the right.

Next time I will get a second big box so Declan can actually fit!

Virginia Beach!

David was asked to go to Chicago during our Spring beach trip...did that stop us from going, nope!

Thanks to the help of a friend home from college, I loaded the boys up and we enjoyed our 3 days on the beach at our premier Marriott beachfront hotel.

Cache, who tends to be a little more quiet in public, was so excited to be at the beach that he did a little 'beach dance' show for us!

Our friend, Sammy.

After a dozen drive-bys from the ice cream truck, the boys finally scored their first treasure.

Every good popsicle deserves a good song...

We made each of the boys teachers a thank you craft for the end of the year. After peeling what seemed like 1,000 crayons, this is what we ended up with... Not quite the finished product (we added the teachers name at the bottom)...but the boys were able to help a lot and the teachers loved them!

Sooooo much easier than having a real pet.

The boys love sitting on the island.

A poo-poo party. Declan finally sat on the potty all by himself and did his business. Of course, we clapped for him and celebrated his victory!

Easton's last day of Kindergarten.

Declan enjoying one of those fill-in the missing Cheerio books...

Xander expects me to take a picture of him every time I pull out the camera.

Body art.

Xander talking to his girlfriend.

Xander taking over my Sonic cherry limeade.

Xander eating his favorite dinner...hot noodle soup (aka - Top Ramen)

Declan is finally showing some interest in getting his picture taken...even giving a half smile!

Easton insisted on putting Declan down for his nap today. Pretty cute.

Here come the summer buzz-cuts.

What sounded like rain in my kitchen was actually our kitchen door shattering into thousands of pieces. We have no idea what caused it (it was the outside portion of the double pane...and we were all inside). No dead birds on the ground. Hard to love a $400 mystery.

Suburbia at it's finest. The neighbors playing a good ole' game of 9 square.

The twins were enjoying the view of the games from our curb.

Easton lost his first tooth seconds after this picture. For some reason this seems like a huge milestone.

It feels like he just grew these baby teeth!

My mom came for a visit and we went to New York City for 4 days while David stayed home with the boys. We had a great time and saw all the sites!

The first evening in NYC we went to the Empire State Building. It can take a couple hours to wait through lines and we didn't wait a second. It was meant to be!

We also took a boat tour to Liberty Island. Unfortunately we couldn't get off and see the Statue of Liberty because the island was damaged during hurricane Sandy and is still under repair.

This is the 9/11 Monument - a fountain around the whole footprint of each of the Twin Towers.

It was a tragic site but they did a nice job with the memorial.

One of our highlights was just walking through Central Park. We took the subway and got off near the Jacqueline Kennedy Reservoir and walked our way down...winding through the paths and bridges.

This made us laugh.

This is the Belvedere Castle. It turns out my mom recently read a book that referred to this castle. It's fun seeing movies and reading books about the places you live and visit.

We took a 2 block detour out of the park to visit the LDS Temple in NYC.

Columbus Circle.

Famous for many things, but we will always remember the man in his g-string posing along the base of this statue. No matter how hard we tried, or how disgusting he was, we couldn't stop from staring!

We recently found mouse poop in our garage. David set traps and we have caught about 6 so far. Yuck. David put one in a bag and let Declan carry it around for a while. Double yuck!