This year's veggie garden

Well, this year we are just down to 2 veggies - long beans and tomatoes.

I had to refill the garden pit with quite a bit of new soil after Graham's play time in it.

And oh! I'm attempting to plant blueberries again this year.  Who knew that you actually need more than one plant next to each other so they can pollinate.

We just returned home from Phoenix after 2 weeks and the long bean and tomato plant have barely grown! Hopefully they will strive well this summer.  Those Pridgen boys better love their beans and tomatoes this year!

Graham's first soccer game

Can't believe it has happened so soon.  I'm now a soccer mom!  Graham had his first soccer game about 2 1/2 weeks ago (April 6).  The school made arrangements with a local kids' soccer club and they have started a Spring League.  Graham was very excited as his best friend from school - Jonathan, is also in the team.

They even have their own uniforms!  Here they go!

The warm-up session was great. It was cute watching them run around although Graham will need to learn to keep up!

Yup... lagging behind!  Poor fella.  I think he may be the youngest of his team.  If not, definitely the smallest in size!

And all this time, little brother Charlie is just busy munching on his puffs. He's slowly but surely learning how to get the puffs out of the little cup.  So focused!

Got one!

I was really hoping for more instructions from the soccer coach, but they basically just let the kids loose and tell them to kick the ball into the other team's goal.  All was well, until... bump!

I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Graham may have bumped his head with the other boy.  No worries... Mommy to the rescue!

Then, Daddy!

Thankfully it was all better after a little break and a juice pack.

At the very end of the session, all the kids were given the opportunity to dribble the ball down to the other team's side to score a goal.  It took a little persistence and eventually Graham carried the ball all the way to the other side, set the ball down a few feet away from the goal and kicked the ball.  GOOOOAAAAL...!!!! It sure made his day!

Preparing for bad weather

Knock on wood... we haven't had any tornado warnings yet, but I finally finished my bench for the storm room.  The bench was actually too long, so I had to cut it on each side to have it fit properly in the room.  Then, it was time to paint - not without my little helper, of course!

But then, Graham decided to go play instead.  Probably wasn't a bad idea since he was getting paint everywhere. It didn't take him long to get paint on the sole of his shoes too, which caused more clean-up time instead of painting time!

Time to test out the bench: 

 Tada! Notice the fire extinguisher as well, just in case!

Once that was done, it was time for an Easter egg hunt in the yard. I think Graham had those bunny ears on almost all day. It was a great little project from school!

 

Charlie was asleep during all this, so there weren't any pictures of him.  But... here's one of his teeth taken earlier during the day.  Look at those chompers!

Charlie will be 34 weeks next week and I think he's cutting another one or two teeth on the upper left and right side.  He's been quite naughty, chomping down on Mommy while nursing.  Bad Charlie!

Happy Easter!

We decided to have Easter brunch at the golf club this year. We weren't sure how Graham would react to the Easter bunny (I always thought they were a little scary looking).  Anyhow, Graham was perfectly fine!

It was Charlie's first sight of the Easter bunny so I figured we'd take it slow and pat the bunny instead:

I guess Charlie didn't mind him either, although I wonder what Graham was doing/thinking in this picture!

Our first family of 4 Easter photo! 

Graham tucked into his meal rather quickly.  Mommy would never give him THAT much ketchup, hence the "bib" which thankfully Graham didn't complain about.

And Charlie was happy with his puff-puffs!

And then, we took some pics of the boys while they were still dressed nicely for the occasion:

 Our Easter bunny :-)

 Who is our cutie pie, with another great haircut (thanks to Mommy :-)

Big brother moment - sharing an Easter egg with Charlie:

All in all, it was a great day!

First plumbing project

I installed my first sink faucet (minus the plumbers crack)!  After a couple of trips to a local hardware store and yes, another new wrench, I was finally able to install our new fancy faucet.
Here's the before:

And here's the after! I had purchased this new faucet years ago so I'm glad it's finally on.

I'm glad we're able to save some money instead of paying a plumber (gosh, they are expensive!). It did take me 3 tries to fix the leak which included sore and putty-smelling fingers after, but hopefully it's all working properly now.  It will definitely be tested today as we will have a family of 6 over for dinner tonight!
And now that I've literally gotten my hands dirty in plumbing, I'm ready for more.  One faucet down... 3 more to go! ;-)

Graham making Charlie laugh

I was trying to post a couple more videos of the boys, but for whatever reason the videos are not attaching to the blog properly. So, I've decided to post the youtube link instead:

Here is one of Graham making Charlie laugh.  It's so cute, but it will probably just encourage big brother to do even more silly things! Unfortunately, the quality of the video isn't so great but you get the gist of what's going on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYZgsJZymTE

And here's a video of Charlie. He's getting much better at eating his little puffs all on his own!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfDOKoTHkKY

We're still working on the wagon wheels though.  They might still be a little big for Charlie:

And here is another video of Charlie - we are trying to "communicate" with him :-)

Last but not least, some pictures of the boys:

We all went for a walk and for whatever reason, Charlie kept having his right foot up throughout the entire walk and obviously after too!

"Run, Graham,... run!"

And oh, here's a photo that Graham took of our water downspout (yes, little duckies in our downspout).

Graham's got a pretty good eye for photography! Although, I can't say the same for his new accent when he talks. He started this funny twang at the end of his sentences.  Hopefully it's just a phase, but it's definitely driving daddy crazy right now!

Birds moving in

Well, it didn't take long for the birds to move in.  I saw them scouting the new birdhouse the day it was put up.  They finally decided to move in this past Sunday.

They were really busy getting grass and twigs into their new house. I'm almost curios to see what it looks like on the inside, although I hate to be attacked by domestic birds.  Now, that would really make a story!

It's like the bird is saying... "I'm watching you!"

New bird house

I finally decided it was time to bring the old birdhouse down.  It was really falling apart!  We bought a fancy cedar one and decided to hang it on the other side of the tree - to avoid the prevailing winds.  The cedar smells so nice!  For the price of this birdhouse, these birds will need to start paying rent!

It has been 2 days and still no new occupants though.  I wonder if I should have taken the "fluff" from the old bird house and put it into the new one.  Technically, these bird houses are suppose to attract blue birds for nesting. Although our old one was occupied by a couple of house wrens. I did spot the wrens on the roof of the new one, but they haven't decided to move in yet.  Only time will tell!

"Bring Charlie to work" Day

I decided to take Charlie out to the golf club yesterday.  Surprisingly, he did very well at the driving range. He was patiently watching Mommy:

Thankfully, it was warming up nicely so off we went onto the golf course!

Here's Charlie in the shade while waiting for Mommy to tee off on hole #2:

He seems happy...

But unfortunately, the fun only lasted 2 1/2 holes.  While approaching my golf ball on the 3rd hole fairway, Charlie started fussing.  So, I decided to head back to the club house, trying not to distract the other golfers on the golf course!  By the time we approached the club house, Charlie finally fell asleep.  So I thought I'd try to practice some more.  But once I stopped pushing the stroller, Charlie would wake up. So we decided it was:

 Puff-puff time!

Although, I think Charlie was actually eyeing my burger.

Well, despite the fussing and crying, I think we did pretty well for our first time at the club.  Hopefully there will be more trips and Mommy will need to remember to bring the baby sunscreen next time!

Pridgen boys update

Let's see... here should I start?  Well, Graham has learned how to line things up:

Here's little Scout and his books and below, we have his little pets:

Graham has also discovered the magic of magnets, as you can see here with his magnetic fishing poles:

We also started signing up Graham to the Lowe's Build and Grow program at the store.  Last weekend, we build a monster truck!

Mommy did accidentally hammer Graham's little finger.  Oops!  We have signed up for another project next weekend. Hopefully we'll do better then :-)
With the weather warming up and the wind picking up too, we brought out our first kite!

Well, here's what really happened...

We'll probably have to buy a couple spare ones :-)

As for Charlie, he is finally happier that I've actually been calling him Mr. Giggly.  More teeth are poking through. Here are the more obvious ones on the bottom:

And we started putting Charlie in Graham's old booster chair. I think he's a lot happier in it than in the high chair.

Charlie has also started to eat these little puffs.  He's getting better at picking them up by himself.  It's amazing how quickly they learn!

So focused! Although he still prefers it when Mommy feeds him:

Cheeky little fella!

Big brother Graham is making sure he captures every moment as well:

Charlie is still not crawling yet, but I don't think I'm in a hurry for him to do so!