First Picnic Of the Year

This past Friday was an absolutely beautiful day and since the boys and I were going to be downtown at the Grace Museum anyway we decided to have a picnic in Everman Park once we were done playing at the Grace.

There are no picnic tables in the park but this bench worked just fine for us. (I meant to stick in bowls for the boys to hold in their laps to put their food I but forgot. Oh well.)

Before we left the house the boys helped me pack all sorts of yummy snacks. They were so excited about using an actual "picnic" basket. We've had picnics in the past but we always just packed everything in a cooler and the boys' backpacks. This picnic basket we used was a wedding present. Who would have thought that twelve and a half years later I'd be using it while picnicking with two little copies of my David?

There were other people in the park as well so I asked someone to take a shot of all three of us.

I took plenty of pics on my own as well. (I'm sure you're all shocked!) As always I have an overabundance of words and pics - that's why I have a blog!

Here are some I took of the boys as they were eating.

Nathan is pointing out that he can see the Grace from where they're sitting.

After we finished eating, I told the boys they were free to run around -so they did. Here they are making their way around the big fountain.

Benjamin was too busy to look at the camera so Nathan was trying to turn his head toward me. It didn't work out too well.

They may not have wanted to pose looking at me for a pic but I absolutely adore this shot I snapped of their backsides. What sweet brothers!
I like this profile shot too.
There are a few outdoor art pieces scattered throughout the park. The boys enjoyed playing on them.

Benjamin found a bug to admire.

Next, the boys went to climb around on this statue for a while. We have the book this was taken from, "Santa Calls" by Williams Joyce, in our basket of Christmas books.

Nathan is trying to make the shadow of his hand look just like the shadow of the hand of the boy in the statue.

A lady came up and asked if she could take a picture of the boys holding this armadillo her grandson had sent her. She was taking pics of it all over town to send to him. So we obliged.

Here the boys are with more art pieces. They called this one a beehive.

Here's a nice pose by Nathan.

The boys are at such a fun age now. They don't take near as much work on my part as they did when they were younger and I loved just enjoying a picnic lunch and wandering around the park with them.

Dad's Company Picnic - Part 2

The boys donned their VeggieTales costumes and got ready to compete in the costume contest. I like this cute pic of Nathan/Larry peeking out from behind this pole and Benjamin/Bob peeking at him.We had a few minutes to just wander around waiting for the contest to start.We chatted with Dad for a minute.
Then finally the contest was on. They had all the costumed kids line up and then the judges looked them over real good and then...

they picked someone other than us as the winner. Oh well.

Nathan really liked these Darth Vader and Batman costumes.

I really like the veggie heads!

We went back out to the van to take off the boys costumes then played in the back of Dad's truck for a few minutes. They had horrible hat hair after wearing the veggie tops (partly because it's about time for hair cuts again) and so I spritzed their hair and tried to get it to lay down and look nice.

We ate some hot dogs and hamburgers but I was so busy eating that I failed to get any pics of that. We also participated in a cake walk but I was so busy trying to get the boys to walk where they needed to that I didn't get any pics of that either. Later we did some more exploring (you wouldn't think that place would be big enough to explore for four hours but it was) and we found this cool tee pee. We sat on the ground inside it for an impromptu story time for a few minutes.

Nathan and I had plenty of stories to tell (surprising I know) but Benjamin was ready to run on so we didn't tarry long.

I like this pic of Benjamin in this window which was actually pretty high up. He wasn't really in a pic taking mood - he just wanted to get down and keep exploring.

The boys are trying in vain to pull the bars down. Silly boys.

They also liked doing this because the sky looked neat upside down.Later we explored inside Frontier Texas. We didn't go through the whole thing but just enjoyed looking around the front entry area. Oh, look more cool statues!

Yes, there is water in that one.

There were also some nice table top statues as well.

The boys left no nook or cranny of the front room unexplored.

I like them in their black shirts against this cow print bench.
We went into the room where you wait for the guided tour of the exhibit to start and looked around at the neat wall art which is made up of portraits of famous people in Texas history.
Whew what a day!