Words on Birds and More

"We should get a bird feeder" sounded like an innocent enough request from my husband. Since I have denied him the privilege of having any sort of family pet for the time being, I figured the least I could do was grant him his dream of having birds innocently flutter outside our window.

Little did I know...

One simple bird feeder would become the bird hot spot of the neighborhood. At any given moment of the day, we will have at least 6 birds hopping around on our deck. They have become our main source of dinnertime conversation. They are my daytime soap opera as they often pick fights with each other, half of them are pregnant and two of them got us involved in the drama, forcing us to become home wreckers. Meet the star of the show Mr. Blackbird.

We just could not figure out why Mr. Blackbird spent one morning with a stick in his mouth, standing right next to the food, but never eating anything. "He's just there for the party." I would say attempting to decipher Mr. Blackbird's motives for lingering on the deck without partaking of the food supply. Then as I was watching the birds while eating my lunch, I spied a big black bird POP out of the smokestack of our grill! 

The rest of the day I saw two birds constantly diving into and out of our grill with little twigs. It became evident that some sort of nest building was happening inside our grill, but we did not expect to see the entire grill filled with kindling upon opening it!

We promptly removed the grill nest in the name of preventing Mr. Blackbird and his family from becoming our next flame seared meal, though we did feel guilty tossing a full day's worth of fine fowl craftsmanship.

Eli has gotten really into Legos lately. He's getting more creative in his engineering, often adding practical details like air vents and mapping out locations for garbages aboard his aircrafts. One day he made this beauty, explaining to me that the things poking out on the left were a "bomb cannon." Said bomb cannon can "blow up anything it wants. Even the moon." There are also three red lasers on the right that can destroy anything on contact. When I asked what the little red and green things were on the wings, Eli said, "Those are lights. For safety."

It was reassuring to know his jet fighter plane of destruction was equipped with a safety feature.

We signed Eli up for a t-ball camp this summer. Jeff decided to give Eli a few pre camp lessons lest we have a soccer repeat of having Eli show up the first day completely clueless.

Our backyard neighbors set up a bounce house last week. Carson spent the afternoon jumping on our trampoline, longingly peeking over the fence with each hop, wishing he was on the other side.

The doting of little brother has yet to cease.

We went to a children's museum in Salt Lake with my sister to help get us through my mom and dad's three week abandonment vacation.

More doting. These two are already the best of pals. Lincoln LOVES Eli and that love is grandly reciprocated.

We did our first hike of the season! Hit up Wheeler Creek Trail one evening.

I was a little nervous to see how Lincoln would do, but he was a champ!

We made it to some water which is the tell-tale sign of a successful hike.

Eli was too busy to be our trusty photographer, so we had to make do with an #awkwardfamilyselfie

It was gorgeous. The weather was perfect. The kids were great. We love this summer hobby.

If Lincoln is awake, this scene is undoubtedly happening.

And if Carson is awake, something goofy is always happening. He is the king of making us laugh with his funny ideas, little jokes and silly antics -- like proudly wearing Jeff's shorts around the house one morning.

And if I'm awake while all the kids are sleeping like right now, I should stop blogging and get some sleep too!