Their first splashpad of the year...Austin-style.

Snow Beach, of course!

They even had sugar-free selections that this girl could choose from!

Austin Ice Cream

 

We mostly did things that I wanted to do while we were in Austin, so before we headed back Matt got to pick a few things he wanted to do.  Ice cream was definitely on the list.  Of course Quinn picks the one that has every color of food dye possible in it, and candy inside the ice cream.  Go Big or Go Home!  I guess she has to make it count when she gets a bit!

 Here's Beck double-spooning it.....

 It's pretty much impossible to hold him without kissing his little head.  He's just so.sweet.

Around Here...in the garden.

 My prickly pears bloomed.  They were gorgeous!  I am having a guest chef come next week to teach my students how to cook and eat prickly pear (nopales).  We're studying a book of fables about famous Texas wildflowers, and on the day we read about prickly pear we're doing the cooking.  I can't wait!  I am also eager to see if pear fruits form above the flowers as I'd love to try some! 

 The sunflowers are back!  We've had our first bunch of them this week.  It makes us really happy to look out in the yard and see all the sunflowers!

 And this big guy bloomed, too! 

 Also our monarchs have been coming out of their chrysalises (sp?). 

In May/June when I work my garden always gets a little rough around the edges without as much time from me, but I am hoping to at least keep up with the watering this year!  Fingers crossed. 

Waterplay

 Beck would like to proudly announce that he has mastered the water sprayer.  He can turn it off and on by squeezing and can direct it to spray you if you come near.  (And he sprays me every day....).  Today he and Quinn enjoyed this game:  She ran around with her umbrella and he sprayed her.  It was great!  And I drank an ice tea and sat on the porch and watched.  Then got sprayed. 

Quinn and Ms Kelsey

Quinn loves Ms. Kelsey like crazy.  And Kelsey's a pretty cool craftin, gardenin, cooking, multi-talented gal so I can definitely see why!  Q needed a last-day-of-school picture with her to keep over the summer.  :)

Her Art

 One thing we've come to know about Quinn is that she ALWAYS does everything her own style--and it's never the "conventional" way.  Everything from putting on her shoes to getting out of the truck to her artwork--she always has some crazy "Quinn-way" of doing things. 
She's never been too interested in drawing actual THINGS.  She's more of an art purist--more interested in the process than the product.  Having a bit of a background in early childhood art development, this has been okay with me as I know it is normal and good, but it really bugs other people.  Everyone always asks her what she drew.  "What's this?"  Her reply--"It's nothing.  It's just what I made.  See, I drew on a piece of torn paper towel with a marker, then I splashed some water drops on it and it made the marker spread all over the paper towel."  Or "I cut up the pipecleaner and used the pencil to connect the different pieces."  Lately she has really loved drawing abstract closed shapes and then coloring them in using all different colors.  And these past two weeks she's developed a fascination with making dotted pictures in all different colors and sizes of dots.  So, normally she doesn't draw things.  She can.  I've asked her to do it before just to make sure.  :)  So the rest of the world can breathe easy, but she remains interested in her abstract art.  On Monday she made a pretty cool mermaid, though, and we were surprised when she came to us and showed us a THING!  She was very proud of all the details--the eyelashes and "I even drew the blue spots in the middle of her eyes!"  She took it to school today and gave it to one of her teachers. 

And last night she was helping me make dinner.  I asked her to throw away the celephane packaging that was around some bell peppers and she about had a fit that I was throwing away the little tag that had the peppers on it.  "That's BEAUTIFUL, Mama, I need to make something with it!"  And she set right to work making something which she also gave to her teacher today.  You never know what's going to end up on one of her art pieces, just ask Lovebug, the most frequent recipient of her artwork.  (Explanation to come in a later post....)
That's my girl!

Treats for teachers

 Today was Quinn's last day of kindergarten (for this year).  She'll go back to the same school again next year, but first she'll have "a realllly long spring break" (her words).  We chose these pretty mugs at Ikea for her teachers over the weekend.  Q spent a good long while deciding which color goes to each teacher while at Ikea.  There was also a turquoise one not pictured. 

 Then she decorated cardstock hearts for tea tags.  She had 10 to do and she did them all really detailed--I was proud of her hard work and she was, too!  She was also thrilled to use my sharpees for the project.  :)

 She wrote the tags for the teachers all on her own!  Isn't her writing so cute!

Be still my heart.

Unusually quiet in living room on Monday.  Peeked around the corner to my girl reading one of my nature books. 

Training up our little scientist

Quinn can type most all of the native south Texas wildflowers.  We have a guide to wildflowers in our area and we've had so much fun locating them this spring!  We've been through several "seasons" of different flower types and that girl knows her some flora! 

Our little foodie...

 

The woods where we walk is next to an area where a new subdivision is being built.  Several times we've seen a taco truck making the rounds during lunchtime, and Quinn's greatest unrealized dream has been to eat tacos from the taco truck.  Everywhere we saw one she'd remind me that she was "dying to eat from a taco truck."  (Proud moment for Matt and I, for sure!)  So a few weeks ago we took some cash along on our walk and ran into a taco truck.  Quinn was thrilled!  The "Taco Man" even gave her a free extra taco. :)  She thought it was amazing (they were ok tacos...) and has talked about it since.  

We've also become die-hard Torchy's fans, and Quinn LOVES their salmon taco.  

 All the taco excitement inspired me to turn their little kitchen into a taco stand.  I will post some pics of it soon!

Quinnism

Today at the pool they had free ice cream.  In a moment of weakness we let Quinn have a popsicle (she's not supposed to have sugar) and about halfway through it she had red juice dripping all over the place.  One stream of it ran down her leg. 

Q: Mama, do you mind licking this for me? (holding out her leg to me like it was the most reasonable request in the world)

Ummmm, no, I do draw the line at licking popsicle juice off my children's appendages. 

Beck-bon-mot

bon mot

well-chosen word(s), particularly a witty remark

-Wikipedia 

And I can't resist this clip after a Wikipedia citation....

 

It's one of Matt and my all-time favorite Office quotations.  

Anyhow....welcome to our newest "Bean/Bit Blog" feature--Beck's now talking enough to have his own little spot to record noteworthy comments!

So....he has his own baby doll, which he named Moe.  On the car in Austin over the weekend he was holding Moe.

Me: Beck, what's your baby's name?
Beck: Beck.
Me: No, not your name, what's your baby's name?
Beck: Beck.
Me: Your name is Beck.  What's your BAAAABY'S name? (putting a strong emphasis on the word "baby" so he'd understand what I was talking about).
Beck: Beeeeeeccccccckkkkk (drawing out the word in exactly the same way I had done with "baby.")  Matt and I laughed about that all weekend.  

With Love from Austin

We love to do get-away weekends to Austin and it's come to be our Memorial Day weekend tradition.  So many fun things to do outdoors and just as many great, zany places to eat.   This picture is after eating breakfast at Bouldin Creek Coffee House.  Yum-o.  And we had to park a bit away, so we enjoyed people's lush yards along the walk.  Such as this yard:

 

Matt found a great deal on our hotel room.  We are totally budget motel-ers, so this place was a nice step up with TWO stars and no apparent drug deals in the parking lot.  It also had a little kitchen and we enjoyed the fridge. 

More pics to come!

And more from the lettuce field...{photos by QL}