Jack-A-Randa

We had a playdate at the Botanical Gardens last month, and we had such a great time! There was a cute little garden area for kids to enjoy, lots of vast lawns for the kids to run around on and enjoy, a water fountain, a lake, and even some hiking trails! We had a lot of fun exploring and ended our trip with a picnic lunch and an impromptu photo shoot. Here are some photos from our day:

Fun story. Last year Jack was quite enamored of "purple trees". He'd get so excited when he saw them I loved to see his enthusiasm for them! They had been out of season for a while, but when we were at the botanical garden we were thrilled to see that the season for "purple trees" was back! He started exclaiming over them and my mom and I decided that we needed to find out the name of them while we were there. We found a tree that had a nameplate on it and discovered that they were called Jacarandas! Now whenever Jack sees one of these trees, instead of yelling "Look at the Purple Trees!" He yells " Look, it's a Jack-A-Randa!" I'm pretty sure that he thinks these trees were named just for him!

And now, the story of our photo shoot. It started with a plan to get a nice photo of the three boys together. Fathers' Day was coming up, and my mom wanted to get a photo of them to put on a shirt for my dad- he loves wearing his Jack FM shirts but felt bad that he didn't have shirts for Luke or Sam, so my mom was going to give him a shirt that represented all three of his grandsons! First, though, we had to have lunch. Sam and McKenna finished their lunches quickly, and so I started taking pictures of Sam chilling with his cute little girlfriend...

And then Jack Jack finished and saw that Sam was awake and in a huggable position!

See if you can decipher this picture puzzle:


That's right: Jack hearts Sam.

And Sam hearts Jack right back.

So while we waited for Luke to finish his lunch, I decided to get some photos of my boys! Jack didn't want me to take any pictures of him unless Sam was in it, too. I was thrilled, of course, as I really was hoping to get a nice picture of my boys together!

And since Sammy had just turned 4 months old, I needed to get a picture of him by himself! My first attempt didn't escape Jack's attention...

... but luckily Jack was distracted when Austin finished his lunch. While the two of them chased each other around the lawn, I managed to get a shot of Sam... even though he refused to stay on his tummy for me!

Then Luke finished his lunch!

It is never incredibly easy to get a 3 year old, a 10 month old or a 4 month old to cooperate to get their picture taken, but to get them all to cooperate at once is incredibly difficult! Imagine my surprise and delight when we managed to get this in the second frame!

I'd call that a success, wouldn't you?