May - Up to no good

We had an eventful month in May. We started it out with a visit to a Belgian Blue-bell forest. It’s a spectacular little forest just outside of Brussels with flowering plants that blossom every spring. We spent an hour hiking around and enjoying the blanket of purple-blue covering the ground. Jay only sneezed once or twice and James enjoyed looking around.

While Jay labored hard to save the free world, Emily went on several outings with a group of women from our ward. She visited a tapestry factory outlet just over the border in France. It definitely proved to be tapesterific. Em bought a couple of items but mostly wandered around wondering how the stuff was made. Fortunately, she happened upon the factory’s loom museum where a man showed the ladies how the machines worked. It was really amazing but also very loud…Buster didn’t like that part.

Emily also visited the royal gardens Leopold II built during his reign. He started out bringing plants from his personal colony in Africa and needed a place to house them. The gardens and greenhouses grew from there and are truly spectacular. The greenhouses are mostly linked and the complex is huge and covers acres of land.

Em and Buster also visited an abandoned castle (Beersel). Apparently Victor Hugo stayed there at one time and did some writing…although not any of his famous pieces. Em and Buster also visited a chocolate factory with an outlet. Em reports that the place smells awesome! Three kilos of chocolate costs 30 Euros. Any takers?

Buster James keeps growing. He’s got a little snaggle-tooth breaking through his lower gum. So far, he’s not too grumpy about it. Buster still doesn’t sit unassisted, but maybe it’s because he just gets bored with sitting. He has started to get up on his hands and knees and dive for stuff… so we don’t think it will be long before he’s crawling. Buster has a funny personality and makes really funny faces. The problem is that whenever we get a camera out to catch them he goes stone-serious. Just before bed time he giggles and laughs like a crazy person. It really makes the exploding poopie diapers worth it. You’ll be glad to know that with the onset of solid food something else becomes more solid…well you get the picture. Of course, nearly all of you have experienced this already and the others will have the opportunity to very soon.

Here's a video of him jumping like a fool.