Ten of the Cutest Kiddos Around

We had a blast with family in Idaho, and my kids enjoyed their cousin time:-).  More to come on that later.

My Baby is Three!

Somehow in the hustle and bustle that was this month, I missed posting anything about my baby boy turning three.  That cute smile of his makes me happy :-).  Cameron is active, full of energy, and always into mischief.  He keeps me hopping and often finds himself in trouble, but he is also a sweet mama's boy and loves to snuggle.  He is smart and likes figuring things out... I'm pretty sure every flashlight in our house has been disassembled and he is a pro at replacing batteries.  If he can get his hands on a screw driver he will use it to open the battery compartment of all his toys and remove the batteries.  He loves to be outside and loves his big brother and sister (sometimes... when he's not torturing them... and when they are letting him have his way).  He loves his "bwu" (blue) blankee, cars, balls and playing outside.  He loves to sing and does it loud and proud, even if not always right on tune. His favorite foods are bananas, eggo waffles, peanut butter sandwiches, and "square crackers," or graham crackers.  He hates shoes and vegetables.  Happy Birthday big boy!

The Serious Concerns of a Sweet Five Year Old

Steven, as he was saying his prayers before bed last night: "Please bless Jesus that he will remember my name." I love that kid.

Hello, dear blog, my little spot on the world wide web.  Has it really been 7 months since I last visited you?

I'm not sure why I took an unplanned hiatus from blogging, other than being busy and having so little time, of course.  But I have the sudden desire to pick this little site up again.  I was reading through some old posts last week and I realized that I love having a record and being able to look back on the stages my kids were going through at various times.   And maybe I will think of some other things to post about as well.  Perhaps.  But for now, hello again, dear blog.  I have missed you.

Milk Addict

This little boy LOVES milk. Yesterday I was trying to get him to leave Elise and Steven alone for a bit as he was pulling everything off the shelves in Elise's room and making a huge mess.  I resorted to bribery and asked him if he wanted to come with me and get a treat, maybe some M&Ms.  He looked at me and said, "Ummm, how about milk?"  Sure Cameron, done.  If you'd rather have milk than M&M's, go right ahead.  He is a funny kid!

Arboretum

We have made a few trips to the arboretum, and I must say, my kids are just LOVING the peacocks.  They even try to make the really loud peacock noises at home.  We have had a peacock roaming our street recently, so peacocks are really just everywhere right now!  

Their other favorite stop is the waterfall.

As you can see from this photo, I have to keep Cameron on a leash lately.  He just takes off running and doesn't stop.  I don't know where this boy gets his energy from!

 This trip to the arboretum was with Elise's best friend Julia and her twin brother Jack.  Steven was at school, so he missed out this time.

We also went once with cousin Hannah when she was here visiting.  Fun, fun!

A Big Long Summer Fun Post

Summer has just begun, but Steven starts summer school tomorrow so we have squeezed a lot of fun into a few days.  Here are some of the highlights.

We have gone swimming in the little pool in our backyard.

    

We have made playdough creations:

 

 We had a paint party where the kids painted on canvases and rocks on the back lawn.  It was messy, but fun!

 We made a fort under Elise's bed and Elise and Steven had a slumber party in it:

There is still a lot of summer left, and we hope to fit in some more good fun.  We have been off to a good start this week!

Look Who Turned Two!

I can't believe my  baby turned two this week.  I guess that makes him a toddler and not a baby.  At two years old Cameron has definitely entered the terrible twos.  His two favorite things to say are, "I don't like it," and "Go away."  He is very verbal and is talking up a storm, and he lets you know when something is not going his way.  He is fairly stubborn and likes to do things his own way, like put the strap to the Mickey hat pictured above under his nose instead of his chin.  If I try to correct him he has a little tantrum and tells me to "Go away."  Yep, still wondering where he picked up on that charming little phrase.  He loves the water, loves Mickey Mouse, and adores the show "Jake and the Neverland Pirates."  He will bring me the remote and say, "I want Jake," all the time.  He is constantly amazing me by the things he learns and picks up so easily.  He can count to ten, sing most of the alphabet song, knows tons of words, and speaks in sentences.  He loves to sing - his favorite song is Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  However, unfortunately for him, he can't even come close to carrying a tune.  That's okay, it is still fun to hear him attempting to belt out a song.  He is a fantastic snuggler and has figured out the art of charming people to get his way.  When I put him in his crib at night if he wants to stay up he will tell me, "No, I don't like it... I want to snuggle."  Who could resist that?  He loves his milk, his binky and his blankie like no other.  I think the binky needs to go soon but I think taking itaway might actually be more painful for me than for him, so we will just have to see when I get to that.  He has a great laugh and is a fun boy.  We love you Cameron!

Love These Kiddos!

You're A Block Head, Charlie Brown!

This kid makes me laugh.....seriously.

A Plan Gone Bad

Elise never eats her lunch at school.  Never.  She would rather go to recess.  She has a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then doesn't eat again until 7 hours later when she returns home from school.  Unless, of course, I put cookies in her lunch.  Then she eats those and nothing else.  I have tried everything.  I even ask her what I could put in her lunch that she would eat, but it never works.  This bothers me for many reasons.  The first is obviously that this can not be healthy, and I'm sure her hungry brain couldn't possibly be functioning at it's best.  But beyond that, I get tired of making lunches everyday which don't get eaten.  In a moment of frustration this morning while making her lunch I told her that if she didn't eat her peanut butter sandwich for lunch today then she would be eating it for dinner tonight.  And guess what?  She didn't eat it.  So I got it out at dinner and put it on her plate to which she exclaimed, "Yes! I'm so glad I didn't eat my sandwich for lunch!  Now I don't have to eat a yucky chicken quesadilla!"  Yep, I think I just rewarded her for not eating her lunch.  What I failed to consider was that my picky little eater loves peanut butter sandwiches, and cries about what we have for dinner at least 80% of the time.  Maybe I should have saved it until Monday and put it in her lunch again then.  Three day old sandwich can't be good.  But then she probably wouldn't eat her lunch Monday anyway so she probably wouldn't even care.  Maybe I should save myself some trouble by making her one lunch per week and just letting her take the same one all week long.  Do you think someone at the school would report me for some sort of strange child abuse or neglect?

Steven, The Bear Slayer

Okay, maybe he's not so much bear slayer as he is a bear chaser, but either way it's pretty impressive for a four year old.  Let me explain.  On Friday Steven asked if he could go check the front porch for mail.  I told him sure.  he went out the front door, and about two minutes later he came in saying there was a bear out there.  Steven has a good imagination and we hadn't seen a bear around our house in two years, so I was certain there was not really a bear out there, but I humored him by saying, "Really, come show me where."  We went outside and there was no bear, so I asked him where he saw the bear.  He pointed right next to our front porch next to the big tree in front.  I told him I didn't see a bear, and asked him where it went. He said, "I chased it away!"  I laughed and of course still didn't believe him, but playing along I told him he was very brave.  About twenty minutes later it was time to walk down the street to get Elise from school.  I started down the street and noticed a police car parked in the middle of our street.  Then I noticed the animal control vehicle parked on the side of the street.  Sure enough, there was a baby bear in a tree at the bottom of our street.  Hmmmm..... now I'm wondering if Steven really chased it away or if he made that part up.  I guess I'll never know, but it makes for a good story.  We have since had several conversations about what the appropriate response would be should he see a bear in our yard again.  Which by the way, is not petting it as he suggested when I asked him what he thought he should do if he saw it again.

Steven standing in front of our house with animal control and a police car across the street.  This picture was taken after the geniuses scared it out of the tree at the bottom of the street causing it to run back up the street and down the alley towards the elementary school  just as all the kids were pouring out and many were headed down the alley towards their homes (including us!).  The officers chased it back up towards our house to keep it away from the kiddos.  Smart.

Animal control guy across the street with his useless bean bag gun.

Steven on our front porch watching it all with his other bear friend.

 A really  bad picture of the bears bum as he ran away, taken with my phone.

Quiet

It is 7:05 and all of our kids are actually in bed.  It has been a rough afternoon.  Hopefully tomorrow is happier... maybe if everyone gets a good night's sleep there will be less weaping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth come 4:00pm tomorrow.  We can only hope.

The Newspaper Business

Elise just told me that when she grows up she either wants to be a newspaper writer or a newspaper thrower. At least she has it narrowed down to something in the newspaper business. Maybe we should encourage her to work on her writing skills.

One Down, Five to Go

Day one of Spring Break is checked off our list. We still have five more to go (I'm not counting weekend days as they would be home those days even when they have school). I sort of like not having a schedule for a few days. The kids get up early no matter what so there is just no sleeping in ever, but I can turn on a cartoon in my bedroom and then lay in bed vegging for as long as I can convince them that they are definitely not starving and imminent death is not near if they don't get breakfast NOW. On Friday I got to lay in bed until 7:45 - it was lovely. However, some things are good about being on a schedule too so I am sure I will be ready to send them back to school in a week.

Yesterday we had Outside Day. We had a scavenger hunt outside, which included collecting dead roly polies. Yuck! To be fair, the list just said roly polies, not dead ones, but dead ones were all my kids could find so they picked them right up and put them in their boxes. It is amazing how Elise is afraid of vegetables, but dead roly polies don't even seem to phase her. Cameron ignored the check list and collected lemons from the tree to roll down the slide and dump out of the back of his dump truck.

We had a picnic on the back lawn and ate In N Out. It was fun. We even had shakes. Yep, shakes for lunch. I'm not sure Cameron took a single bite of anything else once I gave him a shake to work on, but I guess that's okay once in a while. And it's not like the fries he was ignoring were such a healthy alternative anyway.

We also played on the slip in slide (it was a little chilly, but the kids insisted), blew and chased bubbles, and did art on the driveway with sidewalk chalk. Fun! All in all, it was a good day. I didn't get much done, but that's okay. There's always next week for that.

Okay, here it goes... are you ready for way more pictures than you ever wanted to see of my kids? I finally got my camera out and I think I went a little crazy with it.