Busy, Busy "Bee"-lievers

We had a great time spending the week down in Indiana with our good friends the Seiler's. The oldest 4 kids spent time each morning buzzing around their Bee Themed VBS while Karen and I got some time with our "babies." It might have to be an annual tradition as the kids still ask to listen to their CD of songs from the week.

Tommy and Brooke hanging out in their super cool VBS t-shirts.

Brooke and Sammie picking "flowers"

Our babies - Lincoln and Allison

"Baby" Allie turned 2!!

One side note - I couldn't figured why I was so exhausted every morning around 10 a.m....turns out Karen drinks decaf coffee in the morning. By Wednesday, I figured that out and was functioning much better for the remainder of our trip. Nothing like being made fully aware of an addiction to caffeine!

Fully trained!

Both kids are able to declare themselves "trained" on something that we've been working on for a while.

Clayton is officially potty (and poo poo) trained! And it only took 14 months - who knew that bedrest, a new baby, new house, and new school could throw things off track a bit! I'm so excited that our diaper/pull-up bill is finally starting to decrease.

And Brooke is officially proficient on her bike without training wheels! She is so proud to be able to go up and down the curb from the driveway into the cul-de-sac. We're working on endurance right now so that she and daddy can take a trip on the bug line.

Clayton has become pretty quick himself on his new spiderman bike and is very anxious to learn to ride without training wheels as well - perhaps we'll look into that by the end of the summer?!

Daddy Camping Trip 2010

The men of our Sunday school class went on their 2nd annual Daddy Camping Trip. Rain late on Saturday afternoon ended the trip a bit earlier than planned for a few of the daddies, but they had a great time nonetheless! They fished, swam, hiked, and ate. (And mommy enjoyed some quiet time with just Lincoln...why did I ever think having one child was difficult?! I suppose it's all relative.)

Life as an at-home mom

So how does one spend their time as an at-home mom...

Here was a project I worked on the other day...

If you had told me 6 years ago that this was what I had signed up for, I would have laughed - heck, I am laughing! And by the way, after much thorough scientific evaluation (i.e. having Clayton play with the toy again) the Gorilla brand "super glue" is one of the few that works on plastic to plastic. Buzz Lightyear recently lost both of his arms and his helmet...a half bottle of Gorilla glue later and he's back to racing to infinity and beyond....although the laser and karate chop action aren't quite as functional as they once were. Boys...definitely different than girls.

Graduation Day!

Brooke's preschool graduation day has come! Their class had an official ceremony for all of the parents to attend. I wish I had remembered the flip or camcorder because they sang a cute little song of "Oh we're ready" to the tune of "Oh My Darline Clementine." One of Brooke's teachers this year, Ms. Megann, was also her 3 year old teacher 2 years ago. She changed rooms in 2008 and we were fortunate enough to have her again this year. After graduation Ms. Megann and I were reflecting on how far Brooke has come over the past 3 school years. On Brooke's first day of preschool (at almost 3 yrs old) when I came to pick her up, Ms. Megann had to ask me to work with Brooke on staying dressed during the school day. Apparently in the playground sandbox Brooke got a little dirty and decided that the next logical step would be to strip naked - so she did... She has also come a long way in each of the play stations - originally her favorite activity would be to dump out all of the toys in any given area and then move on to the next station. My little girl that was in speech lessons and perfecting potty training has grown up into a reader and writer with such an intense curiosity about the world around her.

I'm a little sad that this season is over for us but I'm also SO excited to see all that she will learn (and teach me) as she heads to kindergarten. She can't wait to get there and try to learn everything about everything.

June 2010

April 2008

9 months already!

Lincoln went for his 9 month appt yesterday. WOW has the time flown by. On our vacation to Florida he learned to crawl, so we were quick to get baby gates up when we got home. He's pulling up on almost anything that will allow for it (and some things that won't.) He eats three meals a day with us and his hit rate of actual food into his mouth has become much better. I LOVE how excited he gets when he sees the box of Kix coming his way. He weighed 19 lbs 6 oz and was 28" long. That works out to about 30-40th percentile and then of course his head measurements were in the 95th percentile. Good thing Clayton paved the way on that and all his hand-me-down shirts came pre-stretched! Lincoln is such a sweet little boy - HE sings to ME as I dance with him before bed; he still cries pretty much only when tired or hungry; he'll sleep 11-12 hrs at night and then give me 4-5 hrs of naps (usually between the 2) each day; he's great with independent play and really has shown no separation anxiety so far...