The Gang

Scott was out of town this past weekend at Pine Cove for a men's retreat with our church. After coming home for an hour or two, Scott left to go to the airport to fly to Atlanta for the week. 10 days of full-time kid duty with no dad? Quick! Call grandma!

In to the rescue comes MawMaw (my mom). I snapped this pic of her with the kids after bath time.

Digging a Garden

Cade is such a sweet boy (when he's not yelling at Jack). He, Jack, Claire, and Scott bought me the cutest garden gnome (I've been wanting one for a while now) for Christmas. But I told Cade that I didn't have a garden in the backyard in which to put the gnome. So he took it upon himself to make the garden happen.

He sought out his trust plastic shovel and his safety goggles (safety first!). And he got to work digging.







After about 10 minutes, he declared that it was hard work. And the inch or two that he had excavated from our backyard was good enough for my garden. So in went the gnome.





Cade took this picture of Jack & I standing near my garden. Not bad for a 4 year old!


And the gnome still stands in the garden today. Only, he's laying on his face right now in the garden because we had really gusty winds today.

Bubblicious

Cade has been begging and begging me to play with bubbles outside. The weather has been kind of cold and windy, but there was finally a day this week that was at best mediocre. So outside we went with bubble gear in hand.

The boys had a blast.







And then I turned around to see my first born doing this:



Can you guess what he's doing? Yes, that's correct. He is trying to blow bubbles out his rear.



That's my boy.

A Day in the Life

At any given moment of any given day, the following is probably happening at my house (these pictures were taken within 10 seconds of each other; I literally pivoted in place to take these):

Sittin' Pretty

Our little lady is sitting! She's still a bit of a weeble-wobble, but she's doing great and I'm so proud of her!

It's Been a While

Sorry folks. It's been kind of a rough few weeks. But we're back in black and ready to roll.

Here are a few of the last pictures I've taken around the house. Nothing to win a Nobel Peace prize over, but it'll show you the utter excitement and fabulous lives we've been leading.

On this particular morning, I had taken a shower (it was time for my weekly cleansing), which I normally take at night. I was then reminded of why I take a shower at night. Not only did I have an audience (we have an enclosed shower with clear, see-through, "you're on stage" doors), but Claire screamed her head off during the entire ordeal. By the time I got out of the shower, Claire had cried herself into a comatose state lethargy. So the boys fetched their Cars blanket and wrapped her up in it. They also hunted and dragged back every single stuffed animal they could find and piled them on top of her and surrounded her. She actually ended up taking her nap just like that on the floor.

And yes, Cade is wearing a "Ladies Man" shirt.





This was some kind of crazy tower that Cade built. I was quite impressed with it's creativity and ability to defy gravity. I ended up accidentally breaking it while trying to move it. But point to my big boy: he didn't cry. He said, "Bummer. Well, I guess I can build another one!" Maturity, sweet maturity.




This is Cade standing in a box with a horrible fake smile. He wanted me to take a picture of him in the box. Done.




Claire Bear is starting to sit on her own. She's still very wobbly, but she's doing better each day. Here are some really dark pictures taken just moments ago. Yes, that's a crusty booger on her right shoulder. And no, I don't know to whom it belonged.

Our Little Girl

Claire is now 6 months old and she is looking more and more like a little girl instead of our little baby! She is enjoying tummy time a lot more these days, but since she's teething, she's been quite grumpy. But here are some cute recent pics of our little curly-headed pumpkin.








We also recently took her for the 4month check up. Yes, we're two months late on that one. Oh well. Third kid; what do you expect? Claire is 17.5 pounds (75%) and 27" long (90%). She's a big girl!

Fort Bliss (not that Ft Bliss)

Like any red-blooded boy, our boys love anything they can climb into, climb under, hide in. So Daddy built them a fort with some of our benches/coffee table, a blanket knit by Scott's mom, and our Christmas decoration storage boxes. At least it kept them out of our hair while we were getting Christmas decorations put away!

Big Girl, Big Girl Food

Our Claire Bear is now 6 months old, which means bring on that yummy baby food. Oh, that sweet mush of random flavors. But we first start with a delectable serving of rice cereal. Claire looks a little like a deer caught in headlights.



But she humored us by taking a few bites.




Claire actually pretended like she enjoyed her introduction to big people food.

A Second Christmas

Our good friends Roger & Tammy gave our boys a HUGE set of GeoTrax that their boys had outgrown. Saying that it was like Christmas all over again when the boys discovered the GeoTrax is an understatement. Our hallways were covered and littered with tracks, iron mills, airports, cargo trains cars, engines, cranes, clock towers, mountain chalets, and roundhouses.

The boys have been busy for days. Yoohoo!

Batter Up!

Jack got a t-ball set for Christmas, but Cade has really taken to it. My number one rule is that Cade must look to see where Jack is before wielding the bat. So far, no major damage to life or limb . I'll send an update on this after our first inevitable emergency room visit.

Post-Christmas Morning

After the carnage was picked up (wrapping paper was everywhere), MawMaw started cooking a fantastic Christmas lunch.




The kids played until they passed out...




Some of the cute presents included:
a gnome for my yard!

cute girly flip flops for Claire!

UT hats & tees for the boys! Cade's got the hang of doing 'hook em'... Jack, not so much.



Daddy and I helped put together a battery-operated Thomas train set. Lots of work, but thankfully, lots of pay-off.


Scott received a combo checkers & chess set, and so he taught Cade how to play checkers. Strategy still eludes Cade, but he has a good time anyway. Anytime Scott jumps his chips, Cade says in an exasperated voice, "But Daddy, I'm trying to win!"


After all the playing, we vegged on the couch...


But then it was time to go go go again, and out we went to help Cade ride his new super cool bike.