Merry Go Round

We went to an outlet mall recently with a carousel. It was interesting because the last time the children had been on one was about a year ago. Andy (who you can just the remnants of his black-eye) was about the same as he was last year. Doug was braver and enjoyed sitting on a horse that moved (last year he sat on a bench). Josie (who had a great time on a moving horse last year) was just not quite sure about the horse going up and down.

Science In Action

Fixing a car
Playing at the water table
Josie spent a long (long long) time playing at the water table
Working a crane.
Building with pipes.

I have no pictures with all three children in them. Every time I went to click a shot with all three...one of them would move to do something that was out of the frame.

What a weekend....

I've had a busy weekend. I think I got a bunch of stuff done on Friday, but I don't honestly remember because it feels like it was so long ago.
Saturday Jim went to a Lay Speaker Training for church so the kids and I went to a story time at a local bookstore for Dr. Suess's birthday, I cleaned out too small clothes from their dressers, we went shopping, and we loaded the back of the truck with donations for the church yard sale for their mission trip. We also did haircuts in the evening.
This morning we woke up to snow. So church was canceled and the donation items are in the back of the truck but that's a step closer than they were. Now to get a bunch of other things (like grading and laundry) done today. We did take some time to play in the snow. We sort of took it in small doses because my kids are not used to the cold and the snow was very wet and the wind bitingly cold. Josie didn't want to go in and kept saying "my playing, my playing." The snowman was originally as tall as Josie, but after each time that he got knocked down he got shorter and shorter.

Josie!

Pictures on the playground

No...we haven't had a chance to go get a camera (it's on the to-do list), but the kids are going to be included with some changes they are making to our church bulletin so my cute kids had their pictures taken.

Sorta Pictures

I finally downloaded pictures from the kids' camera that they got for their birthday. There were several pictures that I couldn't tell what they were of and of course lots of pictures of butts and knee-caps. However, there were also some pictures with interesting composition and some that were quite good. The biggest limitation is that the resolution on the camera is not that great at it's lowest setting...which of course is the default setting. The playground pictures were taken by mommy, but the other two were the kids. I might post some of the "artistic" ones tomorrow.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

We went to the zoo! Some friends (Peter, Traci, and Danielle) from where we lived before treated us to a visit to the zoo as a birthday present for the kids. We met them at the zoo that is sort of in between our two cities. We spent the whole day there...we got to ride a train, Traci and the boys went on a camel ride, we ate a lovely picnic, saw a bird show, rode the carousel, and saw ALL of the animals. The boys' mantra was "let's see MORE animals." Jo napped a little but the boys just kept going and going and going. We ate dinner at a restaurant near the zoo but Andy slept through most of it because he fell asleep almost as soon as we left the zoo parking lot. Doug fell asleep just before we got back home. I think the boys' favorite part was the train ride (Mommy: What was your favorite animal? Andy: The train!)

Jo really, really liked the carousel. she wanted to get back on again when it was over.

Belated Easter

So I actually just packed up the Easter Eggs and Baskets and we just ate the last of the kids' Easter candy yesterday (mostly because I wanted to pack up the plastic eggs...though mommy and daddy have some candy still stashed away). I also finally got around to getting the pictures off the camera. We went to a church Easter Egg Hunt so that is where these pictures are from. The boys were actually more interested in hunting the eggs in the older kids' area rather than the area that was intended for them. Jo found a few with help and a little girl gave Jo one from her basket (which Jo had a death grip on for the rest of the time we were there). They got to paint pictures and the picture of Andy at the table is where they were decorating cookies.

My guys

Here are a few more of the professional pictures we took with Nana.

Today I had to go pick up something on campus while I had all of the kids. So I strapped Jo on my back and the boys walked with me. I can't park anywhere close to the building I work at so we parked and rode the campus bus. Of course the boys where very excited about this. They have only been on the bus once before. That time we were looking for something cool and free to do (it was hot and we were still in the RV at that point). That time we got on the bus, rode a big loop, and got off. This time it was a bit more complicated because we had to get off, go to my desk, and then walk back to the bus stop and get back on. The boys did a good job of staying with me. They did swap seats a few times but they both enjoyed seeing things out the window and Doug comments "This seat comfortable mommy". When we got on the bus both times for some reason pretty much all of the other passengers were college age girls. Let's just say that was an audible "ahhhhh" when we got on. Doug was very appropriately wearing his shirt that says "Ladies Man" on it. He had quite a little chat flirting with the girls sitting near us on the bus.

Hmmm....

So here I sit...trying to upload a little video I tried with my digital camera. It is not super great or anything, but something I decided to try. It just says processing....processing...processing....

So I think I will abandon the film until tomorrow (since I am up too late already) and just put in a few pictures of my goofy bunch. Andy has really started acting goofy for cameras and is very interested in seeing what the picture looks like after it is taken (gotta love digital cameras). Doug just likes being silly and playing with Jo (who wants to egg her brothers on). It actually takes a bit of time to get Jo settled down after putting the boys to bed. She is happiest while we are saying good-night, being up on the bed with Doug. She will lean into him and flirt, and then will hold onto his headboard and jump up and down with a huge grin on her face. She has also taken to "helping" me with the laundry. She will lean in (sometimes almost falling in) to the basket and then pull something out. She will then hold it up to me and when I take it and say "thank you" she will get a huge smile on her face and reach in for something else. Andy's eyes are closed in the picture because I told him to smile so he put on his biggest cheesiest smile. And of course Doug is very into trains. I actually came across a newspaper article about model trains that had a picture of my dad on it with a train on his shirt and holding a train. My dad passed away before the boys were born and Doug shares his name and love of trains with my dad. When I showed the boys the picture Doug said, "my trains" and then said "need freight cars."

Jo Update

Jo is progressing along nicely. She is very keen on doing whatever her brothers are doing and she already knows she will get a reaction out of them if she tries to join them (most of the time they are ok with this, but occasional I get called in to referee a "Jo trying to get me").
These pictures I've had for awhile but hadn't found an opportunity to post them until now.
Jo is now not just crawling, but pulling up, cruising along, and even standing for several (getting longer) seconds. She can crawl up the bottom two steps to the landing at the bottom of the stairs, but until two days ago she hadn't been able to make the next step (which is a little higher than all of the other steps). Now that she can make it, for her own safety, I am having to block the steps off completely (before I could get to her on the landing before she got to close to the edge).

It's tooth brushing time in Alabama

OK, so imagine singing the title...yes, we can make up songs for just about everything.

Brush, brush, brush your teeth til they're nice and white! Scrub the tops, scrub the bottoms, do it every night. (sing this to the tune of Row, Row, Row your boat)

Let's Go!

Who needs toys when you have a cardboard box?

It was supposed to be a car and the wheels actually turned and everything...but we never actually got around to attaching all four wheels and after a couple of hours the box was pretty limp and bruised.