Newest Additions

No, not kids...furniture! We found these on Craigslist.com and got quite a bargain, I think. They're mahogany and are from the 40s. The china cabinet is in great shape. The buffet needs a little bit of love. But I've called in our furniture repair guy to work his magic. I love them!

Little Missy

I don't even have a story to go along with this... I just love her look. It's so her!

Time Out for Hugs

New in February

Since Charlotte turned 16 months on February 9th, she's become a big girl in so many ways. It's as if some switch clicked in her brain. She's down to a single nap. She no longer wants to be held. She only wants to "walk, walk" and hold hands. Usually it's the three of us holding hands, although Nicholas has a tough time walking slowly enough for her! One frustrating thing is that she has started wanting to stand up to go up and down the stairs, both of which require that I be holding her hand. I'm so used to her just crawling up and down that to watch her whine at the top of the two (yes, two) stairs down into our family room is a bit much. Usually she gives up, sits down, turns around and goes down on her tummy on her own. But she has also learned to throw some serious big-girl tantrums over just about anything.


Charlotte all of the sudden has learned to sign "please", "eat", "all done" and "milk" (although she uses the sign for "more" to mean "milk"...I decided since we're not exactly communicating with official ASL, that it was good enough and we'd just go with that!) When her "ma-ma" can currently mean: more, milk, Mama...or anything else that starts with 'M', having the milk sign is really cool! Some of her (and my!) favorite spoken words are cookie, backpack and ra-ra (for "frog"). She talks more every day.


After we turn the lights off and are rocking in her room before bedtime, we sing a little prayer song. Charlotte now contributes to the Thank You, God song. She usually asks to sing for our family members, but mostly is thankful for cookies and frogs.


And not to leave Nicholas out of this post... He has learned how "I'm sure" is used. This may seem minor, but try having this conversation:


Do you want more milk?
No.
Are you sure?
No, I'm not sure.
So you might want some more?
No, I said!


Now it goes:

Do you want more milk?
No.
Are you sure?
Yes, I'm sure.


Not sure how this finally righted itself in his mind, but we're happy it has happened! He's also obsessed with drawing pictures of caves and volcanoes and telling us all about them.


It's so fun to watch the kids change and grow. The time is sure flying...

Daddy's Disneyland

What could be more fun that a family trip to Bass Pro Shop? Tom has decided he wants to learn to fly fish, so we went to BPS to check out the equipment. Nothing like a good half hour of free entertainment!

Animals, animals all around. Charlotte loved her first Bass Pro Shop visit

Driving boats

and ATVs

This is from Oct, 2006 in Branson - Nicholas and my first time in a Bass Pro Shop

That's one big bear

The kids and I spent time looking at the fish while Tom looked at the fly fishing equipment

Fish Kisses! (totally unstaged, I'll have you know!)

Piggies For Two

Charlotte really loves pigtails. She wears them most days now. Today she got out the container of elastics...

and wanted me to wear them too! We all agreed that she can pull them off a little better then I can.

Short Sleeve Weather

As we drove home from school today, Nicholas mentioned that since it had gotten so warm since he'd dressed for school (it hit 70 degrees today), he'd like to change into short sleeves on the top when he got home. I said that would be fine. Then he added - "I think I'll wear short sleeves on the bottom too." And he did!