Hello, Fredbird!

Pottery Barn Kids has a whole line of MLB bedding and accessories, so to celebrate, they brought Fredbird (the Cardinals mascot) to the store by our house. We dressed the kids up in their Cardinals gear and away we went!

The kids colored Fredbird pictures. Nicholas thought meeting Fredbird was cool from the start.

Charlotte was a little nervous about "be-bir". She looked to Nicholas for protection.

Fredbird tried to convince her that he was a good bird. He even tried coloring with her!

Notice how her chair has to be a little away from Fredbird!

Charlotte wasn't up for a picture, but Nicholas was happy for once to pose.

We had a fun morning, and despite her lack of enthusiasm at the event, Charlotte has talked about "be-bir" ever since we left!

80 Degrees!

Our warmest day of the year hit today. Nicholas is VERY fond of pointing out the temperature (we have an indoor/outdoor temperature system in the kitchen). He especially likes saying "It's in the 70s!" and likes to determine which temperatures warrant coats, shorts, etc. Well 80 degrees certainly warranted shorts, so we took to the yard.

You'd think it was Spring, right?

Action shots for Nicholas. He's very anti-posed-photo right now.

Willing the ball to go over the neighbor's fence

Charlotte has recently discovered chalk.

Such fun!

Girl Time

It seems like most of Charlotte's daytime life has centered around napping, running Nicholas to and from school, going places (but then having to keep up with Nicholas) or running errands with me. Since we're 100% done with morning nap (she goes down about 1:00 now for her only nap) I decided we really needed to focus on doing fun things together when Nicholas is at school. We went to the park on Wednesday morning. I realized then that it was the first time we'd ever been to the park without Nicholas with us. She got to wander and do whatever she wanted, without worrying about staying near her brother. It reminded me of what it was like back when Nicholas was this age. She had so much fun being totally in charge just like he used to! Today we went to the Discovery Room at the Science Center. I've gone with just Nicholas recently (when we had an IMAX date) and we spent the entire time racing cars down an incline. The entire 45 minute session. Racing cars. With Charlotte we moved around the whole room: playing music, sorting pretend food into piles, rolling balls through tubes, building structures out of magnets. We both had such a good time. Charlotte LOVES Nicholas, and often asks for him when we're not all together, but this week certainly reinforced how special our time alone is and how it shouldn't always involve grocery shopping!

4 1/2 ? Really??

Something about this picture makes Nicholas look about 9. And no boy ever looked more "boy" hitting a pink tennis ball.

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