Saturday, April 28, 2012

for smiles

I haven't forgotten about this wonderful little blog.  I just wish I had more time to write about life and family and all of the craziness that happens living life here; instead, I am choosing to devote my time to the two big guys in my life (God and Nathan) and to the three little ones I love to write so much about.  One of these days, I hope to develop this fabulous schedule and have a perfect well-balanced life where I am that amazing virtuous woman who is grounded in her relationship with the Lord, loves on, cares for, and spends quality time with her husband and kids, manages her home well, and has extra time for hobbies.  Okay, one can always hope, right?  I guess you will have to settle with these little surprise posts.

This post will be a mish-mash of a whole bunch of silly things the kids have been doing lately.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

For quite a while, Letty seemed to only pretend through the influence of her big sister and big brother.  Lately, she has started pretending things on her own.  It has been neat to see her bring her own little things to the kids' play time instead of just doing what she's told to do by her older siblings or following along.  Her first real pretend thing that she does is chew gum.  She'll pretend to get a new piece of gum, unwrap it, put it in her mouth, and start chewing often times chewing for quite a few minutes.  Take a look!  

We love some of the words that Owen says as he has his own way of saying things sometimes.  Our new favorite word he says is "marshmallows."
"marsh marsh mows"  Always makes me smile!

We keep our house pretty cool and since we've had a few weeks of some really nice weather, we turned our heat way down.  The good thing about our house is that we get a lot of sun coming through our windows which adds warmth to our home.  This day it was really cold in our house so the kids came up with the idea of laying in the sunshine to keep warm.  Can they get any closer to the nice warm couch?  I guess you can say, "Desperate times call for desperate measures."
Owen and Ivy created this design.  They had to take a picture of it to show Daddy because they just knew Letty would ruin it before Daddy came home from work.
 A couple weeks ago, it was spring break from school.  My only goal for the week was to spend way less time in our van. We had gorgeous weather so we spent A LOT of time outside around our house mostly playing with anything that was round - anything having wheels or balls.



 Letty's favorite toys to play with in the house are the Little People girls and boys and this yellow Barbie car.  She loves to talk to the girls and boys and ask them if they want to go somewhere and then load them up in the car and drive them around.  So cute!  
 Owen continues to love to play with his animals and people.  He has especially grown interested in dinosaurs.  For his rest time during the day and as a reward for pooping in the potty (that's a whole other story), he gets to choose a movie to watch which he usually picks the Land Before Time movies.  After watching the dinosaur movie, he'll take his dinosaurs and reenact some of the movie or make his own movie scenes.  Very interesting to see! 
Ivy has been playing teacher in her little classroom.  (Of course, I don't have a recent picture of that.) She basically reenacts her days at school with the note on the board from the teacher (in this case, Miss Ivy), the calendar, the special bubble, and jobs for the kids.  She even teaches how to write letters, new word wall words, writer's workshop, P.E., library, art, music, and so much more. 

And, just for fun... 

Are you smiling?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

miss two-wheeler

Look what Ivy can do now...
Did you see?  No training wheels!
 Ivy has been practicing so much and finally got over her fear of falling off of the bike.  What an accomplishment!  I loved seeing the look of pride and joy and confidence on her face once she discovered that she could ride the bike without training wheels!
Great job, Ivy!

Friday, January 20, 2012

an errand day

Today was a very busy errand day!
Do you see our list? We had that many places to go!
The name beside the place was the person who suggested where to go and then that person had to drive us there.
Here's our car...Ivy is in the driver's seat first.
Letty had to bring her baby along.
First stop...DD ~ Dunkin Donuts...
Then, Letty drove us to the Toy Store...
but first she had to make sure the car doors were locked.

Owen found a barrel full of monkeys to buy at the store.
Then, we were off to the Bank...
where Ivy's customer service was superb - greeting us with a big smile!

Then, we went...APPLE PICKING! (Can you guess who chose to go here?)

OWEN...and he was in his glory to go apple picking!
Ivy drove us to our next place - the Post Office!
The Grocery Store was next where Owen had to get bananas and Oreos...

Mommy then had to get to the Laundromat to wash clothes, but Ivy said that she would put the load in for me!  (I hope she's this excited about doing laundry as she gets older!)
Walmart was next up on our list.  Ivy only needed to get a few items so while she was at Walmart, we were to wait in the car.  That is when Owen decided that he would pretend to drive the car and leave Ivy behind, which then started Owen's favorite game CHASE! 

Ivy was NOT a fan of that idea...
while Letty was just along for the ride!
A trip to the Library was next...
After every page, the "Librarian" had to lick her finger to turn the page. 

As we were running out of time, we had to quickly go to the Book Store, the Ice Cream Shop, and the Gym!
Whew!  What a busy and fun errand day it was!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

snowshoe-ing

We FINALLY got some snow, and it was enough for us to go snowshoeing.  (Is that even how you spell that?)  Now that our kids are getting a little older, we are feeling like we can actually get out and do a some things that we enjoy as a family. 
As we walked along, we were looking for tracks that may have been left by wild animals.  Ivy made sure to bring her animal tracks chart to compare the tracks we found to the ones on her chart.  Owen was really wanting to see a moose or a bear, while Ivy was wishing for a deer or a fox.  (Can you not see the difference in their personalities just by the choice of animals they desired to see in the woods?)
Here are a few more shots from our day...

Friday, January 13, 2012

a "knotty" girl

This little one has started a habit of having to not twist but jumble her hair as she goes to sleep at night resulting in a huge knot in her hair in the morning.  Silly girl!  Daddy always wants to cut the knot out, but if we did that, I don't think she would have any hair left! :o)  At least, she doesn't mind the pulling it takes to get the knot out every morning.