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Friday, May 31, 2013

Welcome!

Our family grew by 7# and 15 oz on Wednesday night. Darling baby nephew, Charlie arrived at 7:58 p.m. on his due date. As I'm sure you can tell, he is a very special little boy. I'm smiling to myself imagining all the care he will get from his big sisters. Congrats to Aundrea, Chuck, Alison, and Amelia!


Thursday, May 30, 2013

Theatrical Troupe

Oh, what a dear and sweet group of children. They kind of look familiar, yet...something seems a bit off.

Oh yes, now I recognize them. That's more normal.
Sleep Kids
Angry Kids
Surprised Kids
Scary Kids

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Train Restaurant

We visited the train restaurant in Crown Center while we had our special visitors. The kids were pretty thrilled with our time there.
Yay!
Ordering. This is probably the only place where my kids have seen a phone with a cord.
Of course, no visit is complete without the special hats.  We planned on purpose not to visit during a meal time as the food there is bad.  Well, maybe that's not accurate: actually, the food is terrible.  Our orders were French fries and lime-ade.
So, there is a bit of resemblance between Katie and Tricia, wouldn't you say?
These two five-year-olds' were a cute pair.


Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Catapault

We had some dear friends visit briefly over the weekend. It was so good to see them. The spent plenty of time with the punching bag using it to propel stuff animals, throw pillows, and children into the air.


We made little pizzas for super. 

My boys were so excited to hang out with Jake, Katie, and Ryan.
What a great group of kiddos.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Sweet Baby

Happy! Happy! Happy! Happy! Our little nephew Roebin has arrived! He was born on May 25th at 3AM.  He weighed 6#9oz.  As my sister put it, 'He arrived 3 weeks early but right on time."

Lea was a total rock star during labor.  Her water broke on Thursday and she labored until the wee hours of Saturday night.  This pictures make me tear up everytime I look at them and trust me, I've looked at them a lot in the past few days.
Lea and Ryan are going to be wonderful parents.  My heart is so full thinking about God's masterpiece in this little one and the beautiful new family He's created.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Courtyard

The courtyard at the boys' school is always so lovely. On Wednesday I brought my camera to take their picture after school.
Levi was more than willing to model.  He was coming up with all sorts of poses and suggestions.
Milo was not game.  He had been in a deep, deep sleep when I came to pick him up after school.  Most days he does not nap but on this day he took a power nap.

Yep, this sums up their moods at the time. Do you see the rubber duckies in the fountain?

Milo did eventually rally enough to be interested in bugs they found.

They both are fans of the peonies.  It's been a great year.  I'm very thankful for their time at Rolling Hills.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Growing

Levi on the first day of preschool, September 2012, and then on his last day of preschool, May 2013.


Milo on the first day of his Mother's Day Out program, September 2012, and then on the last day of MDO, May 2013.

Busy Milo

One of Milo's favorite activities lately is drawing small person-like shapes and then carefully cutting them out.

His work station of choice is on the floor.

I'm thoroughly charmed by these.

"I 'raw, Mama"
He's also had to become adept at sweeping because I've been making him clean up all his scraps.  Everybody wins.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Fun with Friends

ARG.  I've been having trouble with blogger.  It looks like I'm finally able to post.

Last Sunday we had dinner with some friends. Between the three families, there were six kiddos ranging from almost-2 to 7 years old. Our hosts brought out not one but TWO motorized toy cars. To say my boys were thrilled would be a gross understatement. It was so fun.

His smile here just melts me.

"Hop in Daria!"
 There was never a dull moment while the batteries lasted.  Also, there were always a minimum of two adults shouting, "Brake"  "Turn" "Watch Out!"
It's bad that I'm jealous of a three-year-old's hair, right?

Levi was thrilled to drive Chloe around.


This picture was taken right after Daria drove them into a tree.

It didn't seem to phase them much.
It took the adults several minutes to compose themselves, though.  We laughed so hard.  Daria was looking over her shoulder, driving straight at the tree.  Milo saw it coming and looked concerned about the impending collision but said nothing. 

Daniel took this shot for us.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Preschool Graduate

Levi still has a couple of weeks of preschool left but this week his teacher hosted an open house to celebrate the end of the year.  The kids performed their songs and each received a diploma.  Levi has really, really enjoyed preschool and has learned a lot.





Levi told me, in all seriousness, that we needed to keep his diploma in a safe place so that he could show it to his future kindergarten teacher.   I'm glad he mentioned that.  During my time at the kindergarten round-up, none of the administrators mentioned there was to be such a rigorous credential checking before he could be enrolled.
Just between you and me, it looks like anyone with access to clip-art and an ink jet printer could probably forge a preschool diploma but you didn't hear that here.