Kids...

I love it when Mia picks her clothes. Today she is in a bright pink sweatshirt with a dog on it, a light pink flowered skirt, and rainbow striped leggings.

The things kids do...

so Dom just comes in from outside and says "Mom, I peed in the tree!" OK...he was playing and didn't feel like coming in. The really funny part is I look outside and there is Mia with her panties down and skirt up trying to do the same thing...good thing our backyard is privacy fenced.

The first fish...

We got the kids fishing poles and went down to the lake for fishing off the pier last week. Dom has a "big boy" Spiderman pole, and Zack has a "bigger boy" pole. Mia's is Barbie.
Mia lost interest rather quickly...

...but when I caught a fish on her pole, she was ecstatic about reeling it in. The boys had a blast and each caught several fish. Dominic was really funny when we were taking pictures of Mia with her fish...he wanted to touch it, but freaked out every time it wiggled on the hook. All in all they had a great time and can't wait to do it again!

My baby isn't so much a baby anymore!

Mia turned 2 on Sunday!! I'm amazed that she is so old already. I feel like I say that every week! She's talking a lot more, and I've gotten pretty good a "Miaese." We also haven't had any potty misses at home in the last three days! I'm content to say she is an "at home" EC graduate. I think we're almost there on outings, she just needs to remember to tell us when we're somewhere new. She's got Nana's/Papa's, our church, and the parks we frequent figured out, it's just new places where we occasionally have misses. Speaking of parks, we took the kids to Cushing Park this weekend, and as usual they had a blast. Mia spent most of her time in the sandbox, and the boys were all over the place...sand, slides, swings...here are some pics:

Today we cleaned the garage and I cleaned my van (pulled the seats out and everything), so now I can park my clean van in the clean garage!! Woo-hoo!!

The kids have spent the whole day playing with the neighbor's kids, and Tasha painted nails...hers and the boys'...purple and pink with silver dots. Mia also got hers painted, and I've never seen her sit still that long at one time.

Joe finally got a picture of her "pouty face" which is a new addition recently. When she gets mad, she crosses her arms and purses her lips up in what she thinks is a pout. We think it's adorable. Here it is:

Tooth news!

Zack lost his first tooth last week! Well, actually he removed it. We were having lunch and he didn't want to eat his sandwich because he said his tooth hurt. When I looked, one of his baby teeth was bleeding and loose. We figured it would be a couple days before it came out...should have known better with that kid! The next day, he said it was bleeding again. A few minutes later he came up to me yelping that "Part of my tooth came off!" Well, it was the whole thing, and I said, "Oh, it fell out already!" He says, "No, I chomped it with my other teeth because it had blood on it." Apparently he didn't like it in there and bleeding so he worked it out with his top teeth. I don't think we'll have any worries about him being freaked about losing teeth!

In other tooth news, Mia has another molar coming in. Unfortunately, she gets fevers with her teeth, so she's been pretty crabby the last couple of days.

We went camping with a group from church a couple weekends ago, and the kids had a blast. The weather wasn't the greatest...it rained from Friday night until Saturday morning, and then it was in the upper 80's and humid, but we had fun anyway. I had a couple of "camping revelations" while we were there.
#1. I will never attempt to use air mattresses for the kids again. We wound up borrowing some bunk bed cots, and they worked unbelievably well. The kids were excited to have their own beds, and everyone/everything was kept dry because it was off the floor. We're going to have to get some of our own!
#2. Packing everything in Rubbermaid totes was the best idea I've had in months, so I'll be doing that from now on.
#3. We need a bigger tent. Ours is pretty big (three rooms, sleeps six adults) but with 4 kids and gear it's a tight squeeze.

I'll get pictures posted soon!

This morning Dom informed me that he wanted to go to the pet store and get a raccoon. He didn't really understand why we can't have one for a pet, since the one outside "already lives here". Our neighbor is presently trying to trap it so he can relocate it.

Zack has started to show a real interest in learning to read and write. He'll ask us how to spell words so he can makes "signs" for around the house. Today he asked what the (Corn Pops) cereal box said, and proceeded to write a sign stating, "I LOVE POPS"...with the 'e' and the 's' backwards. I get "I LOVE MAMA" signs just about every day! He will also write a whole bunch of letters (with the word 'mama' thrown in), and then ask me to read them...he thinks it's hilarious when I speak gibberish.

We've decided to stay here at least another year...our concerns have been addressed, and since we really like the location, we don't feel like moving again. Happily, we've managed to sell, toss, and donate an entire garage space full of crap we've been moving around for the last five years. It feels really good to no longer be bogged down by "stuff." We had a garage sale a couple weeks ago, and it went really well. To help the kids get into the spirit of purging, we told them they could keep all the money made from selling off old toys. They made $50!