Fall photo shoot

I've spent the last few days trying to get some good photos of the kids...a little tricky when the lighting changes so fast, and the sun is only out for 5 minutes at a time. I still want to get a couple more of Zack and Tasha...

Mia breastfeeding already!

So Mia decided she was going to breasfeed (BF) a doll at a playgroup yesterday. Well, she tried to get me to BF it first. Brought it over and held it up to me saying "Nummas!" I thought she wanted to nurse, so I started to pick her up and she said, "No. Baby nummas." I said, "No honey, Mama's nummas are just for you." She thought about that for a second and then unzipped her sweatshirt while saying, "My nummas!" She pulled up her t-shirt and "latched" the doll on with the BIGGEST grin on her face. I was so proud!!

The boys are doing really well with the homeschooling. Dominic has discovered "color by number" activities and is fascinated. He also really likes the "letter chips" we use to practice spelling. I bought some cheap poker chips and wrote letters on them. I made capital letters on the white ones, and lowercase letters on the blue. I thought about doing vowels on red, but then couldn't decide what to do with the "y"...sometimes a vowel, sometimes not...?

I found that Zack was horrifically bored with the first phonics program we were using. We switched to the Kumon series, and he is much more interested and engaged with it.

Everyone is healthy with the exception of the usual sniffles for this time of year, let's hope it stays that way!

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: