Snippets...

Tucker celebrated his July birthday in class yesterday. We made firework cookies because his birthday is in July, of course. And we couldn't find the airplane cookie cutter to save our lives.

Charlie sleeping. It's funny. I hear on a daily basis everything from "He has his own look" to "He looks just like you" to "He looks way more like Kyle than even the other two" and mostly "WOW! They are all clones of each other!" So... time will tell.

In the 5 month onesie at almost 5 1/2 months.

Story time.

Hmmmm. Bad idea. I told them they were banned from ever doing this again. After I took a picture.

Someone really, really, really loves his Mimi.

Mother's Day 2011

He voted.

Tuck proudly declared last night that he voted for Mike Hogan in the local mayoral race yesterday. He wanted to know who we voted for. Kyle and I were quite surprised at his interest and knowledge of local politics... We then naturally wanted to know how he decided on Hogan. He said "Oh - we just looked at pictures and picked." While I am grateful that my son is aware of the election and participating in democracy, I am completely horrified that they voted by looking at pictures. I know. They are 4 and 5 year olds. But when one of the candidates is white and the other is African-American it bothers me that he is picking the one that looks like him. He doesn't know why he chose him. He then proceeded to tell us that he knew who was going to win because in his class there "sure were a lot of Mike Hogan votes." Ha! He also asked for us to go buy a paper from yesterday so he could read about the election. It also had a picture of the space shuttle launch from yesterday (which was his main criteria!)

Anyway, it was hilarious and disturbing at the same time. I'm sure all too many Americans choose who they are voting for in a similar manner and I'll have to spend the next 13 years helping form him in to a thoughtful voter and reverse his first voting experience! The race was so close they are now doing a run-off. He doesn't like that there wasn't an immediate result, but it's kind of fun for this poli-sci Mama to teach him something about the political system. Even with our votes canceling each other out :)

Update: Tucker has been all over these election results. He is super sad that Hogan lost.

Old Man

Remember Jackson??? He used to get so much attention. Poor dog.

Game Day

Tuck & his buddy Will -- they were on the Cardinals and now the Rangers together!

Best part of the game... snack time afterwards!

Easy Feet

Have you seen this on TV? Tucker has.

We are walking through Wal-Mart earlier this evening. Tucker runs over to a display of these "Easy Feet" boxes. He excitedly calls me over. He begins telling me in great detail about how he has seen this commercial and we NEEEED one because then he "won't have to do the one-legged crazy dance in the shower" when his feet are dirty from his Crocs and we NEEEEED one because "they (the people on the commercial) say it is Awesome!" I can't even remember all the hilarious comments he made trying to convince me to spend $9.88.

A. Who on earth made the decision to advertise this product during children's programming?
B. Why does this appeal to my 5 year old??

Happy Baby!

Looks like Charlie is going to have the mohawk like Tuck had at this point.

Yard Work

As Daddio started working in the back yard today, Mac went and got geared up and headed out to help. He started with the hammer and hard hat and then when Kyle switched to cutting bushes he came back inside and got his play-doh scissors and tried cutting branches with those. So cute... He watches every little thing Kyle does and copies it perfectly.

New Lens!

I have a ton of work to do to know what I'm doing, but I'm really excited for the possibilities of taking better pictures! The picture above is one example of what it can do -- fade the background with the subject in front in focus. The rest are adorable in subject matter, but not so great on quality!

Lots of brotherly love. Sometimes too much.

Atlanta!

Kyle had a work trip on Monday in Atlanta so we took the opportunity to make a quick trip to visit our friends. First we stopped at The Varsity!

The boys drove this car at Livvy's grandparent's house for literally HOURS on Saturday night.

...Every once in awhile William & Marjorie were allowed a turn.

The kids played some "Red Light - Green Light." It was pretty cute watching them organize this themselves and teach the little ones who didn't know how to play. The oldest participant was 6!

Sunday night William and Tucker were having such a blast together that we left Tucker their for his first slumber party. Girbs documented the evening by text... Tuck had a blast.

While they were partying at the Gituku's house, Mac was reading with Aunt Jess, Livvy and Anna Sims. He had a hard time going to bed without Tucker since they are so used to sharing a room.

T was thrilled Daddio's meeting was near the airport. He asked no less than a thousand times when we would get to go pick him up and see the planes. So we went early and went up on the roof of the parking garage and Tucker was in his heaven for an hour. Planes were taking off on both sides of our car every minute or two. He took MANY pictures on my phone!

Karate Demo Day!

Tuck (& other friends below) showing us their karate moves. This has been a highlight this year -- his preschool offers karate once a week after school.

In the red shirt above is his buddy Kelly. He and Tucker have shared an inside joke for an entire school year. It never gets old to them and it comes from Mrs. Bruno telling them to make their arms "look like a a chicken wing." Kelly's parents share our FATIGUE of this joke. Every time they see each other (often - they live around the corner from us) they yell "Hey Kelly! Looks like a chicken wing!" then crack up. It was funny to us at the beginning, but it has worn old :)
Great balance in this one!

Kathryn & T doing "push ups" :)

Somewhere we have cute pictures of Kathryn & Tucker with their trophies, but I don't know where they are right now.