Summertime

We are about 2 weeks in to summer and so far it is the perfect combination of kicking my butt and sweet moments with my children. Many of these sweet moments are when they are sleeping because we are at a point in life when every 15 minutes there is some sort of break out of fighting over something. And usually, thanks to Mac, that fighting turns in to violence. So I spend a lot of my time explaining that life isn't fair and trying desperately to keep Charlie safe! Within that 15 minute period there is often 1 minute of tenderness between brothers. I'm trying hard to focus on that moment! Ha! I always bring out the camera if I think I might be able to capture 3 or more pictures of them being sweet to each other -- and then put them on the blog to show how much they love each other.



The new slip-n-slide from Mimi is out daily. Last night there was an impromptu 5:30 party on our lawn (so classy) with about 8 kids and fathers. Tucker loves all the kids over so he can be in charge of all the activity. It's much more fun than just directing Mac around.



This is how Charlie is sleeping these days. Precious. Now if he could just remain sleeping through the night!

Cousin Extravaganza

Casey & Betsy's Crew drove down to spend a few days with us over Memorial Day. It was so fun to be with them -- of course the children were in heaven. We swam & played & slipped-n-slided. For the entire day before they arrived, Mac was a tiger and Tucker was spiderman. Thankfully Cia wasn't too scared and they started running around immediately as a clan!









They love holding hands!
...can't stop taking pictures of cutie Taylor!

The last night of the slumber party -- Tucker turning the pages as the CD reads them Thomas.

Happy Friday!

...I think we will go get Tuck-man a hair cut today.

6 months old

15 pounds, 6 ounces (small!)
90th percentile height
Has started real food... avocados, sweet potatoes & peas so far
Can "crawl" to anything a foot or two away
Grabs EVERYTHING
Starting to sit up for short periods
Still waking up in the night....grrr.
Smiles and laughs at anything his big brothers do
So laid back and easy
Loved, loved, loved!

Preschool Graduation Take 2!

Our two-time PreK 4/5 graduate had a blast his last week of school. It began with a fun class picnic/field day. These are his good buddies Vinnie, Bert, Cam & Grant!



Tucker & Christian after the waterslide!


A big hug from Mimi!

A last picture with his best friend at school, Christian. Christian and Tucker have such a sweet friendship and we will really miss him next year. They weren't even in the same class, but Tucker always made sure they were playing together on the playground, sitting next to each other on the bus or at any pther all-4s function! I think the only two times he told me he didn't have a great day were days that Christian was absent!

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.