Glad it is Friday!!!

We've had a crazy week with Nae working a lot of overtime and Mya coming down with yet another ear infection. We were all very happy that Nae got to come home a little early today. Sorry to say though, that he had to use his afternoon to mow our yard. I think our neighbors were probably going to kick us out soon if we didn't get it done. This was the first grass-cutting of the season and both Gabe and Mya were excited to watch . Here they are doing so out our living room window. It was nap time for Mya so after letting her watch for a while I carried her to bed while she was screaming, "Da! Da! Da!"
Aunt Emma sent them these very cute Easter cards which had lots of stickers to place on the farm scene inside. They both had a great time with this and here they are showing off the finished product. Thanks Emma!

This is Gabriel's , "I'm not going to shut my eyes this time." pose.

In our Sunday best

With the changing of seasons, we have been able to get out our spring and summer wardrobes. Here are the kids modeling their new attire. (At least new too them, hand-me-downs are so great!) Mya especially looked so big in her "big girl" dress and socks and shoes. I am going to have to have a crash course in bow-tying, however. Nae took these pictures on the deck Sunday morning before church. It is very difficult to get a picture with both of them looking at the camera without some silly face. Here's the best of what we got.



This is a preview of what the rest of the pictures looked like. In this particular one, they both are looking pretty silly!

A visit from family

We enjoyed a great visit from my Mom, sister Carrie and her little girl RuthAnne this week. The weather was gorgeous and we decided to venture to the zoo on Thursday along with about half of Nashville. I don't think I've ever seen the zoo sooooo crowded. We still had a great day, though and Nae was even able to work only half a day and meet us there. Scroll down to see the pictures that Carrie took.

Here's Grandmama and Gabriel

The four of us with number five making a good showing too :)

Little RuthAnne being her very cute self. She enjoyed her first zoo trip.

By the end of the day both Gabriel and Mya were getting very tired. Here's how Mya enjoyed some rest. And here's how Gabriel got some rest. Thanks for checking out our pictures. Have a great week!

Learning new things

Here's Gabriel trying out his new homemade stilts. He actually did pretty well and made some progress learning to walk on these things. After one , of many, falls he told me, "Boy, am I going to be sore tomorrow!" I had him repeat what he had said because I just couldn't believe that he's said that.
Mya loves going down the slide, and Gabe loves to go down "with" her.
Mya has started enjoying "playing" the piano and she's really serious about it getting out the songbook and everything. She sat here for at least 20 minutes today just playing away.

And here is our multi-tasker playing not only the piano but also his bamboo flute and also shaking his rhythm egg all at the same time. You can only imagine what this sounded like.

I'm a big boy now!!

I always find it funny to hear the things that Gabriel thinks make him a big boy. Some things are probably a result of my saying, "This is what big boys do." Like going to the potty, putting on his own socks and shoes, and just recently brushing his teeth (under supervision of course) and spraying his hair and combing it so that it lays down. Other things, however I'm not sure where they come from. He used to say, "When I'm big like Daddy I can mix Mya's food." Now that would not be on my top ten list of important things to accomplish. Since Mya is now mixing her own food he has moved on to this, at lunch today I was cutting up a pear for Mya and Gabe says he wants to eat his pear, "like a big boy." Sorry the picture is so dark but if you can tell he is just holding the entire thing and biting it. I actually wish he'd thought of this before because it saved me a lot of time having to slice it. Of course, it did mean much more clean up since there was pear juice everywhere! Our little boy is getting so big and amazes us all the time at the things he can now do. And here is our sweet Mya also enjoying a pear, though hers is cut into pieces.

Our last week

We are still enjoying absolutely gorgeous weather here in Nashville. We are going to try to make the most of it this week as I hear it is supposed to get cool again this weekend. We took a trip to the zoo this past Friday - something Gabriel had been begging to do for a while now. On Wednesday, Mya had a little accident in which her fingers were smashed in the sliding door of our van. A quick trip to the pediatrician revealed that they were not broken and in fact by that afternoon looked much better. We did leave the doctor office with an antibiotic, however , as she had an ear infection (yes, again) and a nasty sounding cough. Other than that, our last week has been fairly peaceful. We enjoyed going to the Crooks on Saturday for David's third birthday party. He had a "digger" party and here is Mya modeling her hard hat.
Gabriel must have been so busy playing that we didn't get any great shots of him. This was a milestone, however: his first time eating a hotdog in the bun - looks like we caught him in mid-bite. Another favorite activity this last week has been eating lunch outside on the deck. I think I paid maybe $5 for this picnic table and boy have we gotten our money worth. It's great for painting, playdough, or any other messy craft activity which can be done outdoors and of course it's also nice for eating on and Mom doesn't have all the mess inside to clean up. We just let the birds devour the leftovers. If this continues, we will have some really fat birds!

Sunglasses, Bubbles, and Flips

Here are the kids modeling their new sunglasses we got a couple days ago. Aren't they so funny! I'll put a plug in for The Children's Place where I got both pairs of these for five dollars. At least not much is lost if they get broken which they probably will.

I believe I've posted on here before about this marvelous bubble blower. Few things are improved with batteries, but this is one that is. If your kids are young enough to really just like the bubbles and could care less about blowing them then this will save you a lot of work. I no longer have to stand there and blow all the bubbles.

I just love this picture partly because Gabriel looks so happy but also because I can't believe he can flip all the way over by himself. Last year he couldn't even reach the rings without a little boost and now look at him. We do need to still work on the landing, however, as we've already had some tears after a minor face plant.