Volcanos and lizards oh my!

Here is our much talked about volcano for the letter V which after all the hype, I think the kids were a little bit disappointed with. I had tried to stress that it wasn't going to actually explode and instead bubble, but I still think they had it built up in their minds so much when we actually poured the vinegar in Gabe said , "is that all it's going to do?" They did give Nae a very animated play-by-play, though. This is the "black wizard" or "black widow" depending on who you talk to, that loves to sun itself on our front porch. Gabe discovered that it likes to climb under a certain rock and now is constantly going out to, "see if the lizard has come back, yet." They were quiet excited to finally get a picture of the lizard since we've been trying to do so for two days. I have a feeling this poor guy won't stay at our house very long.
Alena is to the stage where she loves to pull all the books off the shelf and then pick a few of her favorites and blabber away as she looks at them. Here she was doing just that but got distracted by the camera.

Park Pictures

Gabe got up one day last week saying he wanted to go on a picnic because, "We haven't done that in a long time." The past three weeks when we've met friends at the park and had lunch apparently didn't count because we weren't , "You know, eating on a blanket and stuff like that." So, he called Nae and it was arranged that we would meet him at a park near his work place for lunch. It was a nice little picnic and the weather was gorgeous. After lunch we stayed to play a little while.

Here they are all on the see-saw thing. Alena is holding on for dear life. I can understand why. We call this dragon park because there is a huge mosaic dragon that you can climb on. It was just the right height for Alena to pull up on and walk around. Alena, who by the way, is showing no signs of walking on her own. She crawled earlier than Gabe or Mya but, although she loves to cruise along the furniture, whenever I hold on to her hands to get her to walk she either plops right down or pulls her feet up off the ground. I guess there's no hurry, though.
My-my playing in the dirt. Right after this picture she tripped on a small tree stump and ended up with a nasty scrape on her leg. I had to push her in the stroller while carrying Alena and rounding up Gabe all the way to the car. It was not a very graceful exit as you might imagine.
Gabe had his eye on a squirrel which are so used to being fed that they will literally come almost up to eat out of your hand. Of course then they are terrorized because all the kids chase them up the trees.

Guessing Game

Bet you can't guess what we had for supper tonight...

Now can you guess how long it took me to clean up everything (and everyone) after supper?

Roughhousing

It's so funny how all of our children, while they may look alike, have such different personalities. Gabe is a leader, he wants everything lined up just so and freaks out if it doesn't go that way. He also is go, go, go all the time and tends to be loud and rough. Mya is pretty go with the flow she can be pushed to her limit, though at which point she 'll stand up for herself; she's just fine staying right by me and playing or looking at books. Alena, oh where do we begin; she's busy, busy and loves to let her opinions be known - she can fall over backwards and not shed a tear but put her down and walk around the corner and she screams at the top of her lungs.

So, this is what I came upon today. Gabe and Alena were wrestling in the floor and they both were laughing very loudly.

Were was Mya? She was laying up on her bed cheering them on while holding her blanket and sucking her thumb. I love them all!

Our Daddy

From Gabriel, Mya and Alena:

We love our Daddy so much because he can do this:just as well as he does this:

and we know he's going to do great on his big engineering test today. We are so thankful that God allowed us to have you for our Daddy. We love you!

Sidewalk paint

Well, since I showed you on the last post how we passed a rainy day, I'll show you what we did today - while the sun was shining. I had found this recipe in a magazine a while back and knew the kids would love it. So, we gave it a try today. For all you parents it's equal parts cornstarch and cold water then add food coloring. The first time we mixed it up I only did 1/4 cup of each and by the time I got them outside and came back in to grab Alena it was all gone. So, the second time I added a cup of each and this lasted a lot longer.
As you can see, they had a great time painting all over the place but didn't really paint a picture of anything. I tried to get them to paint a road for their bikes but they were much more interested in putting random lines all over the place.

Alena has gotten quite good at pushing her little walker around now that we have floors that will actually allow it to roll so she tried it outside today and thought that was pretty fun too.
I've had quite a few people (including her Daddy) comment recently that Alena is starting to look more like Mya so here, because I know all of you are so excited to look at yet another comparison picture (humor me here) are the two of them at the same age. What do you think?

How we pass a rainy day

I feel like the last few weeks we have had far more days of rain than of sun, and while we certainly don't want to complain (remembering last summer) it does make for some very long days. That combined with the fact that Nae is doing lots of last minute studying for his PE exam next week and the kids haven't seen him since Tuesday has driven me to extreme measures :) Not really, but here's a few pics of our day.

This morning we painted rainbows which went along very well with the rainy theme and also for the letter R we've been learning this week. After lunch, I pulled out an old favorite - the tent - this kept them entertained for quite a while and we even left it up to read books in before bed tonight. Alena didn't pull it down, which was quite an accomplishment in and of itself.
Gabe and Mya don't really "play" in the tent they just enjoy taking things in and out of it and then pretend to be sleeping as they are in this picture.
After supper, I pulled out all the stops and since the rain was on a temporary hiatus, Gabe and Mya put on their boots and went out to splash and play in the rain/mud.
If you happen to not have three kids under four at your house you might ask if the mess was worth the thirty minutes of quiet I got from letting them outside. I can tell you, "Yes, oh yes, it most certainly was!" I stripped them down outside and they went straight into the bathtub.

What was Alena doing during all of this? Just being her cute adorable 'ole self. Check out this goofy grin.

The bad part - it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow too. What are we going to do...