sights

These things are common backyard sights, whether I like it or not.  Clothes and shoes taken off and strewn about.

Bare feet and dirty faces.

Cars races down the bridge.

Clover eating and knee sitting (Lullaby’s new favorite position).

I can't get enough of this cute baby. She seems to be posing for pictures now...

These are NOT common backyard sights.  A picture of me.  Who knew I still existed in this family? Notice there are no pictures of Paul, that’s common too. He is gone a lot.  And a sneak peek of my new DARK hair color.

A VERY clean and pouting Sakina.  We hardly ever give her a bath, and now I remember why. It took me almost three hours to do it. 3 needy kids + a scardy dog + chilly hose water + me is not a great equation for efficiency.  But it did get done.

Hairy pants, thanks Sakina.

she sleeps

Lullaby sleeps all kinds of crazy lately, since standing up and crawling around her crib are so exciting.  She can hardly fall asleep because she is too busy practicing standing up and sitting down and crawling around. I remember this phase with each of the boys.  She takes longer naps now because of it, so that’s good. :)

When I go in to peek at her, it’s always a surprise where she will be.  She has done this a few times now, so I wanted to get a few pics. On all fours, probably mid crawl, when she fell asleep, bum in air. I love it. She is too cute.

a day with Dries

Dries is Matix's best friend.  He loves everything about him. We were invited to go with Dries and his family to feed the ducks at Piedmont park, I wish Paul could have come along too. It was so picturesque and fun. We brought a box of stale Cheerios, and they were a hit.

Lullaby watched, and patiently waited to taste a few of the Cheerios.  So cute.

There were even little ducklings and turtles swimming around in the water.  It was so fun.

When we finished feeding the ducks and turtles, we walked to our new favorite store, Richard's Variety Store, otherwise known as the TOY STORE.  Matix and Dries held hands along the way. And Hawken of course, was just doing his own thing.

This toy store is the coolest one I have ever been in.  There is a horse to ride on when you first walk in. This was Matix before Peter put in a quarter:

And after, when it started to move:

Hawken before the quarter:

And after, when it started to move:

So happy, right? Thanks guys! You made their day!

The train selection was ridiculous. The boys were BEGGING me to buy them trains. There were so many that we don't have, but that they recognized.

Lullaby was loving it there too and had a blast with all the baby toys out for her to play with.

After we were there for a little while, I heard a weird noise. I looked up above the top shelf and saw a guy (one of the workers) up at the ceiling dangling from a ladder that was about to fall.  It was crazy. Peter was right by Lullaby, so I ran over to the worker and held the ladder as best I could and yelled for more help as he tried to scurry down the ladder before falling.  It was pretty crazy.  He was totally fine and by the time he got down, some other workers, including the owner, were watching.  The owner thanked me and I thought nothing of it, I was just glad he didn't fall. It wasn't far enough that he would have died if he fell, he just maybe would have broken a bone or two.  After another half hour or so of playing and it was time to go. On our way out the door, the owner stopped me and insisted that we pick out some toys to take for FREE as a thank you for helping her worker. It was so sweet. The boys had just eyed up some pull back race cars and lollipops, so they got those and then they pulled out some stuffed toys for Lullaby to chose her prize, she chose a little stuffed Finn McMissile.  Of course. The boys were elated. What a day!

good-bye to Phil and Lex

Phil and Lex left back for Ocala. Sad. We had so much fun with them here. Matix insisted on giving Lex a kiss good-bye. He tried to kiss her on the lips, but she wanted a kiss on the cheek, he thought that was hilarious. He tried over and over again to get those lips! :) Lex was pretty embarrassed, but such a good sport. (I was just teaching Lex how to coupon, notice the mess in the background, she made her first free haul of 2 nail polishes and 1 2-liter of soda, good job!)

Paul and Phil, and Lex with me. We miss you guys! It was so nice having you both here!