A little ahead of his time ...

Finn really wants to be big, too.

On Monday, the kids had a day off of school, and I was laughing to myself watching them all crowd around Elijah while he tried a new game on the ipad - all about grammar.  He figured it out pretty quickly, and the other two thought it was great.  How much do you think Finn learned about verb tense and adjectives? =)

Yesterday Finn pulled down every book in the playroom - board books and paper books.  But I didn't mind because he took each book over and climbed into the big arm chair and "read" them to himself, and then got the next one.  He was even careful with the paper pages!  It kept him busy for a long time.

Today he was so quiet in the playroom that I got nervous and went to check on him.  He was very busy doing Elijah's math workbook. 

What a funny kid!

Dance, baby, dance!

The kids were enjoying some Saturday morning music and dancing ...

So funny!

Oh, Molly!

Just a couple of quotes from our funny, crazy girl today.


Mama:  Those shorts don't match your shirt, sweetie.  Do you want these instead?

Molly: But Mama, Fancy Nancy says that lavender goes with ANYTHING!


While running wild with Elijah:  Engage jet promotion!  [propulsion]


On the way home from church:

Daddy: What did you learn about in your class today?

Molly: Eli and Samuel.  And then those enemies, they were the Philistines, but we call them the enemies, they stole God's sacred box.

Daddy: The ark of the covenant?

Molly.  The sacred box. 

Piggies and ponies and such

Molly has reached a new milestone - her hair is getting long & thick enough to start doing braids and other fun things! 

She is so excited!

Low braids are excellent for wearing under your sun hat or bike helmet.

Braids at the top keep it all neat and out of her eyes, so she can have a single piggy now!

pretty girl - no matter what we do with her hair!

Molly's special flower - she planted it in her class at Bible study

Two braids with looped ends

Headband braid (yes, she is a goon - that's my girl!)

Who wore it better?

The same yellow sweater, then and now ...

(click to enlarge)

Sneezey giggles

Elijah is pretty creative when it comes to entertaining Finn - and he'll do anything that gets a laugh over and over again.  They never get tired of being silly together!

Christmas movie night

Patrick:  We're going to have a movie night!

Kids:  Yay!  Yay!

Elijah:  So, what are our choices?

Patrick:  A Clockwork Orange or Schindler's List.

Elijah:  Um, how about Mickey's Christmas Carol?

Three babies

Do you think these babes look alike? 

Elijah

Finn

Molly

Finn laughs

This one is from last night - Finn laughing at Daddy.  So far, Daddy is magic - I haven't gotten even a little giggle out of him! =)

Finn in action

Here's a little video of Finn playing with Daddy the other day - enjoy the baby noises!

Happy fall!

Ha - retro blog header!  I saw this one the other day and it made me laugh, and I love the pumpkins, so I thought I would put it up again for a bit.  (It's hard to believe it's three years old!)  I hope you all are enjoying some beautiful fall weather too!

Our cowgirl ballerina

I had to get some pictures of Miss Molly in her favorite outfit - not only is it hilarious and super cute, but also represents her personality pretty well. I saw a very pretty photo of a little girl in her tutu and cowgirl boots on etsy that I wanted to get for Molly's room, but it has since disappeared. =( Oh well, Molly is cuter and has cuter boots! And since I don't have Amanda or anyone here to take a beautiful picture for me, I decided I needed to just take some myself, even if I'm a lousy photographer, to remember Molly at this age. Some of them are pretty cute, despite the photographer - yay!

{I'm not sure how to crop this one for printing - her face is so cute, her hair, not so much.}

pirouette

Elijah gets in on the dancing fun, too. I think he's an airplane here.

Quote of the day

From Elijah, as we enjoyed an afternoon snack on the back deck:

"There's nothing better than a yummy smoothie pop on a beautiful summer day."

That kid cracks me up!

When I'm a grown-up

The other morning Molly and I were running our errands. We had a very typical conversation with one of the check-out ladies.
"Hello, I love your cute pigtails! How old are you?"
"I'm two!"
"Wow! She's really big for two!"
(Yep. I've never noticed that before.)
Molly then told the lady all about how she's going to play "bollyball" at Penn State when she's "a big tall girl."

Afterward, in the van, Molly told me all about all the things she's going to do when she's grown up:

I'm going to drive the van, and put the key in there.
I'm going to use the big seat belt.
I'm going to sit there in the front (the passenger side) when my brother drives the van.
I'm going to put my own piggies in myself.
I'm going to put all the groceries on the checkout.
I'm going to push the cart.
I'm going to make lunch myself.
I'm going to carry the baby and buckle him into his seat.

She went on and on, and I can't even remember them all, but my favorite, by far, was:

I'm going to clean up poop.

First day of spring!

Sunday was the first official day of spring, which means (around here, anyway) free Rita's! We went out and met Danny, Lorrie, and the kids to celebrate the new season and share our fun treat. We all had a great time despite the long line, and enjoyed our ices despite the chilly weather. It was a sunny day, and warm enough for the kids inside the van, and we loved getting a little spur of the moment cousin time.

Elijah chose the birthday cake flavor (um, yuk), and Molly had chocolate.

I think the rest of us mostly were smart enough to get fruit flavors. Danny tried the iced coffee flavor and liked it.

Evan's was cotton candy flavor. (Again, yuk. But they're four. What do you expect?)

Yay for a fun (free!) spring treat!

Kiss me, I'm Irish!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

from our wee leprechauns ...

Elijah's favorite part of the day was calling out, "Kiss me, I'm Irish!" And, of course, fun food.

Green, shamrock pancakes (not the best shaped pancakes ever) ...

and green bagels.

Elijah's story

Here is a story Elijah told us on the way home the other night.

Once upon a time there was a little bunny and he loved to eat carrots. He didn't have any carrots, so he went to Bobbi's house. Papa answered the door and said, "Hello little bunny! Do you want some carrots? Come in!" But when Papa looked in the refrigerator he didn't have any carrots. So he told the bunny to go upstairs and ask Bobbi. The bunny went upstairs, and Bobbi said, "Yes, I have some carrots for you!" The bunny ate lots of carrots and felt much better. The end.

There was another story about a manatee, a squid, a manta ray, and a shark named Israel, that I can't remember well enough to write down, but the shark made me laugh.

Super hero girl!

Today Molly announced that she is a "super hero girl." It started because she put on her "super hero rain boots."

She's ready for action!

Don't mess with Super Hero Girl.

Mama disclaimer: I just want to say that I am not responsible for this outfit.

Update: We just learned that Super Hero Girls don't die because they have lots of tutus.

Snow day!

Yesterday morning we woke up to a few inches of snow - our first significant snow of the year - and a two-hour delay for preschool. The kids were thrilled to finally have enough to go out and play in it!

Do you think she is wearing enough pink? She won't ever get lost in the snow!

They had so much fun running around and falling and sliding that they didn't mind too much that it was a bit too powdery to build a snowman. Hooray for snow!

The boys

I just love pictures of the boy and his daddy.



And, I don't know why, but I just love these shirts. Elijah is growing out of his, so we took some pictures the other day. Love these boys!