Spring...is that you?

As I am sitting here on my deck typing this, it is currently 82 degrees outside! The kids are sleeping after a long morning at the zoo with John's friend Nicholas from preschool. All is good. :)

This week John's preschool class had a Teddy Bear parade. Tuesday they made "floats" out of shoeboxes, and then had a parade on Thursday for all of the parents.

I could be biased, but this is possibly the cutest picture ever taken.

Here are some pictures of the kids just hanging from this past week.

This is the face John uses to make us smile when he should be getting into trouble.

John practicing his modeling with the girl's My Little Ponies

Natalie and her cheesy smile

and again, with the added bonus of getting to see up her nose

Rebecca's cheesy smile...actually, it's a bit scary isn't it?

funny faces from Becca

When Natalie went down for her nap she had on regular tights with feet. When she woke up one whole leg of the tights was missing, along with the other foot. I have absolutely no idea how she managed this.

Few new pics

I realized I hadn't posted many pics of the girls lately, so here are a few new ones. Rebecca is in the shite shirt and Natalie is in purple.

And of course our other baby...he is getting so big!

Attention all 4 year olds...

Last weekend was super fun for John. Saturday he and I went to Playhouse Disney Live. It was a show with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Tigger & Pooh, and Handy Manny. Although it left a lot to be desired as an adult, the kids seemed to love it. John had his first taste of Dippin' Dots, which is always good. I am proud to say that we even got out of there without purchasing any overpriced hard plastic weapons...I mean souvenirs. After the show we headed to his first "friends" birthday party. His friend Jack had his 4th birthday party at the same train store that John had his.

We are all signed up for preschool next year, and it looks like the girls will be attending too. I can't believe they will be old enough to be in preschool this fall! Time is passing too quickly.

Today, Parents as Teachers came for the girls quarterly evaluation. They did very well putting together puzzles and naming animals. They seem to be right on track. Rebecca was a little stinker though. She was hoarding the toys and not letting Natalie play with anything, which is very out of character for her. Usually Natalie is the toy theif.

The other day John decided to wear his Power Ranger costume all day...even to Hobby Lobby. While we were there we saw 2 other kids wearing costumes, a princess and a mermaid. I guess there was a memo sent out to the 4 year old community that us parents missed.

I'm ready for Spring

I was reprimanded for not posting. Here you go Chelsey.

Well, we finally got some snow this winter for John to play in. He ran around, threw snowballs, and made snow angels. He was having a great time until he decided to stick his face in the snow.

For Superbowl we went over to a friend's house with a few other families. The kids had a ton of other children to play with.

Here is Rebecca wearing a Transformer helmet

and Natalie catching up on her US Weekly

Yesterday, the kids and I went to the zoo to check out the Zoomagination Station. It was free and indoors...the perfect combination this time of year. They made crafts, played at the water table and sandbox, and pretended to be vets. I found out that John is terrified of snakes...fake snakes. He would not go near them.

Our new addition

We have a new addition in our house. Meet Arthur. He is a part dachshund puppy we adopted today. They think he is about 4 months old and he is as cute as can be!

Not much to report

So, not a whole lot has been going on in our household lately, which can be good and bad. This terribly cold weather has kept us inside with no place for the kids to let off their energy except the living room. We did recently take all the toys out of the living room and redistributed them to the kids bedrooms. The new rule is one toy per person in the living room at a time. So far they have all complied. I have been trying to find things to do indoors that don't cost a ton of money, so this week the kids and I went to the indoor pool at the rec center. Although the water wasn't as warm as I would have preferred, the kids all had fun. Even Natalie, who HATED the pool over the summer. She was very adventurous and preferred to walk around in the water by herself instead of clinging to me as she previously did. I have been wanting to take the kids to the City Museum Aquarium, but it looks like it would cost us almost $50! If anyone knows of any coupons or a way to see the aquarium without having to pay the museum fee, PLEASE let me know. It looks so neat, but I just can't justify spending that much money to look at fish.

John had his 4 year old check up last week and is growing like a weed. We also found out he still has an ear infection, so back to the doctor in 2 weeks to get rechecked. I have a feeling he will be getting tubes again. He also has his speech evaluation next week. I'm really hoping his ear infection is cleared up by then so he can have his hearing tested at the same time.

Here are a few pictures of the kids from the last week or so.

Natalie hanging out in her baby's pack 'n play

When John saw me taking pictures of her he wanted in on the action too. Tight fit.

When one of the girls finishes eating before the other, they always go over to their sister's chair to munch on leftover.

Natalie loves seafood...See? Food!

Christmas 2008

Christmas has come and gone, and our house looks like Toys r Us exploded in it. Our celebration started on Christmas Eve with dinner at my Grandma's house and Christmas Eve service at church. We had a nice little group for dinner and even had some old friends stop by that we hadn't seen in a while. John was very impressed with his Santa cup GG had set put especially for him. Santa even left an early surprise gift of new jammies and "The Polar Express" DVD. After service we took 3 VERY tired babies home to go to bed and wait for Santa. When I was putting John to bed I told him Santa would be coming tonight, and very concerned he asked, "He's not going to come in my room is he?" I reassured him that Santa would stick to the living room. Christmas morning was a blast. This was the first year that John got REALLY into his gifts. Everything he opened was his favorite. At one point he unwrapped a gift for Natalie, and the shirt box I had used had Christmas print on it. He freaked out and screamed, "Oh my gosh! A Christmas GAME!" Luckily he was not too disappointed when he opened the box and found clothes. We had family over for lunch and more gift giving and then headed to my Dad's for more food and more toys. Phew! I think these kids are set for at least a week or two. :)

trying to get a picture of all the kids in their Christmas outfits

just a funny pic of Rebecca

Rebecca Christmas morning

John Christmas morning

Natalie Christmas morning

John got a whole box of "boy" dress up clothes...here he is posing as a Power Ranger

John in the only moment of silence he had all day. I had to capture it on film

...and CONGRATULATIONS to my baby brother who graduated from Mizzou last week! It will be nice to have you home.