Little Man

Thanks, Will, for participating in a little photo shoot with mom recently. You posed so nicely and you look quite handsome!

And you even let me take one of you having a reflective moment in the grass with your beloved blankie named "ma".

Overheard

The girls say some of the funniest things these days. It's hard to remember all of them, but here are a few.

On a recent trip to the grocery store, mommy sneezed and mentioned her allergies. Amanda then said that she does not have allergies, but says that mom and dad and Natalie do and we've all been "bless-you-ing" a lot. I agreed that we all had been "bless-you-ing" too much!

We were out in front of our house riding bikes and playing recently. We went up onto the porch and talked about knocking on the door to see what Dad was doing. Amanda ran up the steps and said she wanted to play "knock, knock who you are" with Dad.

On our way to school recently, we saw the garbage truck pick up the garbage in front of our house as we were getting into our car. As we drove down the street, we then saw the garbage truck up the street ahead of us. I say to the girls, "Look, there is the garbage truck up ahead of us." In response, Natalie says, "My head?"

We were walking across the rows of grapes at the local winery on our last picnic and Natalie walked into one of the wires. I say, "Natalie, you need to duck to make it under that wire." Natalie says, "Where is the duck, mom; I don't see it." And then she proceeds to look for the duck for the next five minutes, even after I tried to explain this meaning of the word "duck."

They also have some funny word pronunciations these days. We like some of them so much that we have not really made an effort to get them right. Some of our favorites are:

- bessert instead of dessert

- alligator instead of elevator

- goggy instead of doggy

- kajamas instead of pajamas

-popart instead of pop tart

-sun scream instead of sun screen

- bassick instead of basket

A Little Dinner Conversation

The girls' vocabulary and speech skills continue to blossom..not to mention their imaginations. This video was taken a few months ago but it shows how imaginative they are and it gives a little preview of a night at our family dinner table.

Bye Bye

Will is about 2 months from starting the toddler program at the local montesorri school where his sisters attend. Every morning, Will watches as Mom and his sisters get ready to leave. So, this Saturday Will thought he would try it out, although he was apparently headed to see the choo choos instead of school.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's day to all our dads, grandpas, brothers and friends! As you can imagine, it is difficult to obtain a family portrait that captures everyone smiling...and we were very fortunate today to snap this great family photo! And what is even more astounding, this was the first photo of the day! What luck! As you can see by the smiles, everyone was in a great mood and that carried through into lunch.

We decided to take Dad to a local Irish Pub for a laid back brunch. The pub we went to is a comfortable place and no one feels any pressure with the kids disrupting the place. When we first arrived, there were no tables available, so we all bellied up to the bar. Everyone sat up tall on a bar stool and patiently waited for our table to be cleared. Hopefully the kids won't be bellying themselves up to another bar for a long, long time!

Take Me Out to the Ballgame....

We had a great time last Friday night at the ballgame complements of Uncle O. Will had a blast just sitting in and playing with the seats. (Did you know that if you put something on the seat and then lift it up, the something falls through the floor? Will did that about 100 times just to make sure the same thing happened each time!)

Amanda thoroughly enjoyed her fruit freeze....

...although it was a little big even for this dessert connoisseur.

And Mom and Natalie had fun rooting for the home team. (But don't let any of those mascots come anywhere near us because Miss Natalie does NOT think they are very much fun!)

Will

Although he often wants to wear Natalie and Amanda's clothes and he tries to put bows and clips in his hair when the girls are doing so, this little boy is ALL boy these days. He loves choo choo trains, cars, trucks and especially tractors.

Here he sports his new favorite pair of pajamas with trucks and tractors.

This is his "tough" look. Grrrrr.

And a silly face.

He loves to climb and all of the kids have recently made a game out of scaling the staircase. Not the safest activity around, but thank goodness, there have not been any injuries yet.

Will is talking up a storm these days and (unfortunately) beginning to embrace the early stages of the "independent" twos. He knows so many, many words now and he often speaks in short sentences. One of his favorites right now is "I do it." I recall vividly going through this phase with the girls....luckily for us they have pretty much grown out of it now!

One of our favorite things about his personality these days is that he is so social and outgoing. While the girls tend to be a little shy in a new setting or meeting new people, Will doesn't hold back at all. When we went to the pizza place last weekend for lunch, there was a group of much older boys playing with some small super balls and Will jumped right in with them without any hesitation at all. And at a work function this week, when Daddy was greeting someone with a hand shake, Will decided he needed to shake every one's hand too! What a cutie pie!

Amanda

Why, yes, Amanda, it HAS been a little chilly during the month of June so far so we understand why you decided to break out the winter hat,

AND the mittens and boots! (Those are funny mittens you have there though!)

Natalie

As mentioned in a recent post, Natalie definitely has a silly bone these days. When we had the camera out the other day, she started making funny faces so we just had to capture a few.

Doggy Dash

Last weekend we participated in the SPCA Doggy Dash with mommy's work. Unfortunately for us and the SPCA it turned into the "soggy" dash -- literally raining cats and dogs the entire time we were "dashing" and while we were waiting to dash. All human participants were lucky enough to score a great t-shirt from Orrick. Here are Will and Amanda showing off their new shirts while taking a short ride on our pooch, Sable. (Natalie is back there too -- lucky Sable -- but it's a bit difficult to see her.)



Not to be shown up by her brother and sister, here is Natalie showing off her new shirt.

Here, Amanda does the happy dance.

To provide proof about how wet it was during our dash, here is a partial group photo. The other half of our group was taking cover somewhere else. If you're having trouble spotting us, just look for the pink rain slickers!

On our walk back to the car, the kids decided that the sand traps on the golf course in the park needed a little grooming. Amanda is upset in this picture as there were only two rakes.....

Will loved raking the sand so much that we had to pry him away to get him into the car....

....it was not a pretty picture so we don't have one of that!

Fun Times!

Here are the munchkins displaying their endless energy. First with balloons that we got out for an impromptu "party" held in our entry way....



....and later doing a little exercising before bed.

Catch A Tiger By The Tale

With all the rain we've had recently, you would think we live in Seattle! The kids have been taking it in stride, thank goodness. On a recent rainy and cold evening, the kids broke out the costumes and got dressed up to the hilt! They then had fun chasing each other around the kitchen island. The girls then decided to catch Will's little tiger tale as they ran.....






Here are their outfits in their full glory!

Just another normal day at our house!

All Aboard!

This series of photos is from last weekend when we made it out to a new Saturday farmers market location. These photos were too good to pass up and not share. However, stay tuned, as we will also post some photos from this weekend's adventures, where indoor activities (due to rain, rain, and more rain) can get kind of crazy!

Here Amanda and Natalie show off their beautiful smiles along with their new pink Gap jackets!




Natalie has been a big joker these days; she has a very witty sense of humor and she loves to make funny faces. We were lucky to capture this gem!

Here, Amanda tries her skill at the kid's balance beam! Next time will be with no hands.

Here is another photo of Amanda after she climbed the Mount Everest stairs in the middle of the park.

Here is our little monkey, Natalie.

Will is such a happy boy, and loves to show off his smile. Dad and Will pose for a self portrait...say cheese!

Amanda, who also has a lovely smile, shines as she glides down the silly cork screw.

Even though it was sunny last weekend, all the kids wanted to go to the train museum. Especially Will, who is into all types of trains, tractors and cars these days.

Look what I found Dad, a Choo Choo!

Natalie is always checking out what the someone else is doing...

Dad and Will blow the toy train's whistle!

Amanda looks like she is in a space capsule (really the observation bubble in the middle of the toy train track): is this the ignition switch?