Good gravy it's almost Thanksgiving!  Let the festivities begin................

We celebrated Chance's Adoption Day last week - three years?!  Really?! 

Kenn brought some cupcakes home for the kids to decorate in celebration of the day. 

Proud Pastry Chef!  Happy Gotcha Day Chancie Pants!!!

As fun as that was, it does remind me however of the disaster that took place earlier in the week.  The kids had dentist appointments so I took off early and met Kenn and the kids at the dentist.  No cavities!!!  Then we stopped at McDonalds on the way home and by the time dinner was over it was still early.  And so, I thought it was a nice night for making the Halloween Gingerbread Houses. 

Perhaps I should have checked my patience levels.  They were not quite as full as I needed them to be.  Usually I'm okay with a little kitchen chaos.  This night, not so much.  We started off under control.  Made up the black icing first.  Filled the first bag fairly well (finally watched Kenn do it often enough perhaps) and handed it to Shaeleigh.  Figured she was the best one to leave alone with a bag of black icing while I filled the second one.  I'm filling Chance's and can see he's eating the candy.  This is the candy that comes with the Gingerbread kit - probably 10 years old - all hard like a rock.  I say, "Chance don't eat the candy, it'll make you sick."  I say that because that's what Mom's are supposed to say, not because I expect it to come true.  Turns out that these kinds of sayings have a bit of truth beind them.

Anyway, it went down hilss after that.  Shaeleigh the perfectionist wants to make her house look EXACTLY like the house on the box.  Unfortunately, my icing was not EXACTLY the consistency of the icing that was used by the person who made the house on the box.  And so it's dripping.  I try to tell her to be creative.  She's getting all mad.  I try to help her.  Chance helps himself to some more 100 year old candy.  I tell Chance to stop.  (It'll make you sick!")  I finally get Shaeleigh back under control and Chance starts getting mad because he picks the biggest stinkin' pieces of candy and tries to make the magically stick to the side of the house with the tiniest smitch of icing.  I switch him over to sprinkles.  He likes that so much he's decorating with aplomb (translation - using fistfuls of sprinkles, getting 2 on the house, 5,865 on the floor).  Shaeleigh is getting mad again.  Chance is eating the candy.  I tell Chance to stop.  ("You're gonna get sick!") Chance looks at me and says with a sigh, "This is too boring.  You can finish mine Mommy"  and gets down from the table.  Shaeleigh suddenly wails - she's managed to knock over her icing bag, lean on it somehow, and get black icing everywhere.  I send her to the sink to wipe off and notice Chance is walking all over the family room with his black icing covered self.  I tell him to get back into the kitchen.  He doesn't.  I pick his little icing covered self up and plop him back into the chair.  Out of no where he HURLS all over the kitchen table (I manage to push his house out of the way).  I put him on the floor.  He hurls 2,3,4 more times.  What the heck?!  It's true?!!!  It's really DOES make you sick?!!! Shaeleigh is at the sink.  She is oblivious.  The kitchen is filling with black icing and puke.  She splashing water on the tips of her fingers as if that's going to clean anything.  I send her into the bathroom - she looks at me like, "What is your problem?!"  I stand surrounded by disaster.  Chance is bawling.  I decide to give up on the kitchen and join Shaeleigh in the bathroom - tossing Chancie in the tub.  Shaeleigh goes into the garage and tells Kenn that, "We need a little professional help."  I think she was talking about our decorating skills but I certainly wouldn't argue if she meant something deeper than that. 

Chance was doing some drawing on the couch and he just looked so silly.  All cozy with his big ol' toes hanging out.

Baby.  Doggie Blanket.  What more do you need?

The kids designed there own jack-a-lanterns this year.  Here they are cleaning them out.  Shaeleigh dug right in.  Chance.....

Are you kidding me?!  I'm not touching this stuff.

Oh yeah, straight into the goop!

Chance.  Pleased with the finished product.  Kenn used a drywall saw this year.  This should go out on some pumpkin carving tips site - it was awesome! 

Shaeleigh designed a Cat Pumpkin.  She did the outline on the pumpkin herself.  The pumpkin looked just like something she'd draw.  Funny. 

Speaking of which.--

Sketching it out.

Ah, pumpkin seeds.  Tasty little treats.

And here they are, all ready to go.  Note - Chance had two costumes this year - Mr. Incredible and a Motorcycle Racer.  In the end, he decided to dress like Spiderman (last year's costume). 

Poor Shaels spent much of the night tripping over her Harem Dancing outfit but all in all, they both had a very good time.  Chance woke up the next day and said, "when is the next Halloween?"  He also had nightmares most of the following week but I'm sure it wasn't related.  Well, he did say something about a ghost in his window.  Oh, and there was thata comment to Grandpa about being chased by Wampires, but nah, I'm sure it was just a coincidence.

Speaking of Chance and his comments - Kenn will sometimes drive to the end of the cul-de-sac and do a few donuts before turning around to go out.  So as I'm driving out with the kids the other day Chance says to me, "Do some muffins!  Do some muffins!"    Luckily, I speak Chance.

And finally I leave you with St. Therese Little Flower:

Because it's only the Catholic Mom's who are sewing costumes AFTER the trick-or-treaters are in bed so that their little Angels can go to school dressed like Saints the next day.  (And it's the Mom who forgot to go to Michael's to get a "Little" flower, who sends her kid to school as St. Therese Big Flower)  Hahahahaha.

Cheerio.....................

Happy Halloween in case I don't manage to do any blogging until Thanksgiving - see, I'm trying to set expectations appropriately with you folks.

The big news - Shaeleigh made her YouTube debut and managed to win $100.  A few months ago we were at a local festival and this bank had a table and wanted kids to come up and be filmed talking about why they were saving their money.  There wasn't a crowd when we went by so Shaeleigh agreed to take the microphone.  Grand prize was a $5,000 scholarship - I thought she'd forget about the whole thing but she mentioned it, once a week or so for 3 months until one day a big UPS envelope arrived for her wiht a letter announcing that she was a finalist.  I had to send back a notorized consent form and then this past week she got a little box all wrapped up with a $100 Visa gift card inside.

Check out Reston Winner:  https://mediaroom.tdbank.com/index.php?s=23&item=147

 A Halloween preview:

Shaeleigh somehow picked out a Harem Dancer outfit.  We'll be sure to do a little covering up before we go out but I hope this isn't a signal as to what her teenage years will be like. Chance went with the "Motorcycle Boy" costume which he promptly began wearing everywhere.

And so....

We bought a back up.  Chance has his costumes all over the house so that he can walk into a room as Mr. Incredible and walk back out as Spiderman (last year's outfit) and then you blink and here comes Motorcycle Boy.  He insists on wearing the masks too.  He needs to be fully in character.

Ah, pumpkins.  Didn't manage to get any winning shots but I guess we'll go with the tongue shot.

Always happy to pose.

 Another satisfied customer.  Hahaha.

Look!  A face!

Hope you looked because it wasn't there for long.  He painted the whole pumpkin green.  Next time we'll buy a green pumpkin and maybe he'll paint it orange.

Most embarrassing moment of the week goes to.........................  Kenn!

No, he didn't fall off his bike (well, yes he did hahaha but that's another embarrassing story which I'll leave for another day).  This story has to do with picking Shaeleigh up from school.  Since the line for pickup can get pretty long, Kenn tries to get there early.  The cars line up and once pickup starts, the kids are sent out five at time (parent display their carpool number in the window and then there is a relay system to call the right kids in the right order).  The cars move up in order to pick the kids up at one of 5 cones.  So one day last week he got there a little earlier than usual.  He leans back, pulls his baseball cap over his eyes and...   next thing he knows, one of the teachers is knocking on his window.  HAHAHAHA.  Kenn was sound asleep.  He looks up.  There's Shaeleigh just standing at her cone fa-la-la, not a care in the world.  Just Dad - nappin' as usual.

Parenting moment of the week goes to..............................  Joanie!

Shaeleigh is quite focused on her school work.  She comes home with her homework and studies her spelling and does her reading.  Over the Columbus day weekend she came home with her Social Studies book because she had a test the following Thursday.  At one point on Sunday she said, "Mom, I have to study for my test."  I heard myself say, "Shaeleigh, it's only Sunday, you have all week!"  Yikes, I mean, "Yes, you'd better get studying!!!" 

But, despite this small faux pas, the kids tolerate us.

Chance got up in the middle of the night a few times last week - monsters.  One night as I'm tucking him back in he says, "Mommy, you are a really good Joanie.  And Daddy...   Daddy is good Kenn."

We decided to try a pomegranate.

No one liked the seeds but Chance enjoyed the juice.  Really, he did.

He likes spaghetti too.

Our new neighbor.  Mr. Frog.  We think he had a fiancee but "Froggie went a courtin' and she blended into the grass and got run over by the lawn mower, uh huh, uh huh..."

Chance picked up his first cold of the season and shared it with me.  I told him, "You gave me your cold."  He said, "No!  You came into my bedroom and took it." 

And with that, I'm off to bed. 

Greetings!

Thought I'd update the look but haven't really found anything I like so this one will likely change again.  It is pretty funny though.

Can't say that there's much new around here.  The kids were up until 10:00 last night having a "slumber party."  A mother of a kid in Chance's class mentioned to me several months ago that she lets her two girls sleep in the same room on weekends to help promote sibling bonding.  We've been trying it out to varying degrees of success from my perspective - both Shaeleigh and Chance seem to find it highly successful.  The biggest issue has been that Shaeleigh only wants to sleep in Chance's room - the thought of him sleeping in her room (and touching all her little tiny treasures) has (until last night) been the end of many a slumber party.  Yesterday at nap time, however, something must have changed.  All was quiet and I thought Chance was asleep and Shaeleigh quietly playing in her room.  I walked by to put something away and discovered that they were both in Shaeleigh's room - door shut, quietly giggling together.  Hm.... 

Anyway, I was pretty happy that she'd opened up her world and then much to my surprise, she suggested having a slumber party in HER room.  Couldn't pass up that one.  And so they were up until 10:00.  I snuck the monitor into her room when she wasn't looking so we could listen in.  She was reading and talking and "suggesting" things.  We didn't hear Chance say a peep for 2 hours but every 30 minutes or so they came running out for some reason or another.  He was all grins so clearly a good time was had by all.  So, two thumbs up to late night sibling bonding.

And so we have as our photo theme or the week, Brother and Sister:

Friends

Being silly

Mr. Serious (not)

Spiderman and Unicorn (that looks kinda like a dog) face paintings

Smiles!

And, our very own Circus Act

Dork - hahaha

Stinky Feet

Just traveling down the road of life..............

So Chance picked out the blue Vietnamese outfit in the photos above.  I put him down for his nap in one thing, he came out wearing his blue New Year outfit.  It was quite a bit too small and I admit, made me a bit self-conscious.  I tried to get him to change and he said, "But Mom, this is my beautiful outfit I got at the festival" - all incredulous that I'd want him to wear anything but!  And so he went to the playground and then to the grocery store with me looking all fancy.  I was telling another adoptive mom about it - how it made me feel awkward - like everyone must have thought I decided he needed to have my asian child wear asian clothes - we were cracking up.  Overthink much?

And that's really all I got.  All is well.  Kids are both enjoying school.  Shaeleigh is reading EVERYTHING.  I haven't quite been able to get her to understand that Chance doesn't have the patience for her to read every word in some books.  He loves books but some of the more text heavy ones won't hold him if you don't skip a bit.  He's not afraid to let you know either.  Shaeleigh wanted to say a special grace at dinner the other night so she brought a little prayer book and commenced to read a rather lengthy prayer.  About halfway through Chance sighs, "This is taking too long.  I'm really tired."  Hahaha.  Shaeleigh ignored him and kept reading.  You go girl.

Shop early, shop often.... 

When we adopted Shaeleigh I had the pleasure of meeting so many nice people as we waited together for our referrals.  One woman received the referral of a little cutie from the same orphanage as Shaeleigh and traveled just a few weeks before we did.  She was kind enough to check in on Shaeleigh when she did.  I've followed her blog for years now watching her kids grow.  She has since adopted another daughter from China and is now in the process of adopting from Ethiopia.

She has opened an Etsy shop and is selling some beautiful necklaces to raise funds for her adoption.  Please visit - Especially cool for dog lovers!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/daisydreams4us

Yeah, this is not a blog post about how well the sharing is going in the Smitheroni house.  We're still hopeful for a blog post like that.  This is a blog post about how everyone decided to do their share to give me some material for the blog (Shaeleigh started 1st Grade, Kenn fell off his bike, and Chance did his best in the amusing kid anecdote department).

Here I am trying to get a nice "First Day of School" shot.  Notice the rabbit ears.  She thinks this is quite amusing

Well if she's not going to pose - take one of me.  I'm mighty cute.

Official Mailbox Photo.

For comparison - this was last year.  The jumper was definitely bigger last year.

Chancie, not to be overlooked - has his big day tomorrow.  He moves up to the Giraffe class.  He is pretty stinkin' excited about it. 

"Yeah....  I remember my younger days as a Bear....   "

So I heard Chance shouting from his room the other day:  "GET IN THERE.  GET IN THERE!"  And he's getting madder and madder.  I go over to his room fully expecting some kind of sibling squabble but no, there he is in the corner of his room trying to put his socks on.  Ha - he was yelling at his own foot.

He loves to dress up.  He was home Thursday and Friday ("Back to School" ironically, started with two half days for Shaeleigh and two days off for Chance) and he spent his days as Spiderman, Woody, Cowboy, Pirate, Fireman Boy, and anyone else who happened to have a costume piece laying about.

Too bad I didn't manage to get this one focused.

We ran into another awesome face painter last weekend.  Shaeleigh got a Unicorn on her face.  Very cool. 

Chance asked for a spider on his arm.  How about that?  That ain't no round circle with eight lines. 

Kenn asked for an ameoba.  Oh no wait, that's real. Kenn's latest beauty mark.  It's colorful.  The dirtbike.  No, nothing broken.  Biggest point of pain though seems to be a muscle up under his shoulder blade.  I, for one, like the smell of Icy Hot.

Shaeleigh, calculating the ratio of Kenn's injuries to number of holidays and weekends with temperatures in the low to mid-eighties. 

Actually, she's doing her homework.  This was her very first homework.  She was quite excited about it.

All done.  I think her words were along the lines of, "That's it?  It was the same thing that was on the other side of the paper?!"  (they had done the other side in class).

Although the preference is not to have teeny tiny little things all over the floor, given the options, I will say that Polly Pocket accessories are far easier on the feet than say, legos or play mobile pieces.  I had actually been doing a very good job of avoiding Polly "Teeny Tiny Rubber Pants are Just the Thing to Drive a Parent Nuts" Pocket but then someone on Freecycle was offering up a whole box of them.  I kept them hidden for a good 6 months before bringing them out over the weekend when the kids were playing well together. 

Shaeleigh singing Taylor Swift (as she hears it....)

          She wears short skirts

          I wear t-shirts

          She's Captain Obvious

          And I'm on the bleachers. 

She's funny. 

And now, I'm off to bed.  Another week begins................

Oh - PS:  Our apologies for all who have received spam from our email accounts advertising Canadian Viagra.  As much as we love our neighbors to the North, we know little of their Viagra and would suggest that you check with your Doctor before acting on any spam originating from folks using our fine names.  We've ran a fresh copy of Norton over the weekend and hope to cease annoying you.  Cheers.

All I can say is that the kids have really been slacking on the making of cute faces and the saying of cute things.  I've been telling them, "listen here you summer time slackers, the public is looking for blog updates, I can't hold them back much longer...."

Hm....  I guess I could wait another week.  Kenn's due to fall off his bike - if nothing else they'll be cast photos and road rash.  hehehe (sorry, husband, but I did ask if you had any stories....)

I'll do my best with the photos I've got:

This was the extent of our corn crop.  One ear and two little babies.  Shaeleigh's face about sums it up.  All that work for this????

I hear Kenn now, "What work?  You plant things and then you don't water them!"

But we do Kenn, we do!  I think it was the faces of the farmers that shrunk up all the corn.

In other gardening news....  When we went to get seeds back in May, Chance picked out cactus seeds.  Cactus.  If you've ever had a cactus you know how slowly they grow.  They're kind of like soap operas - you can skip watching them for a year, come back and find that you haven't really missed anything.  But, if you look closely, you can spot the two cacti we've been growing for several months now.  Yup, they are really coming along.

Okay, so when you send your kid to camp that groups the kids from 6-12 you enter some new territory.  We've had to reinforce the fact that "butt, stupid, and shut-up" are not words that we use.  As a result, Shaeleigh comes home and says, "Ferdi said the 'S' word twice!"  I guess I had an odd look on my face so she added, "the one with 'up' in it."  Oh.  Phew.  I mean, "Well, I'm sure Ferdi's mom would not like to know that he talks like that...."

Ferdi has a big sister, Brandy.  She's a good kid but her musical tastes are much to be desired.  Shaeleigh and Chance come running in the kitchen (see above photo) and Chance, all huffing and puffing says, "Shaeleigh is Hanna Montana and I'm Justin Beiber!"  Wow, that's....  yeah, that's....  yeah...

Aqua Boy.  I found this thing in a thrift store a year or so ago.  Shaeleigh pulled it out of my closet the other day and Chance fell in love.  You can clip different face pieces on the mask and then clip it to a battery pack and the different mouths each change your voice in a different way.  Plus you can turn the volume up really really loud.  Sure, what's not to love?  Well, I can tell you a few things.  Especially the things not to love at 5:30 in the morning when the world's loudest Minnie Mouse voice is screaming ABCD.....  in your earball."

"Chance, please turn down the volume."

"But Mom, I'm just diving in the ocean to save the mermaids."

"Oh, well, in that case....."

And when he's not busy diving in the ocean, Aqua Boy saves the folks on land dressed as his alter-ego:  The Great Winged Spiderman with the Skeleton Gloves."

At first glance you might think this is just another nice garden photo.  But nooooooooooooooooo, that umbrella seems a bit askew no?  So we were outside playing in the kiddie pool when a storm blew up suddenly.  We ran inside and were all staring out of the window watching some pretty amazing wind when suddenly the umbrella flew up out of the center of the picnic table straight up into the air and then back down.  All four of us said, "WHOA"  We didn't catch on right away (distracted by the flying marigold pots I suppose) but when the umbrella came back down it smashed the glass table into smithereens. 

There has been some weird weather this summer indeed!

And so there - the blog is updated, such as it is.  One more week until school starts.  Shaeleigh heads off to First Grade.  Chancie Pants moves up the Giraffe class.  Everyone growing up so fast!!!

Helen "The Babcia" Guzowski

November 15, 1908 - July 29,  2010

I suspect as you walked through those pearly gates, you glanced over at St. Peter and shouted, "I think you need a haircut."

We miss you.

EARTHQUAKES!

So on Friday morning I woke up a little before 5:00 AM to the sound of a hose... no wait, that's the dog peeing on the bedroom wall...  what the heck?!

Then I hear Chance call, "mama" and then Shaeleigh starts moaning (typical Shaeleigh moaning in her sleep).  I decide to lay very, very, very still.  Need to take care of the dog issue but first I must lay very, very, very still and maybe Chance will fall back to sleep.  Kenn has already left for work ages ago.

Then I hear this loud roaring noise.  And then the whole house starts to shake.  What the heck?!  It lasts just long enough for me to start thinking that maybe I should get out of bed and get the kids but then the roaring simmers down and all is still again.  I think, "Was that an earthquake?"  We don't get earthquakes.  Didn't really sound like a plane, although that would have been a more likely answer.  Maybe a storm?  I check the clock (because it's always good to note when weird things happen, just in case) and it's 5:05.

Then Chance wakes up and the day begins.  I did get online briefly and google, "Earthquake, DC area" but nothing came up so I dismissed it.

I drop the kids off (Shaeleigh, by the by, is really enjoying her new camp - all smiles) and I'm heading into work when I hear on the radio, "An earthquake hit the area at 5:04 AM this morning."  How cool is that?  It WAS an earthquake.  Oh sure, you California folks are laughing at us (a mere 3.6) but it was the talk of the day everywhere we went.

I took Shaeleigh to see the fireworks this year.  It was her idea.  We decided to leave Chancie at home with Dad.  Kenn doesn't really care for the whole "firework scene" and Chance had already had a day full of scares thanks to "Toy Story 3" which wasn't quite as "G" rated as we would have hoped.  Chance and Kenn spent much of the movie in the lobby and Shaeleigh came home and promptly called her brother an "Idiot."  Great.

But - Shaeleigh really enjoyed the fireworks.  We went to Herndon (note to self - for next year - we got there about 7:00, worked out perfectly).  They had some activities, we had a little picnic, and then around 9:30 the shot off the fireworks. 

Yeah, the photo above is not from my camera.  Those are some other fireworks.

Here's what we saw:

Ooooh..........  Aahhhhhhhhhhhh.........

The Mischievious Cowboy.

These are a few of my favorite things....

Until next time...............

Bella Sara. 

Shaeleigh is in love with Bella Sara.  Long about November, I was in Five and Below (a most excellent store) when I happened upon a small envelope that said it contained a miniature velvet horse.  I thought, "How cute.  Shaeleigh might like that."  Later, we discovered on the back of the package, a website address.  Lo and behold, who knew?  Bella Sara is an entire industry.  And so it began...  

Shaeleigh (ever the collector) diligently began to collect teeny tiny ponies and check off the list that comes with them - marking the ones she has for each series (because the horse come out in series).  She loves the website where she can play games, collect golden horseshoes and use them to buy virtual knick knacks at the virtual bizarre so that she can decorate her virtual castle (when she's not busy feeding and cleaning the stalls of her virtual horses). 

 

 

What's in this thing?  It's mighty tasty

Two kids - two lessons half learned....

Incomplete Lesson #1:

Chance has had the habit of believing that when he sees something, only he sees it.  For example, he might see a dog and he'll say, "I see a dog!" and if you say, "Oh I see it too" he'll get mad and say, "NO, YOU don't see it, I see it, you DON'T see it." 

And so, last week Kenn, Shaeleigh and Chance were in the car and after one of these bits of confusion Kenn explains to Chance about eyes.  "You have eyes and you see things.  I have eyes too and I see things.  Shaeleigh has eyes too."  All seemed to go well.  Kenn relates this to me at dinner.  He is tickled that now Chance has started to say, "I have eyes and you have eyes and Shaeleigh has eyes."  Suddenly my morning makes sense.  I tell Kenn my story.  I was driving Chance to daycare after dropping Shaeleigh at school.  We see a bus.  Chance says, "I see a big bus!"  I say, "Me too!"  Chance says, "NO.  I have eyes, Daddy has eyes, Shaeleigh has eyes.  YOU DON'T HAVE EYES!"

Hm... 

Incomplete Lesson Number #2:

Perhaps Shaeleigh's Kindergarten teacher felt that at 6 you were beyond the need to be quite as specific?

Shaeleigh and I were drawing Christmas trees and she put an angel on the top of hers.  She says to me (obviously repeating back a recent lesson).  "We think of angels as having bodies but they don't.  No bodies....  Just heads."

hahaha

Hm...  sorry for some of the issues with the blog the past few days (and the currently missing photos).  Xanga has been experiencing issues with their new servers or something.  Sometimes home IS a lot like work.  hahahaha

Howdy Stranger -

I seem to be going longer and longer between posts.  In truth, I looked in the camera a week or so ago and there wasn't much in there.  Not sure what we've been doing.  It's a bad sign when you rely on the camera to spark your memory.

We had a teacher meeting for Chance last week and confirmed that he doesn't know his colors or shapes.  His teacher had come to the same conclusion we did - he just doesn't care.  He can sort correctly but if you ask him what's what he spits out the first shape/color that comes to mind.  The other day in the grocery store he told me, "You don't have quarters because the washing machine is broken."  It took me a minute - I've never taken him to a laundramat - but then I caught on - the gumball machines had eaten our quarters the week before and didn't give either kid whatever little bit of plastic they had hoped for.  I had told them that we should save our quarters for something else.  He'd apparently added gumball machine to the "machine bucket" in his brain. 

He's smart though and lately he's pretty funny to talk to because he's having genuine conversations.  Yesterday I was in the kitchen and I heard him in the family room talking to himself saying, "this is a tricky game... this is tricky, a tricky game..."  I looked over and he was sitting with one of Shaeleigh's 100 piece puzzles trying to put it together.  A few minutes later Kenn says, "Chance, why don't you do one of your puzzles, I don't think you can do that one."  Chance says, "Well...  I can TRY."  He has patience for puzzles.  For little else I might add, but for puzzles, he sits there and figures them out with great persistence.

I will conquer this 100 piece Bella Sara puzzle.

I will not let the white winged horse surrounded by flowers and fairies defeat me.

A handsome lad when he isn't making faces

So speaking of the Bella Sara puzzle...  Shaeleigh discovered he was playing with it and was of course, reluctant to share.  I tried to talk her down (he won't break it, he's being careful) and in he walked with one of the pieces shoved up his nose.  His timing leaves something to be desired.

This is Baby (Chance's beloved buddy).  Baby hasn't gotten near the blog space as Mr. Dave but he well loved in his own way.  Mr. Dave has been served tea at many a tea party.  Baby got shoved into the pitcher at a recent game of lemonade stand.  Ah, the many faces of love.

And lest I leave you with the impression that he is not sweet - I was pushing him on the swing recently and he says, "I don't want to go high into the trees...  I would miss my mommy."  Aw.....

The kids were in the truck the other day and a motorcycle was in the lane next to Chance's side and he says, "Dad, roll down my window so I can hear the motorcycle." 

And our Shaeleigh won her first award last month - she was the Kindergarten winner for the Virtue of the Month.  One kid in each grade wins the virtue award each month.  She won for Cooperation.  She was called up during the awards assembly and got to stand up in front of everyone.  She looked so tiny.  Her teacher had given us a heads up that she had won so Chance and I went and clapped for her.  Good job Shaels!

Here's a cake we made for a cake walk at Chance's school. 

And here's the cake they made me for Mother's Day.  Shaeleigh wrote Mom on this side of the cake when Kenn wasn't even looking.  It's funny having her reading so much these days.  She was eating some instant pudding yesterday and the box was on the table so she reads it, "Fiber, protein, calors...   see, this is really good for you!"  Hahaha - that's my kind of thinking!

She's laughing because I was trying to get a decent picture of her (after noticing that the camera was void of anything).  She was ducking around avoiding me but I snagged this one.

We went to a "Truck Touch" event a few weekends ago.  It was awesome - all kinds of big trucks that the kids could climb on.  You can't really see him in the photo above but Chance is "driving" that thing.

Here he is.  He was quite happy with this! 

Chance and Grandpa.  Nothing like a good book!

Pea-Eye and a heap of dog hair.  There are a couple times a year where you can brush and brush and it never seems to end.  I don't know where it comes from but it blows like tumbleweeds across the kitchen floor some days

And then the sun came out and we played in the inflatable pool (which seemed a lot bigger last year). 

Two more weeks of Kindergarten then she's officially an Upcoming First Grader.  So big!