Sibling Fun

The kids ran around the backyard yesterday afternoon, enjoying the sunshine.  Abby and Hannah had fun pushing Griff on the swing.

Abby was busy drawing before dinner.  She showed me what she drew - a family portrait.  You can't see  Griff, because her hand is in the way.  You can see Hannah, Abby, me and Mike. She did a pretty good job.  Mike and I especially liked the blue tie she put on Mike!

Water Fun

We had a pretty warm day one day late last week (Thursday? Friday? can't remember), and the kids BEGGED to play with the hose and a bucket.  I'm always amazed at how much fun they have with a bit of water and some buckets and pails.  They were soaked by the time Mike got home from work.

Griffin has also taken to doing the dishes. Seriously, he does them, and he does a pretty good job. He won't do the baked on chicken pan, but other than that, he does them all!  He begs to do them, so we figure we may as well let him!

We are off to take Abby to school, and hopefully take advantage of a pretty good day - 60 degrees and sunny. 

60 Degree Fun and a Birthday Celebration

The beautiful Minnesota summer is right around the corner, I can feel it. It was a great afternoon here today, warm and sunny, and tomorrow is supposed to be 80 - yes, 80!  Can't wait. I got some cute pictures of Hannah and Griff while we were out this afternoon. Abby wasn't much into getting her picture taken, so only got one of her.





It was also Kona's birthday today, which Abby has been reminding us about for weeks. She insisted that we do something to celebrate and buy him presents.  I forgot :-( . So, she called Mike at work this afternoon and left him a voicemail asking him to stop at Cub on the way home to buy Kona gifts! Mike came home with gifts, which Abby promptly wrapped. The kids had fun singing him Happy Birthday and helping him "open" his gifts.
Lastly, this is a picture of a piece of furniture I painted. I never really liked it, so I figured this would be a good piece to experiment on....if it turned out horrible, no big deal. I'm so glad I painted it, because I LOVE it now.  I put on some new hardware and it looks fantastic. It's sitting in our entry way.  I'm moving onto painting Hannah's dresser- it's huge, and it will probably take me a month to paint it, but I'm ready!

Car Carrier

Griff is a bit obsessed with cars and "car carriers". He LOVES to watch for the big trucks that carry the cars on the highway, and he will scream at the top of his lungs "CAR CARRIER" when he sees one.  He had a toy one, which was smashed beyond repair awhile ago, and he's been sad ever since. Enter Mike today......Griff was talking about car carriers today, and I mentioned that maybe Dad could build you one. Well, Mike took that suggestion and ran with it.....he spent at least five hours today building Griff a pretty cool car carrier out of wood shims, wood glue, staples, toothpicks and straws!  The engineer in him came out in full force!  Griff LOVES it...I'm just hoping Mike won't be too sad when someone accidently falls or steps on it!  

The other random picture is from the other day. All three kids are eating suckers, watching some movie on tv while I make dinner (yes, they were eating suckers right before dinner :-).  They looked pretty cute, all sitting together on our big chair, happily engrossed in the movie and their sucker.

Easter Fun

We had a great Easter visiting Grandma and Grandpa Newman in LaSalle.  The kids did unbelievably well in the car both ways, and they actually slept not too badly away from home....well, not any worse than they sleep here!  They weather was a bit chilly, but the Easter bunny still decided he would hide eggs outside, so we had a fun egg hunt early (and I mean early!) Sunday morning.  The kids had a blast spending time with G&G Newman, Aunt Trish and Uncle Tim - they do love it when they are the center of attention (the kids, not G&G, Trish and Tim :-)!  We spent a lot of time at the park across the street, and on Saturday we went to the water park at the YMCA.  Below are some pictures of the weekend.  And yes, I posted the best picture I got of the three kids on Easter morning.....Abby does in fact have her eyes closed!  The one with Grandma isn't much better...Griff is looking at Abby and not the camera! Again, impossible to get a good pic of all three kids together! (I still can't move the pictures around due to our pc issues - which are a bit better - so they are in a bit of a mixed-up order).