I'm so happy!!

Madeline is working on sitting up on her own, so I've tried to set up a little place that will be soft when she inevitably falls over. All her toys are around her and she's getting better at it every day. I can't believe how fast she's growing!

Here she is this morning looking pretty happy about how things are going...

The book she's holding is a "Little Mermaid" book that is one of her favorites. She gets so excited when she sees it. We may have an early obsession either with books or with Disney's animated movies...possibly both. I'm OK with that.

Davis's B-Day

We celebrated Davis's 6th birthday today...I can't believe he's already turning 6! He wanted to go to Shankz to play black-light miniature golf and we had a blast. He had so many sweet friends come to celebrate with him - this was an AWESOME day for him!

Andrew is taking this shot very seriously...

Sweet Big Brother

Andrew and Madeline get a lot of time to hang out on the days he's not at school and they have a great time playing together. He keeps her laughing A LOT! She thinks both her brothers are fascinating and hilarious. Andrew is very loving and sweet with Madeline, and these pictures really captured that today.

Pretty in Pink

Madeline dressed up a little today in a new dress, so I propped her up to take a few pictures. She was having fun chillin' on the pillows!

I love papaya!! (Sort of...)

Madeline had her first taste of papaya this morning. It's hard to tell, but I think she liked it. I think she was surprised that it wasn't carrots, because she's been having only carrots for a few days. Since I'm trying to give her only homeade baby food, her variety is limited by my productivity! I better get to blending!!!

We love leopard!

Well, I love leopard, so by default, Madeline must as well...at least until she is old enough to protest. So far we're ok on this matter. She seems to be happy. It's just a touch of leopard, anyway. Just wait until the weather gets cooler!

Now you see them, now you don't...

Wow - all in one week - Davis started Kindergarten and had his first two teeth pulled! I guess that's how it goes. I don't think he realized why I was taking the first picture before we went to the dentist, but he was so proud afterwards! He's lovin' the tooth fairy!

First Day of Kindergarten

He is so excited to go to his first day of kindergarten!

Our Greenhouse (and Redhouse)

Davis and Andrew have been asking to plant seeds recently, so I got a couple of Sesame Street "My First Garden" kits for them. Since Andrew loves tomatoes and Elmo, I got him the Elmo's tomato growing kit. And, because Davis's favorite color is green, I got him the Oscar the Grouch green bean growing kit. They had so much fun creating their greenhouses and planting their seeds. I tried explaining the concept of a greenhouse, but they still called Andrew's a "redhouse" because his pots and Elmo stickers were red. Not sure my explanation was very effective. That's ok - they had a blast! We put them in the kitchen window sill and I'm sure they'll be checking them every day.

Happy Girl!

Daddy took this adorable picture of Maddie and got the sweetest smile out of her! This is how she looks pretty much every time she sees Daddy. And he is wrapped around her little finger!

Yellow Day

Well, today was yellow day at VBS. Each day has a designated color theme which everyone wears. Of course we all wanted to support this, but Maddie doesn't have a lot of yellow (due to our obsession with pink). However, the boys helped me pick out this dress and yellow flower to help her stay in the spirit of things!





She looks pretty serious about it, doesn't she? Maddie has a really sweet smile that melts your heart, but it's hard to capture since the only time she'll do it is when I take the camera down and grin at her!

Soooo hungry!

We are having Vacation Bible School this week at church. Since it goes until noon each day, we are all pretty hungry by the time we get done. Today the boys were being so good during our errands afterward that I decided to take them to one of their favorite places...Pei Wei! You can see that they are enjoying it!

The love edamame and have so much fun squeezing them out of the little bean pods. Today was especially good because Andrew shot one out that actually came flying across the table and hit Mommy in the cheek. I have to admit it was a pretty good shot, although accidental. I laughed a lot but then had to explain that it was only funny once...

Madeline was, of course, blissfully sleeping through all of it. Restaurants are just about her favorite place to nap.

Just couldn't resist

This was just too cute not to post. No event or outing to tell about...just hanging out at home taking random pictures.

Blue is not just for boys

We have gone a little pink crazy with Madeline being the only girl, but do have a few things that aren't just pink...so it's fun dressing her in something different every now and then. She was digging the bow today! I'm still trying to figure out hair accessories, but glad she has some hair to put them in. : )

Trip to the Aquarium

We took a trip to the Downtown Aquarium today! The boys had so much fun. It was our second trip and they loved it just as much the second time. But we need Daddy to go back with us and take them on all the rides. With Maddie along, I couldn't do the whole ride thing. Regardless, we had a fantastic time. Of course, I dressed Madeline in her finest aquarium-viewing attire...yes, that is a goldfish on her romper...

Here are Davis and Andrew at the entrance to the Aquarium:

Finding treasures inside...

...and trying to touch the stingrays!

We ate lunch there, including dessert, which for the boys was a shark-shaped rice crispy treat they could "paint" and then eat. So fun!!

This is Davis's new shark that he got on the trip. He is aptly named "Sharky"!

M is for Madeline

Here are a couple of shots of Madeline this morning. She couldn't quite stay up by herself...but managed to keep her balance long enough to get the shot! She seemed pretty proud of herself! What a cutie!!

Sand Art

Daddy brought home some awesome craft projects for us to work on last night, so about 7:00 am today we had to start the first one...sand art bottles! As a mom who proudly had the sand box carried away earlier this year, sand can be a little stressful. Luckily, our newspaper was put to good use and the boys were extremely careful, so it went well.


They're looking a little sleepy, but so excited about making these bottles. They loved pouring in the different colors of sand and stirring it all up.

Davis finished first, so he started working on some Halloween sticker books while Andrew kept stirring his sand.

Here's our finished products! Tomorrow, painting dinosaur sun-catchers!

Lakeside UMC Fall Festival

Our church, Lakeside UMC, had it's first fall festival today and the boys were so excited to go. They talked about it all week and luckily we had perfect weather on Saturday morning for a great time.

We started with decorating pumpkins:

There were several booths outside, and of course they really liked the ring toss where they won lots of candy.

Here's the train that took them for rides all around the parking lot. Andrew was especially excited about the train.

Here is the fishing booth...more candy!

We finally burned off some of the candy excitement on the moonwalk.

And just to make sure we got enough sugar, we decorated cupcakes then sat down here to eat them. So fun!

We finished things off by doing some apple-stamping with paints.

They had so much fun and can't wait for the next one! Too bad it's so far off...luckily October seems to be full of fun activities they can look foward to.