Hot digity dog the bathroom painting is done!

Hot digity dog our bathroom painting is done! Jeff and I just finished cleaning things up and putting them away. After taking everything out and then back into two rooms I thought, man I can't imagine moving right now. It is amazing how much stuff can be in one room! Anyway, we are pleased with the end results and think that it made a dramatic change! The top picture is a before and the other two are afters! Jeff also added a shelf on top of the vanity, I will post a picture when we decide how to add our nautical touch to it.

Walter, Rose E and I also went to Walter's friend Cyrus's house today for a play date. Walter loved it, Cyrus is into geo trax trains too and I had to literally pry Walter away when it was time to leave. I also added a picture of Rose E with her static hair. Even though it is still pretty thin it has started to get a little thicker in the back and curl up on the bottom, it is also coming in a light brown color. Walter told me today that Rose E came from the doctor when she was born. He has also been into doing his own reading (looking at books and making-up his own story) Rose E said the words "pizza" (that what we had for supper) and "hit on" (this morning she had a mark on her head and I said did you hit your head on your crib and she said "hit on"). She is beginning to understand so much and looking at things when we talk about them.

Did somebody say it's April?

Well, this morning we woke to a good amount of snow on the ground. After looking out the window you'd never believe that it is April! By tomorrow it is suppose to accumulate up to 2 feet! When Walter got up this morning he said "Mama theres' snow, why the snow not melting? Me just want the snow to go into a cave(I guess he thought it hibernates or something during the summer)." They predict 60 degrees next week but it is pretty hard to imagine at this point! Even though it was a bit snowy, Walter and Jeff still trudged through it and walked to the post office this morning and It was well worth it in Walter's world for he had received one of his magazines. He had lots of fun reading about the animals in it and doing all of the activities.



We showed Rose E today how to stand-up behind this toy and lone behold she just took off with a great big smile on her face! Then she practiced walking holding onto our hands between Jeff and I. Lately when I leave the room she's been saying "mama, mama?" Today I had to laugh because Walter was telling Jeff something and Jeff said "oh no" then Rose E said "no, no, no" then a little bit later I went to feed her supper and as I was setting her in her high chair she said "no, no, no." So needless to say I just gave her a snack in my lap and postponed her supper a bit. She also looked at a book today and said "pigs" and "doggy." Her favorite books right now are the ones that have lift open flaps and the baby signing ones. Last night it was the cutest thing because Walter fell asleep early, so Just Rose E and I went for a walk and on our walk she started to sing the Abc's to me. She would sing "Abcdefghi" and clearly say most of the letters, then we took turns singing it to each other.

I also, took a picture of Chessie. We took the cutter out of our porch and put it into the dining room and Chessie has now claimed it as a bed. She looked so cozy in it today I almost wanted to curl up with her (even though these kids sleep through the night most nights a full night sleep is not always guaranteed, Walter got-up three times last night for a drink of water and to use his potty, plus Jeff and I have been staying -up too late after they are asleep. I keep looking in the mirror and thinking some day I will look and my eyes will not be blood shot but on the other hand it goes way too fast and I know I will miss it when they get bigger).

Dining in style

Yippee, our dining room is done! Jeff and I stayed-up late last night getting it back into order and now it is sparkly clean and doesn't seem so plain anymore.I included a before and some after

pictures.

Walter and I went to playgroup this morning. He likes to play with the toys there and I think it is good for him to learn how to play with other kids.

Things are never dull in this house! Right now Walter is playing with Jeff's belt and of course it is a train, the buckle is the caboose and it is traveling all over our room under pretend bridges (my chair) and tunnels(the bed). Last night he was looking into the cats room (where she eats, sleeps and has her litter box) and he said "oh know Chessie's room have dark in it." His expressions sure do make us smile! Another expression that I hear all day long is "What Mama just say?" Rose E kept her Daddy busy last night while he fed her supper, she kept throwing a toy fish on the floor and saying "uh oh." When I came into the room he told me about it and she held-up her fish for me to see (she understood exactly what we where talking about). What a couple of goofs!

Peek a boo!

This morning Walter said "mama me want the camp(cabin) to give me mine toys back" then he listed all of the toys that we left there (his memory is sometimes scary, he hasn't been inside the camp since this fall). Then it just made me long for that warm lake superior sand espcially after we got more snow today!

I snapped some pictures of my other two babies playing peek a boo! This afternoon I covered up some toys of Rose E's and as she would take the blanket off I would say "peek a boo" then she had fun covering herself up and giggling as she took it off and waited for me to say "peek a boo." Our curious cat also decided to join in on the fun as she reached her paw under the door and played peek a boo too in her own way before making her grand entry. The kids got a kick out of it and Rose E kept saying "kitty kitty."

Rose E also started to say "all done" today when she was done eating. It was funny because at breakfast I gave her her vitamin after her meal then I tried to give her a drink of water to go with it and she kept saying "all done, all done" and pushing the sippy cup away.

Lastly, I took a picture of Walter playing this Thomas game with Mommy and Daddy this morning. We played three games and then he played with it for hours afterwards setting-up track and playing with the trains. A true train man indeed!

Sending Hugs Ariel's Way on His Day!

Today is a special day, for it is Ariel's Birthday! We have been blessed with having him in our family since July when Jeff's brother and his wife started the process for adopting him( the adoption will be final this month), he is from the Philippines and we think he is a great kid!

In the home front:

This morning when Walter was playing with his foam cars and a road, he assigned a car that Kirsten, Cale and Ariel (his cousins) all drove to Papa's house and on the way to Papa's house a train derailed and got "hurt," so he fixed it by putting a band-aid on it. The motorcycle also got hungry so he took it to the gas station to eat. Then he played with a little fire station. He built burning train stations with his blocks and then pretended that the truck was rushing over to put the fire out.

Rose E had a good time opening and closing the door to the fire station too especially since the siren went off every time the door opened. Walter and I also played a game where we pushed a truck back and forth to her and it produced lots of giggles. Her words that she worked hard at saying today where "deer" and "hurt". She also acted like she was reading a book to me by turning the pages and making her voice go up and down. Speaking of reading, Walter had his story hour tonight at the library, he just loves it because his good friend Cyrus has been coming too.

The singing all out of batteries!

Walter was playing with a boat, toy fish and train this morning, he said the boat was on it's way to American Idol (which surprised me since he hasn't watched that on t.v in a long time) so I said what is the boat going to do at American Idol? He said "dance." Then he lined up the boat, train and fish and said they where at American Idol, so I asked if he was going to sing for them and he said "no the singing out of batteries!"

We spent the afternoon building with foam blocks and mega blocks. We made a train station, a tunnel, a bridge and a light house. Then Walter laid down his Thomas track and drove the trains around. He really got into it and drove his frog over in a car to the train station to buy a ticket and then put his frog onto his train. He also drove his boat around the light house. Rose E had fun too, she got a kick out of knocking over towers that I built for her. She also sat for a long time drumming on the mega block container and emptying the blocks out of it.

I am very excited because our dinning room now has it's first coat of paint on it. We went with a color on the top, a color on the bottom and a stripe chair rail height. It is going to make a dramatic change! I will post a picture when it is done.

Walter and his coat of many comments!

This morning I grabbed this new coat out of the closet on our way out the door to Sunday school and had no idea it would cause such a raucous! Lately, Walter has been preferring to be called "handsome" instead of "cute"(he associates cute with being a baby for some reason) and many people then called it cute! So on the way home he kept saying "me not cute me handsome train boy Mama."

I also snapped a picture of him playing with these foam shapes. He wanted to help me clean-up my Sunday school classroom (I teach kindergarten and first grade) today after the lesson and after helping for awhile stumbled across them (well actually they stumbled onto him as he pulled them down from a shelf and they brightly decorated the classroom floor). Since I was done using them for my lesson I let him bring some home. Again that creativity blossomed, as circles became cheeseburgers, triangles became pizza and of course squares and circles became trains.




Last but not least, I took a picture of Rose E. I brought out this water mat today since she has been drumming on her tray lately. She loved it, in fact twice I thought she was done playing and tried to take her tray away and she clung onto it for dear life!

She also tried to say "no, no" today. It was cute because she grabbed a cord and Jeff said "no, no Rose E." Then I brought her upstairs to change her diaper and clothes. As I was putting her shirt on it got stuck on her noggin and she got mad at me and it sounded like she was saying "no no." Then when we got it on we practiced saying it back and forth while she turned her head to signal no.