tea party.

So maybe he's not all boy... he did participate willingly in this little tea party.



See how he's offering his baby a sippy cup?


15 minutes later...


all his tea party food was loaded on the bulldozer. It took a few laps around the deck and ended up with tea party supplies scattered everywhere! He's definitely a boy. :)

all boy.

Notice the new crocs... he was so thrilled to get some like Sophie's! And now he will stop wearing her pink ones all around. :)





Yes, a better mom would have probably gone to help. I sat and took pictures.





And he's off again!


Yes, he is driving around the deck... with Sophie sitting on top of the car.



Oh, how I love this little man.

more work.

Corey spent Thursday and Friday helping our contractor. They really got a lot done!

Digging the trench to run electrical lines from the garage to the box on the house.

Electrician comes on Monday...

so we're avoiding these steps this weekend.

chillin'

for my sister.

Corey went to the store tonight and look what he came home with...





Wishing you were here to help me eat these. :)

a new word.

I learned a fun new word from a first grade story today:

cuzwuntim

For those of you who may not be used to reading phonetically... this would be first grade for:

because one time

I love it. :)

ladybug day.

How cute is this bunch?!

friday's work.

Stairs.

A floor.

And a roof.

This is how high up the loft is. Cement driveway will be coming soon. So anxious to get rid of all the sand.

We returned the plain, solid door that our contractor ordered for this one. Won't it be pretty painted navy blue?

thursday morning.

I didn't know it was possible for so many things to go wrong before 7:30 in the morning...

* Lawson woke up 20 minutes early. Crying. Tried to ignore it for awhile and finish getting myself ready, but a 2 year old yelling "Tum get me out, Mommy!" is kind of hard to ignore.

* Lawson is up first now, obviously. This isn't our routine. Change in the routine isn't good in this house. At least not at 6:45 am. Instead of getting Sophie up first and having 15-20 minutes to snuggle together on the couch, she has to share me with Lawson. She's definitely a little creature of habit and she is not happy about this change. Her little lungs have no trouble expressing this unhappiness, either.

* We get downstairs, but Lawson's juice and Hershey's kiss aren't sitting on the bannister ready for him to grab first thing. (Yes. He gets a Hershey's kiss as soon as he wakes up. Maybe not my best mommy tactic, but it makes him cooperative enough to get dressed and ready. Sophie gets one after she gets dressed and goes potty. When you're getting 2 little people ready for the day and out the door by 7:15, alone, you do what you have to do. Don't judge me.) He's not happy about this change in his routine and his little lungs have no trouble expressing this, either.

* Sophie's in the bathroom yelling, actually screaming, that she doesn't have to go potty. And she's mad because last night at 11:00 when I was getting everything around for "Beach Day" at pre-school, I couldn't find her flip flops. We have the outfit, hat, and beach towel, but no flip flops.

* Lawson's dressed and picking out another Hershey's Kiss (Again, don't judge me. Mornings like this, it's purely survival mode. They are dark chocolate ones, at least. That's a little healthier, right?)

* I run outside and find the flip flops underneath the swingset. Along with a stuffed Nemo and a purse full of goodies. As I'm running back to the door, I see that Lawson has opened the door to follow me out and a cat has escaped. I manage to chase down Chloe and get her back in the house.

* Show Sophie the found flip-flops and she's not impressed. Still too busy yelling in the bathroom.

* Rush to grab my lunch (which Corey so lovingly makes for me every night. Spoiled, I know.) Groan at the zip-loc bag full of chocolate covered graham cracker cookies that are in my lunch bag. These would be the very same cookies that I bought at Wal-Mart the night before to use for ladybug cookies on Ladybug Day. (Luckily, this was Thursday and Ladybug Day wasn't until Friday. When I counted later, including the ones from my lunch bag, I had 60 cookies. I needed 61. Guess who made the trip to Wal-Mart to buy me more on Thursday night?!) :)

* Gather up my lunch, my purse, my school bag, Sophie's backpack, and my bag of 60 ladybug cookies and put them on the loveseat near the front door.

* Finally resort to getting a plastic spoon and giving Sophie a swat with it. This is after explaining that her flip flops will not jump on her feet by her standing there screaming at them. Somewhat hard to follow through with the swat when the tears instantly stop and she's saying, "I'm sorry, Mommy. I am so, so sorry!" I was sorry, too, but all the screaming that had gone on was just not okay.

* Get both kids, all the bags and myself out the front door. Pull it shut behind me and hear it lock and think to myself, "No. Please, no." Yup. Car keys are not in my purse, but laying on the loveseat, locked in the house.

* Rush to the backdoor to grab the spare key, only to find that my loving hubby had not returned it to it's secret spot when he used it earlier in the week. Thank goodness for cell phones. It's almost 7:25.

* Sit on the porch with the kids and wait for Corey to show up to rescue us. He pulls up (very quickly, to his credit) with a truck full of park shop guys. They were all treated to a lovely display by a ranting, frazzled wife. Not my best moment. Especially when he said, "Why didn't you just use the spare key to the backdoor?"

* Thankfully manage to get through the first train crossing without any trains. Basically toss the kids in the door at Jessi's with a quick explanation and quick hugs and kisses. Lawson is crying when I leave.

* I call Corey on my way to school to apologize for being a ranting, frazzled wife earlier and start crying on the phone.

* Get stuck at a train at the 2nd set of tracks. Thankfully, it was a short one. And this gave me a minute to stop crying, call Jessi, apologize for being so frantic, and tell her that Sophie's hat for "Beach Day" is in her backpack.

* Somehow... I still made it to school by 7:45. Five minutes before my kids arrive. Just enough time to get my Diet Dr. Pepper, take a few deep breaths and prepare for 20 more little people.

Later on in the day, this arrived... and somehow it made all the awfulness of the morning, now okay...

all boy.

A more responsible mother would have explained why this was not a safe thing to be doing... instead of getting her camera and taking pictures. Oh well...

Because apparently one chair on top of the upside down table wasn't enough.

It could be worse... at least the table is upside down.

This was him holding his arms out, making himself wobble around and saying "Whoa... whoa!"

And now we try and balance on just one table leg.

He never did fall off. And the skinned up knees? Those are from our walk around the block last night.

I'm really supposed to resist this ornery little face?

little people.

Maggie and Sonya Lee were camping. The markers are their campfire. The green and blue highlighters were their fishing poles. :)

family night.

Sophie really wanted to go to the high school football game last night. Corey and I were both way too tired. We talked her out of it by offering going out to eat, getting a movie and snuggling together on the couch with ice cream.

We hadn't been to the Burger King here in town and the kids were so excited to check out the play area. Well, the play area here is like three times the size of the one at Grandma and Grandpa's Burger King. Three little net areas to climb through to even get inside it. Lawson mananged the first two, but there was no way his little legs could swing up over the third one. There was also no way that either Corey or I could get in to help him. And there was no way Sophie was going to be brave enough to venture up there without Lawson. There were two older boys (6 and 9) already there who both came rushing over to offer advice and words of encouragement. "You can do it! I was scared at first, too. Just put your leg up here." Once I gave the older boy permission, he pulled Lawson up through that third opening so that they could finally get to all the fun stuff. They showed both kids all the special areas, went with them down the big slide and stayed right with them every trip up so that they could help get Lawson up there. The kids had the best time and these older boys were so kind to them. After their last trip through Daniel left with his mom to drive back to Hesston and Vance got in his dad's semi truck and headed off. What a disappointment my kids would have had if it weren't for these two boys.

We drove past the football game right at halftime and pulled over, rolled down the windows, listened to the band and watched the cheerleaders. Visited the video store to get VeggieTales for Lawson and Hello Kitty for Sophie. Home for jammies, ice cream and snuggling on the couch.

Such a good night.

roof.

Corey, Bernie and Dave got all the sheeting put on the roof yesterday. A big job. Unfortunately, it's not a waterproof roof yet, so all the rain this morning went right through.

We're both loving the size of that big room up above. So many fun things will happen up there!

grandma and grandpa.

Grandma and Grandpa came for supper Thursday night.

While Daddy and Grandpa did this...

Sophie and Lawson did this...

"It's snowing!"

A shop-vac cleans up a snow storm like this in no time. :)

Corey said today that he's anxious to get a whole pig to put in here.

Gross.