Back flips

Lucius learned how to do an underwater backflip. 

Cunningham's pool (Samantha's grandparents) - 6/24/2012

Bicycle, bicycle. I want to ride my bicycle.

Lucius learned how to ride his two-wheeler today. After googling "how to teach to ride a bike without training wheels" it took him all of 5 minutes to learn. That's one thing checked off our summer to do list.

Under the Sea

Lucius had his end of the year Kindergarten show. It was adorable...and packed. That's only half of the kindergartener's in the video below. Oh, we're going to miss his school (and teacher!). It's off to Bullock next year for first grade. And then things start going downhill or so I've heard.

Mom Jeans

As Lu and I were driving to karate he asks "Mom, why do you wear jeans everyday?"

Later on that night Alice said "You hair crazy, you need go like dis" (while she's miming smoothing ther hair down with her hands).

Oh, there's nothing like kids to boost your self-esteem!

Now it's off to the mall for some new clothes and the hairstylist for a much needed cut.

Besties

      After Tom put Alice to bed (it was his turn) she asked me for kissies. I finally have a kid that likes to hug and kiss! I love it! So I bent down to kiss her and she wrapped her little hands around my neck and said "hug too" and then out of nowhere she smiles and says "you my friend". Heart = melting. The girl can be the sweetest of sweets at times. She can also be the grumpiest of grumps.

KARATE!

Lucius has been doing martial arts classes for about the past 7 months. Recently he earned is advanced yellow belt. He's been doing great with it; however, he wasn't interested in pursuing it further. When I asked why he didn't want to do karate anymore he would come up with excuses like "It always gets in the way of other plans" (um, what other plans does he have?) and "I don't like how Coach Mark just keeps telling us what to do" (um, that's what coaches do). Tom and I decided to sign him up for one more year. ~Osu

Harry Potter

Started reading Harry Potter to Lu tonight. I can't tell who's more excited -- me or him.

Alice speak

Alice likes to use the word "to" inappropriately. 

"No Ichabod. I not happy to you."
"I went potty all to myself."

Birthdays! 3 and 6

This year we had a family celebration for both Lucius and Alice on their birthdays and had one big party one 4/14.

Since I teach late on Tuesday nights this semester we had to celebrate Alice's birthday one day early. The poor girl was sick that whole week with a bad cold, but I think she still managed to enjoy herself. She requested chinese food (chi-nee food) for dinner.

The following Monday we celebrated Lucius' 6th birthday...also with chinese food. Since Lu was off of school for spring break we brought cookies into the Rowan daycare to celebrate. 

On Saturday, 4/14 we had some kids over to our house for a small birthday celebration.

They made their own chef's hats.

Then they all decorated (and ate) cupcakes and ice-cream.

 No games or decorations this year (I had a really rough few weeks at work), but the weather was beautiful and the kids had a great time playing outside.

And even Sitty and Jagee got to attend!


Happy birthday to my big kids!

Opposites

I'm always amazed at the differences between Lucius and Alice. Lucius is always the first one up in the mornings. He's the type of kid that wakes up at 6am ready to go, typically singing and dancing his way downstairs while we whisper-yell at him to be quiet. Then there's Alice, the last one up. I checked on her at 7:30a this morning to make sure she was still breathing and I was greeted with a pouty face and a little voice saying "I still sleepin'."  I apologized and quickly backed myself out of her room and the closed the door. She got up about 10 minutes later. I'm not sure how we're going to get her on the bus 7:40a once she starts kindergarten. Lucius definitely takes after Tom while Alice takes after me.

In other news, no more diapers at naptime or nighttime. Alice is an underwearing gal 24/7 now. Yay!!!!!!!!

Hallway redo

I spend a few days over winterbreak making over our little hallway. Of course I committed a major home makeover faux pas by not having before pictures...so here are the (almost) afters.  For the before just picture ugly dark rose colored walls, brown rubber baseboard, brass hinges and doorknobs, and 1970s original brown slab doors. The laundry door still needs another coat of primer and 2 coats of white paint. The wall color is "barely beige". It's a little lighter in real life. It's really hard to get a good shot of this hallyway.

Jagee's Bday and the annual Family Huddle Awards Ceremony

After spending Christmas in a snow free Minnesota I took the kids for a weekend in VA. We helped Jagee celebrate his 74th (74!) birthday and his Fantasy Football win (#2 for soilmen).

Cooking with Sitty and Jagee

Haircut from the expert

Alice has fallen in love with taking baths since we introduced her to them about 3 months ago. Around the time she was 16 months she started pooping in the bathtub every.single.night. Lucius would wear his goggles in order to look for poo underwater. It was a very dangerous and often dirty  job. Hence the end of bathtime and hello to shower time for the next year. Fast forward  and Alice is now potty trained. So...we were able to successfully re-introduce her to baths and she loves them! This is a picture of her taking a bath in Sitty's deep tub for the first time. She was thrilled.

Three cheers for kid's wine! Hip hip hooray!!! Lucius quickly earned the nicname Chug after this.

Sitty and Jagee opening their presents.

Sitty and Jage enjoying life.

This girls got to spend a little time together on Saturday.

The boys got to spend a lot of time together.

And for First Place in the Family Huddle it's.....a fake trophy!

And now on to the major award ceremony. For Best Season Record it's Coolguy for the win!

Soilmen!!!!! Second time winning!!!! High fives all around.

And then Miss Alice had to steal the show with her rendition of Somewhere over the rainbow and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

The guys.

Jagee making a wish after Cindy's little mishap.