Not what you think

This afternoon Cole appeared with 2 foam tiger claws on his hands. When I asked him if he was a tiger fan he emphatically replied "No, I'm a rancor!". For those of you who don't know, a rancor is a big, scary animal in the Star Wars movies.

Soon after I was called to Owen's room to watch a movie and this is what I saw:

Jacob was the audience while Owen and Cole acted out an elaborate (made-up) scene from Star Wars where Captain Rex battles a rancor.


It was a vicious fight, but in the end the rancor was defeated:

How cute are they?!?!?!

And if you can stand any more cuteness hop on over to my blog to see some new photos of Anne Marie & Catherine. Those girls are so sweet & adorable they almost make me want another baby...almost.

Confession

Check out Owen's enthusiasm as we continue our tradition of photographing our kids in their LSU gear at the start of each football season:



In June the only picture I took that I didn't get paid for was of my steam cleaner. Sad. Since then I've been much better about documenting the day-to-day stuff in our lives, hence all the blog posts. It's always a bit of a struggle for me to balance capturing these memories with just making memories with my boys. I think both are important for all of us.

These are from this morning. Owen spelled his name to help him identify his castle in the city they were constructing.





And for the record, our kids do own clothes...lots of them actually. They just prefer to be nearly-naked and will strip them off as soon as they get the chance. :-)

Happy Birthday Marshall!

Happy birthday Marshall...we love you!!!

making Daddy's cake:




notice Jacob licking his lips here:

Fun in the sprinkler

Yesterday was one of those days. You know the kind - no naps, cranky kids, cranky parents, bedtime can't come soon enough. Going outside always helps everyone cheer up, so out we went. Marshall set up the sprinkler to water the grass and the kids instantly migrated to it.

Jacob played for a few minutes & then spent the rest of the evening like this:

Cole and Owen played until we had to force them inside to eat & bathe.

Randomness

We attended Family Day for LSUPD last weekend. They did a great job making it fun for the whole family - good food, bounce houses, a water slide, lots of games, and they also had a clown come in to paint faces. Owen stood in line very patiently so he could have his face painted like Spiderman. He wore his new look out to dinner that evening and was not happy that he had to wash it off before bed.


The kids have been spending a lot of time outside this week. We're all enjoying the weather...93 degrees is much better than 103 degrees! They love digging for treasure and building castles in the sandbox.

Diego is enjoying the backyard a lot, too. He sneaks through the fence to play with Izzy and loves that he can escape right through the slats of the iron gate when he gets tired.

Every night (almost) Marshall and I have a "date" to watch Scrubs &/or CSI Miami reruns before bed. Diego takes the opportunity to nap under the couch. Oddly enough he doesn't get under there at all during the day - only when we're watching tv. He usually starts off laying like this:

Then a few minutes later he'll disappear almost completely:

Lookie what I made! I just love it...a collection of words that describe life with our 3 fabulous boys. I'd originally designed it to coordinate with Jacob & Cole's room since they have some old photos on their wall that need to be replaced, but for now it sits in our playroom. It's mounted on beveled wood so it's like a sign, not a picture. It looks small here but it's actually 15x30 inches. I wish I'd thought of doing this when they were babies...it'd have been so cool to hang over their cribs!

King of the Jungle!

Owen finished his first full week of kindergarten today and got off the bus with big news - he was voted King of the Jungle! Each week the kids nominate and vote based on good behavior. The king or queen gets to spend the weekend with the class monkey, Zoe, and write about their adventures in a journal. That's right folks...their good behavior is rewarded with weekend homework! Luckily Owen doesn't see it that way and is excited about hanging out with his new orange friend. :-)

First Day of Kindergarten

At 6:45 this morning I heard the beep Owen's alarm clock, and no more than .2 seconds later he was bounding down the hall yelling "Wake up guys. It's the day I go to kindergarten!!" Talk about excitement! We all headed out to the bus stop, which lucky for us is just next door. Owen knew his best buddy Tyler would be waiting on the bus for him, so he was very anxious for it to arrive. When we finally saw the "butterfly bus" pull up he bounded on it so quickly I didn't even get to snap a picture. Now I'm already waiting for 4:13pm when he will get off the bus so I can hear all about his day.

Here are a few shots of his before school this morning.

Owen is reading!

Owen read his first book yesterday! I ordered the Bob books for him after seeing them recommended in several places, including our pediatrician's office. The first set arrived last night and Owen was anxious to get started. We spent about 10 minutes reviewing the letter sounds introduced in the first book, and within 20 minutes he'd read the whole book aloud to me & Marshall all by himself! I can't remember ever seeing him look so proud.

These photos are from this morning when he read the book to Cole and Jacob. We didn't review at all this morning and he read it perfectly.







Also, last night Marshall & I went to kindergarten parent orientation. There are 19 different kindergarten classes and Owen was lucky enough to be assigned to a class with 2 of his best friends from preschool. His teacher seems really nice and he's anxious to start riding the bus with his buddy Tyler. Tuesday will be his first day & I anticipate it will be a great year for him.

It's hard to believe how much he's grown! Some days it feels like these were taken last week.

Boys will be boys

This morning the boys decided they wanted to paint. For some reason I didn't pull out the mess-free Color Wonder paints and used the real stuff instead. About 30 minutes into his masterpiece Cole decided he wanted to paint a costume on himself. We had a good laugh, took a quick photo, then headed to the tub.

Jacob wasn't really messy but wanted to bathe anyway.

Of course Diego followed us into the bathroom...he follows us everywhere. :-)