Lots more to come ...........

Matt was teasing Gabe with the toad. Gabe didn't want to touch it. He got creative and used a stick to make it jump and move where he wanted it to go. If I figure out how to use YouTube I'll upload the video we took of them playing with the toad.

Ben found a toad on the back porch and the kids had lots of fun torturing ... err, I mean playing with him.

I think it's so funny how their hands are in the exact same position!

Anna looking cute. :)

Sophia at Matt's T-Ball game. "Go Matt!!"

"Here's a great photo-op", I thought. Both girls are awake, they've been fed, changed and are happily looking around the room discovering new objects. I set them on the bed to get some pictures of them together awake. The first one turned out alright. Then.....





Anna started crying and I couldn't get her to stop. Sophia was a trooper though. She smiled even though she'd rather not be sitting so close to the screamer.

She tried comforting her sister, but it didn't help. At least she tried!

So, I decided to just take some shots of Sophia, since she was so cooperative. I think in this shot she was trying to nurse on Anna's bald head. haha!

Matt and Gabe are climbing on some "art" at Forest Park, near a pond. We went here last Sunday to drop off a turtle that our neighbors found and brought for the boys to watch. We think it was a snapping turtle, but aren't positive. (Sorry, no pictures of the turtle.) Anna asleep in her car seat at Forest Park.

Sophia asleep in her car seat.

Gabe was throwing grass into a small hole that didn't show up in the picture. I love the contrast of his orange shirt and blonde hair with the grass.

"The Tag Along"

Max and Matthew (the blue and green dots near the top of the photo) were going up to the museum and Gabe wanted to go, but wasn't fast enough to keep up.

Matt and Ben waiting for hit so Matt can make the run.

Here Gabe was very distressed that he couldn't go out on the field with his dad.

Matthew-isms

I don't have time to post any pictures (I have two screaming girls) but here's a couple quotes.

Matt, Gabe and I were in the basement playing. Matt and I were hitting each other with noodles (for the pool) and I stopped to play with Gabe for a little bit. Matt came up and hit me with a drumstick (that hurt!), so I took it away from him and threw it in the closet so he couldn't get it. Matt started crying because he wanted to hit me with it. I told him that it hurt because it was harder than the noodle. I said he could hit me with soft things, but that's just too hard. So he says between his sobs, "Can I hit you with a teddy bear?" (When I say 'hit' I mean 'hit' in the play sense of the word, not maliciously.)

******

My mom took the boys to the library the other day for the book reading. It was the Winnie the Pooh theme. They had a "Who Am I" type book with a door knocker. The reader was giving the hints to the kids asking them who they thought Pooh was going to visit. She says, "This friend lives high in a tree, ... etc. Who is Pooh going to visit?" Matthew screams out, "PAUL SIMON!"

******

We were having dinner and Matt saw a car driving on our street and turning around (we live at the end of a cul de sac). He says, "They are going to wrong way." I asked him what he meant and he says, "If you don't like to go the right way you go the wrong way." I thought that was pretty profound.


That's all I can think of for now. More will come, I'm sure!

Sophia was watching Matt and Gabe. They were trying to get close to kiss and hug her, thankfully she's very easy going, so she didn't get too upset. Gabe has tried picking her up just one other time....... Sophia was in the middle of our bed napping and Gabe thought it was in her best interest that she be in her crib. When I realized that Gabe was unaccounted for I immediately went into the bedroom and found them both on the edge of the bed, Gabe holding her around the middle trying to get her into her playpen that was right up next to the bed. They are both fine. :) I'm going to be getting gates to section off girl's area from the boy's area. Hopefully that will work ... although I can totally picture Gabe climbing over the gate trying to 'comfort' the girls.
Gabe's really excited to get to sit next to his sister (Sophia) in Anna's chair/rocker. (I love those chairs!)

Sophia sleeping. They are getting to the point where they're awake more often, I just happen to pull out the camera when they're sleeping.

Anna - she's since lost more hair on top. She really looks like she's going bald already. Poor girl!

Gabe -- let me explain the scabs.....The day before the picture was taken Gabe was playing basketball with "aww-jea" AJ and Micheal, our neighbors. The ball rolled away from him and he went after it, tripped on his shoes and fell, forhead first, onto the asphalt. He had a pretty large goose-egg on his noggin and cried for a little while, but after icing it for 15 min or so he was right back out there playing. What a trooper. :) (The cut on his nose is from him pulling a plastic container down on his face trying to get to his cowboys and indians.)

When we were having worship the other night he was playing with his scab and ended up pulling it off. He looked at it in his hand and said, "boke" then put it back up to his head trying to reattach it.

Anna -- snug as a bug in a rug. It's hilarious ... no matter how tightly you wrap her up she always finds a way to get her arms out. It's quite amazing.

When I grow up ....

This morning as the trash man was putting our trash into his truck Matthew looks at me and says, "When I grow up I want to be a trash man and put boots on and work with that guy." He really likes our trash guy, I think because he's waved at the kids before while they stared at him through the living room window.

Books and Babies

Sophia sleeping
Anna with a scowlI tried getting them holding hands ... they kept moving too much and this is the best I could do. They are putting on a bit more weight, although Anna still seems so small to me. Sophia is definately growing. Their looks are changing again and I think Anna's starting to look more like me and Sophia is kinda a mix between Gabe and Matthew. My opinion will probably change again within the next few days.

We've recently imposed a 'no more movies' rule because the boys were WAY too obsessed with movies. (The first thing they would do in the morning was ask to watch one and then it would continue throughout the day.) They haven't watched anything for almost a week and guess what they love doing now .... reading! Matt's always loved books, but Gabe hasn't been too interested in them until now. He has a new found love. Especially for snake books.In this picture Matt was reading to Gabe. It's funny listening to what he thinks the book is saying. We have one book about dangerous animals where it talks about Chinese eating shark fins in soups and how it's a delicacy. Matt was reading and said, "The Chinese kids eat the dorsal fins of the sharks."

Matt has a Finding Nemo sippy cup with pictures of the sharks on it and he was staring at it for a while as if contemplating something. Then asks me, "Mom, why are the hammerhead shark's eyes on the hammer?"

Gabe's starting to communicate more although a lot of the words sound very similar so it's hard to differentiate. He gets frustrated because he has to repeat himself several times before we get what he's saying. He's improving though, thankfully!

Matthew got a new bike last night and had lots of fun riding it around. It's a bit too big for him, but he can reach the pedals just enough to get going and now he's got brakes, which he loves. I'll get some pictures up of his bike soon.

Well, TTFN! :)

All's Well

The Boys are loving having two new baby sisters.

Sophia smiling at daddy (he was teasing her with the pacifier).

They LOVE to hold the kids -- the girls usually like it too.

Sleeping cheek to cheek. :)

Droolin Sophia

This is the only picture I have of the two together awake. (Anna on the left and Sophia on the right.)

Sophia

Anna

Study: Typical Stay-at-Home Mom Would Earn $138,095 a Year

"NEW YORK — If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.
This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Mass.-based compensation experts.
The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.
The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.
A mother who holds full-time job outside the home would earn an additional $85,939 for the work she does at home, Salary.com reported.
Last year she would have earned $85,876 for her at-home work, it said.
Salary.com compiled the online responses of 26,000 stay-at-home mothers and 14,000 mothers who also work outside the home."

Cool, huh? I wonder if the price would go up for each additional child?? I'll post some more pics soon ..............