Of the several Mother's Day pictures we tried to take, this one seemed to be the cutest. The next picture is Thomas' airplane. The following two pictures is proof that the boys do eat grapefruit! The last picture is a favorite pastime of the boys: waiting for Daddy to get home. They stand just past the house where they can see their Daddy coming.

Frowns and Clowns

Here are some pictures from early May. Do notice in the second picture that Grandpa and Nathan are practicing their frowns. Then the next few show my clowns. My kids love being silly. Anything out of the ordinary, cracks them up!

Nathan told my Mom last week when he was climbing the railing of the back deck to "go inside, it's cold out."

Thomas was tracing letters in his book. I took my camera out to show off how brilliant he is and he kept messing up. I asked him what was going on and he told me he was embarrassed.

Daddy was sternly telling the boys not to play with the mosquito magnet and Thomas came up to me tearfully and told me that Daddy was making him nervous.

The boys are now drawing things and they actually resemble what they tell me it is (picture coming!).

I had some really helpful advice from Mom this week on child-rearing. I'm not sure where the conversation started or where it ended up but we were talking about catching the children doing something bad. She said when you see them doing something bad why ask them if they did it. You know the answer and you're just setting them up to lie which is bad upon bad. Just skip the question and work on the original problem.

Mom also sent me a link to a blog of a doctor in Albany. The doctor was talking about her parents creating a positive thought environment for her as a child and how she has found those positive thoughts going through her head as an adult. Things like "you can do it!" or "I knew you could!" I've been thinking about it some. I think by working with the boys through encouragement, it may give more weight to my lectures when they are bad. I have good little boys but some days all I feel like I've done is lecture.

Thomas and I leaned over the railing to say good morning to his Daddy. Thomas said don't drop me and I assured him I certainly would not. He told me it made him nervous.

Last night, Nathan had a bag of cranberries that he was eating from. Thomas came by to ask him for some and Nathan told him "no, can't ruin your supper."

Nathan told me this morning that his warm milk "hit the spot"

Yesterday morning, I was quick getting a recipe off the computer and Nathan was with me. I did notice Thomas was mighty quiet. I found him sprawled out on the rug looking through the JcPenny catalog....the lingerie section! I'm really helping it was just belly buttons he was noticing.

Family Weekend

Matt's parents and his sister Sarah with her family came to see us last weekend. It was really great for the cousins to get together. The time flew by as we visited and enjoyed one another's company. We can't wait for them to come see us again!

Haircuts!

Spring-time

We start them young in Berlin! Just kidding, that's a plastic chainsaw Nathan is sporting. There they are outside in their pajamas gardening with me!

Nathan has decided just recently that bugs are scary. We were busy at the sink in the bathroom and he started to really cry and it was just a lady bug flying around. Poor kid! You should see him with worms in the garden, he takes 3 steps back!

Thomas calls me Jen! I cracked up the first few times because it sounded so strange coming from him. But now I don't turn or answer unless I hear Mommy. Sometimes he does try mommy first and when that doesn't work, he hollers Jen. I really try to keep a straight face.

A few cute sayings:
Tommy Chu-chu
Honey-the-pooh
peek and hide.

The Goggle Brothers

Thomas found his goggles the other day and they are now worn 100% of the time either around the neck or on the face!

Yesterday we were out planting rhubarb. I heard Nathan telling Thomas how to shovel with a big shovel. He said "See Mommy? Foot on shovel." It just cracked me up to hear them.

Any time something hurts Nathan, he says that it bit him. He had a little scratch on his hand and he claims a pine tree bit him. He also proceeded to tell the pine tree to go to time out. He puts all sorts of things in time out.