Growing Up, Growing Organized

Last year I posted this blog entry about Haylie searching through her short drawer and pulling out all her shirts. Well the other day after leaving her alone in her room for awhile I came back to find this. Despite the fact that all of the shirts are still coming out of the drawer that I put them into, I'm happy to see that she's learning some organization skills!

Here's James trying to blend in...

No-name Turtle

For Father's Day Micah wanted a turtle, believe it or not. He had been talking about it for months (a couple months ago) so when I went to buy the turtle I figured it would be a surprise and hoped he still wanted it. The day before Father's Day I got the turtle, came home and hid it in the garage It was in a box from the pet store and I put the box down in a corner behind a bean bag chair in the garage. Not more than 30 min after I got home, Micah went out in the garage to get something. He quickly hurried back inside and called me out. He pointed to the corner and said "something is moving over there." I confidently walked over to the bean bag chair and removed it to show the Petco box at which point he looked confused and then pronounced, "A TURTLE!" Yes...no longer a surprise, but he was excited nonetheless.

So everyone asks me, "really, Micah wanted a turtle? why?" Well he wanted a pet for the kids but nothing he really had to take care of. This turtle is perfect. It lives outside full time on the side of the house. We just had to fence it in so it couldn't escape. Every day he throws a piece of lettuce out there and makes sure the water is still full. That's it and definitely our kind of pet!! The kids love it although it is yet to be named. Micah thought he would name it Dodger since it is constantly trying to escape (and he loves the Dodgers). Haylie wants to name it Clown...who knows... Any other good names out there?

Here's some pictures of our turtle and a video of James chatting with it.

Here's the turtle's home. We still need to go out to the greenbelt and bring back some more interesting nature for it...

James loves the turtle. He always wants to look at it. I love how he says turtle...

Haylie and Eli

Haylie loves Eli and Eli loves Haylie. It's a match made in Heaven. Haylie just loves to see her friend Eli and whenever we are headed to where Eli is she always asks, "Mommy, can I hold Eli's hand?" Well, luckily Eli likes to hold Haylie's hand to so they get along great.

Mess

James doesn't really mind getting dirty but lately his is very aware whenever he gets things on his hands. Whether it's dirt or banana or ice cream - he shows everyone and repeats "mess...mess...mess" until we acknowledge that he is indeed correct and has made a mess.

Girls Lunch

Last week was such a great week with lots of good girlfriend time. Every few months all of my best girlfriends from highschool get together for a lunch or hangout time with the kids. It's the best time reminiscing and thinking about how we've grown from when we were young girls in highschool to now, most of us are married with children. Here is the whole gang:

Twilight Girls Night

Last night I had the MOST fun getting together with some girlfriends to culminate a 2 week saga of Twilight obsession. I started the Twilight books about two weeks ago after some of the girls in our Bible Study were talking about them. They challenged me to just try out a couple chapters and promised I would get hooked - I completely resisted, repulsed at the thought of reading a book about vampires... well almost two weeks and about 2300 pages later I am nearly finished with the 4th book!!! It has been a whirlwind 2 weeks but SO fun. Last night we all got together to watch the first movie and what should have been a 2 hour movie ended up 4 hours long because we had to stop it every 2 minutes for commentary, and of course some good old fashioned girly squealing. Thanks for so much fun girls and I can't wait for movie #2!!!

Blankie

James loves his blankie!!!!! It's funny how kids get attached to things. Haylie has a little brown monkey that she has been inseparable with since she could recognize the difference between her animals. Well, James has grown an attachment to his blankie (we have bought him some additional ones as a backup - wish we had thought of that with Haylie). Whenever he sees the blanket (on the floor) where he last left it, he darts for it and drops to the floor, laying his face on it with a huge smile as if he is reuniting with a long lost friend!