Yep

Yesterday while driving we passed a crane that was towering over a half-finished building.

Rand's eyes lit up. "MOM! That crane is going to pick up THAT ENTIRE BUILDING!!!!"


Ella has started saying "I love you, too" -- even when nobody has said "I love you" first. She also has added appropriate use of "okay" and "oh" to her vocabulary. Super cute. She has started wearing long sleeved shirts for the first time in months and tells us, "It's my jacket and a shirt!"

She loves to talk on the phone, and while she is a very good listener (she stands still and just smiles) she doesn't really talk back.

My Little Monkeys

Spiffy

Rand: "Mom, it's raining so I need a jacket!"

"What jacket do you want?" Spiderman, blue fleece, red....

"The one with the badge on it."

Oh yes. My son is stylin'.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Feeding Time

Sweet Tomatoes

On Sunday night we went out to dinner as a foursome for the first time....ever, really, in as long as I can remember. We went to Sweet Tomatoes (Soup Plantation) because ever since Rand heard about a magical place where you can eat as many different kinds of food as you want, he's requested to go there.

It was so fun! The kids were incredibly well-behaved and ate three bowls of macaroni and cheese apiece. They loved trying all of the different foods and we had a really nice evening out.

This was the first time in a long, long while that dining out has actually been enjoyable and not something to be survived.

Bathing suits, rain boots, dump trucks, and irrigation.

Fully Accessorized

We love our goats.

Mollie and Teacup are well-loved members of our household! They are almost 4 months old now and follow us around like puppies. Rand and Ella are very good about helping me feed them and clean their stall. They like to put the grain and hay in their dump trucks and drive it out to the pasture. We have a big log in the pasture and I told Rand to show the goats how to walk on it -- so he did, and they quickly figured it out! It was very cute to watch the four of them balancing together.

We took the goats to school for Rand's "Share Day" last week. They were a huge hit. Rand and Ella like to play with them, so when we're in the front yard I let them out of the pasture so they can wander around and be with us. When we have to put them back inside they let out pathetic "meeeehs!" until we're out of sight.

Yes, she still uses a binkie.

But only in her crib, and she is very, very good about that.

This morning Ella found a binkie outside of her crib. She asked, "Mama, can I hold my pink binkie?" Yes, sweetie.

Pause.

"Mama, can I put my pink binkie in my mouth?"

Yesterday.....

Yesterday.....

We flew a kite.
We made sugar cookies with red and blue icing and massive amounts of sprinkles.
We saw a double rainbow.
Ella loves to sit on Fred the Pony while he eats. She did that for a long time.
Ella said, "My toe wants daddy."

Today....

Ella had her 2nd gymnastics class. Ridiculously cute.
It rained. A lot. Ella loves her "burr-ella" and is getting very good at stomping and splashing in puddles. Rand prefers to drive his truck in the mud and then drive through the grass to clean it off.
We saw more rainbows.
We found a teeny tiny frog in the pool (alive! finally!) and helped it find a safe new home.