Goodbye Showers (April)....

Do you know someone who likes chocolate? Do you know someone who LOVES chocolate? Well, Amanda loves chocolate more than anyone you know! She gets it wherever she can (usually Grandmas' houses). She asks for it randomly. I'll ask her what she wants for breakfast, "Chocolate" she'll say. I'll ask her what she would like for her snack, "Chocolate", she says. And she is serious. She would eat it for breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner. Anyway, we were at mom's and she has this container on the counter with huge chunks of chocolate in it. Amanda knows where it is and what is in it and she is aware of it from the minute we walk in the door. Well, Mom was holding her up on the counter and we were visiting w/Tommy briefly and all of the sudden I looked over at her and her face was covered w/chocolate and she was just biting in to this large piece of chocolate like she was eating an apple or something. We laughed so hard and I, of course, had to take a picture.

(April 29)

Little Ry Ry is growing up so fast. He loves climbing the stairs and loves discovering new sets of stairs wherever he goes. This day, he mastered Grandma's stairs, like nothing. He loves to hold on to balls or something when he climbs. It is the cutest thing. But here he is posing for his Momma, like the good little boy that he is. I have to ask....Does it get any cuter than this?

continuing April events....

(April 20)

With the Pope in town, there was much discussion around here and of course, he was on TV. Natalie wanted to know more about him, which led to the discussion of church. We haven't been to church much since Ryan was born (except for Baptism)...and Natalie missed going, so she asked if we could go on Sunday. So, her and Daddy got dressed up and went, leaving me home with A & R. I'd like to get back in the groove of going...it's just so hard w/3 kids now. I know that is a poor excuse.

Bad, bad, bad....

Anyway, we continued on to the park later that afternoon and we had a ball! Especially Ryan!

(April 21)

Ryan is knee deep in to the teething thing and we are awaiting the first one to break thru. In the meantime, he got in on the family's cool treats, frozen cherry limeade! MMmmm.

He loved it.

(April 22)

Princess Lea (Natalie w/her American Girl scrunchies)

(April 26)

Tommy was inducted in to the Illinois Wrestlers & Coaches Association HALL OF FAME. Of course, the family was there for the dinner and ceremony to help him celebrate his achievements.

(April 28)

Mom & Tom celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary on this day and we also celebrated Jane's new home w/cake, chocolate strawberries and a champagne (sparkling juice) toast. We will be celebrating the 30th anniv. on Sunday. Anyway, the girls had a lot of extra energy to run off so we had dinner at Burger King and the girls played in the play area w/tunnels. Here is Natalie taking a break to eat.

More April...

(April 17)

Amanda & I had some sidewalk chalk fun while Natalie was at preschool. This is our family!

(April 18)

We passed the afternoon away at Grandma Diamond's swinging, sitting the the tree and getting a mini mani & pedi from Grandma!

(April 19)

Natalie borrowed Amanda's swimsuit for her last swimming class. OH and check out those pink goggles! Stylin'!

(April 19)

After swimming, Natalie had her first Little Soccer Stars practice. She was all ready to play, since Daddy and her have been 'practicing'. She even scored a goal. She seemed to be the only one on the team that really knew what they were doing. It was muddy and cold out..yuck. But it was so fun to watch the little ones get excited about soccer. Check out those shin guards! I got to thinking about it, it was the busiest day of running around getting Natalie to her swimming class and then soccer right afterwards. I have always heard other parents talk about how they had to run this child here and that child there for different events...and now we are one of them! It's only just begun!

April - Week 3

(April 13)

Let's just say that my sweet little girly girls now love STAR WARS! It all started when one of the Star Wars shows was on TV and Daddy introduced Natalie to Princess Leah! That's all it took to get them to LOVE the movie. It has (IMO) spiraled out of control and I am now rolling Natalie's hair in to buns on the side of her head and making her look like Princess Leah and she wants to wear her white dress to complete the princess look. They have been watching all of the movies w/Daddy (he has the first collection on VHS, haha!) Anyway, I found some coloring pages online and the girls thought that was so cool! I am wondering how long this will last.....thank goodness they still like Dora, Strawberry Shortcake & Bindi the Jungle Girl or I would start to worry. Haha!

(April 14)

The little cuties we outside playing again and I had to capture this moment!

(April 14)

Does anyone know who this little man is crawling up our stairs?!?!? Yes, that is our baby Ryan. He has been hanging out at on the bottom stair for a couple of weeks and on April 14, decided to climb up on one, and another and another and another and, well, you get the idea. He didn't stop until he reached the top of the stairs. I COULD NOT believe it. I am in so much trouble! Take a close look at the first picture...yes, the child is holding a toy ball in each hand as he does this for the first time. OMG!

(April 15)

We made Cinderella pancakes this morning. It's so much fun. The girls think it's such a treat and help me mix the batter and wait for the perfect princess waffle. Here is Cinderella in her carriage w/Prince Charming. How can we eat these waffles? They are so pretty. Oh and what is this pose Amanda has going on here w/her mouth?!? I have taken numerous pictures of her with this silly face and I guess didn't realize how much she was doing it until I started looking thru the recent pictures. Where did she learn this? Another OMG!

(April 16)

The girls do some finger painting. What a mess. But, they love it. I swear they never tire of painting, crafting....they love all of it.

(April 16)

Amanda tries out the Barbie skates. Of course, she was great at it. She kept her balance really well. There doesn't seem to be anything, sports-related anyway, that she can't do yet. She's gonna be our Sporty Spice girl for sure!

(April 16)

OK, you might be wondering 'WHAT IN THE WORLD?'. Well, I WON SOMETHING! No, not a new car or the lottery (yes, I play each week w/Lisa and Mom!), but I did win 3 chenille covered hangers, in the color of my choice, from Simple Pleasures AZ thru a Celebrity Baby blog contest. This is a blog I read all of the time. They always have these little contests and I thought, for once, what the heck. These things are CUTE! So earlier in the month I get an email saying "congratulatioins, you won!" I was so excited! So I had to let them know which color I wanted and they shipped them out to me. Purple was it! They also sent this nice hand-written note, which I thought was so cool. Anyway, the lady at Celebrity Baby Blog asked the winners to send a picture with our kids clothes on the hangers and they would post some of the pix. So I had a little photo session w/the kids clothes and the hangers and sent this picture to them. I know, it sounds crazy, but I was so excited and who knows if I'll ever win anything again. Scott came home and saw the clothes hanging from Natalie's poster bed and was like 'what is going on?!' I had to laugh! Good thing he already thinks I'm a little crazy w/the camera.

April - Remainder of Week 2

Well, it wasn't super nice out, but nice enough to put on (winter) jackets and have a little fun outside. The kids wanted to play outside so badly, so...here they are, bubbles and all! Yes, Amanda's lawn mower is a bubble maker and she loves it. The girls loved stomping on the bubbles that landed on the driveway too!

Daddy practiced the Ariel puppet show w/the girls while I ran to the grocery store and when I returned, they put the play on for ME. Wow, they did great. Here they are in their puppet theatre. Natalie really got in to it, go figure!

Amanda enjoyed her Toddler Art class at the library and so did Natalie and Ryan. Well, Natalie, maybe not so much...haha! She was being a stinker that day b/c she wanted to do the craft project too.....oh well. She still got to sing and dance. Amanda did a great job glueing and needed very little help.