Tree cutting party

We spent the weekend cutting down trees, vines and shrubs that were either growing in a less than ideal location too close to another tree, or the tree was diseased or dying. The kids had fun hauling branches and wearing large work gloves (that seemed to be the highlight of the day) to carry the twigs and branches. We now have a HUGE pile of branches and limbs that will have to be hauled away in the truck and the yard looks a little more manicured now. The kids really wanted to decide which trees should go as I went around and put ribbons on the ones that were to be taken down. When I told them that they were not able to decide on the tree removals, they then took to the pink ribbons being placed around the trees and played with them for quite some time. We all really enjoyed the awesome weather we had over the weekend as 70 degrees in February is something to celebrate! We ended the weekend with a nice bike ride and Joshua came home wanting more bike time after complaining initially that he didn't want to go and that his back was hurting during the ride...love the change of attitude!! I can't wait for him to start riding his own bike and getting to experience the joy of being able to ride on his own!!

Joshua's favorite time of day

Joshua was working on his homework tonight with Doug and one of the questions was "What is your favorite time of day?". Doug asked Joshua what his answer was. Was it in the morning, lunchtime, when he gets home from school? Joshua answered, "What time do you get home Daddy?" Doug told me after the kids were in bed that Joshua's answer about brought tears to his eyes. What a sweet boy we have!

Singing at the top of her lungs!

Taylor received a Disney Princess Valentine's card from Gran and Grandaddy last week which plays a pretty little princess toon. Taylor "LOVES" it and has been trying to sing the song herself. Tonight, she was even trying to add vibrato and singing the last word in each phrase with much enthusiasm. Too cute!!! This little girl is going to have to get into music as she gets older because she definitely has a passion for it!

Mommy has been downgraded to "Mom"

I'm not sure how this happened, but I am mostly "Mom" to Taylor now. She still says "Mommy" at times, but mostly it's "Mom"...not sure how I feel about this. Does this mean that she feels she is too old to say "Mommy" now?? I still want to be "Mommy" to her. She just sounds too grown up saying "Mom". Joshua still calls me "Mommy":) Thank goodness for Joshua! I may have to bribe Taylor into calling me "Mommy" still! She's growing up too fast!

Weekend with the cousins

We headed to Charlotte this weekend to visit the Michalaks as Doug continued on to VA to discuss Gran and Grandaddy's financial papers with Aunt Tricia. We were greeted by three excited cousins and joined the Michalak gang inside. We had a fun weekend, low key for the most part with the kids having some play time outside and exploring the creek behind the house. Up until recently, they had not explored the creek area and so it was a new and exciting experience to walk along the creek to see where it took us. Taylor and Lindsay enjoyed throwing sticks into the creek and the boys had their light sabers and were trekking through the brush and jumping back and forth across the creek. Ashley and Doug M were putting rocks into a straight line through the creek trying to build a dam to eventually form a small waterfall...a work in progress as the current state was mainly a scum sifter. The kids managed to stay dry and it was the highlight of their weekend. They also enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and playing with the Wii. Lindsay and Taylor got along really well and played the whole weekend together with very few toy issues. One night while we were there, Angela was tucking Lindsay into bed, and Lindsay said, "She (Taylor) only talks when I'm around" in a matter of fact way. Angela asked if she was talking about Taylor, and she said "yes". Taylor is quite shy these days and tends to speak selectively, so it was very impressive that Lindsay picked up on this. I'm glad that they enjoyed each other's company this weekend!

Joshua loses a tooth and the loses the tooth!

Joshua and Taylor were out jumping on the trampoline today and all of a sudden Joshua comes running inside bawling. He tells me that Taylor knocked his tooth out and he shows me. He was so distraught because he told me that she had knocked out his "parent" tooth! I said, "Joshua, that's not an adult tooth that you lost, that's your baby tooth! The one that has been loose fell out". A sudden calm came over him when he realized that it was a tooth that would be replaced! But...at the same time, he was still upset because he dropped his tooth in the yard on the way in to tell me about his tooth. Doug and I searched for the tooth at least 20 minutes with no avail. He was concerned about the tooth fairy coming when there was no tooth, so I told him that the tooth fairy would know that he had lost his tooth and that we would make a cut out tooth from paper and put it in the tooth fairy pillow instead. He was satisfied with this idea and all was right with the world once again:)

Learning to write

Today, Taylor and I were working on writing letters and numbers, and noticed that she picked up the pencil the right way and was writing out letters...I've maybe shown her a couple of times how to hold a pencil, so this was quite exciting! Her writing is already very neat and she seems to be interested now in learning to write so we need to jump on this and push her to learn all of her letters. Great job, Taylor!