What a Week

We had a very eventful week and I actually took pictures too!

The kids had a tough week. We had rain for most of the week, if it wasn't raining, it was way to

wet to be playing outside. We were all a bit stir crazy. Here are the kids being bats, they were so cute hanging upside down.

Madeline is finally hitting the terrible twos. My other kids all entered that stage early, at 18-20

months. Although Madeline is by far my most mellow 2 year old, but we have finally hit that '2' stage now that she is 26 months. She is throwing more tantrums, saying 'no' more often, hitting more, being more independent, and desperately trying to get rid of her nap. Every time she goes to bed, whether for a nap or for the night she usually gets up wearing something different. She is much more imaginative, playing dress up more, singing, making up songs, yelling at Calvin for things he didn't do, definately getting older=-) She has had a cold (along with everyone else in the house) and is tired of having her nose wiped. I said 'Madeline you need your nose wiped, go get mommy a tissue", she replied with " No mommy I just need to lick it" and she did. She loves playing with mommy's makeup. Here she is with a rather scary looking make up job.

Calvin has had a tough month. He has started whinning. Calvin is not a whiner. I'm not sure what is going on, but the whinnign is driving me insane. I need my happy and laid back boy to come back! Here is what Calvin did all week: whinned,

made his sisters scream, put things in his nose and mouth (another new developement, since when does a 3 year old suddenly start putting everything in their mouth?),

and loved Lilah almost too much. He usually ends up unintentionally making her cry - but he does love her so much!

Anna Elise is getting more dramatic every day. I'm not sure how I got such a shy drama queen, but that is a good description of her. Today I asked her to pick up her clothes and she threw herself face down on the floor and sobbed. Poor thing. I asked her to pose for a picture and here is what I got:

Lilah has been growing up so much! She started eating cereal a week or so ago. She is doing very well with it considering how she eats. She is also playing with toys and interacting with the kids more and more. Her coos and laughs sound more like little girl giggles instead of scary growls and she still loves to smile at everyone.

My Saturday was a bit crazy. That morning I participated in a 10k. I beat my personal goal (I won't tell you what that was, it's pretty pathetic, but I made it). Mike took all the kids to Anna Elise's last ballet class - she is going to miss it. That afternoon Mike took off for the gun show (no comment from me). We met him afterwards and went and bought a couch. I know we both needed to be there - but four young kids in a furniture store is a disaster! I think we bought the couch just so we could leave and not have to go to another store! We've been wanting a small couch, chaise, love seat or something upstairs. However, we have very narrow stairs that turn after the first two steps and the door way to the stairs is pretty small. We thought we bought a small enough chaise to fit, but we thought wrong. First we took our front door off. Our stairs are right by the door and we needed to be able to use the front porch to get the right angle up. Then we smashed a hole in the back of my staircase, to get just a few more inches. That didn't work, so we took all the trim off of the stair entry. No, that didn't work either. So we took the 2 by 4 out and all the sheetrock all the way to ceiling. Then another 2 by 4 off the side and what do you know - it finally fit. I'm not sure what would've gone next. I didn't get a before picture and the pictures don't do justice to the mess that sheetrock dust can make. But the chaise fits nicely in it's spot and even though I don't care for the color, it is very comfortable.

Here is our psuedo before picture, Mike is holding up the trim so you can see where it used to be when we had more of a wall.

Here are Mike and his brother Sean almost done with the hole, there are still side pieces to be hacked off (notice the hole in the back of the stair well, next to Sean)

My front door, only not in it's usual spot!

Our new chaise! (not the best picture, but notice it is upstairs now!)