A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today has been a wonderful day! We woke up to a gorgeous spring day in Texas. The trees are blooming and the grass is getting green again. Not a cloud in our beautiful blue sky. God Bless Texas!

After we got up this morning, had breakfast and got dressed me and Kylie hit the streets. We had to make a stop at Payless to make an exchange before her 10 o'clock class. This girl loves shoes! Sorry, honey! She wanted to try them all on and sat down put them on herself as best she could and commented "pretty". We finally agreed on two pair...one just isn't enough!

After the shoe binge, we headed over to the Little Gym for Kylie's class. SHE LOVED IT! She spent most of the 45 minutes on the balance beam. I was spotting her, of course, and the beam was only inches from the ground, but she did great. Since she did so well, we decided to sign her up for the rest of the semester. She'll do one class a week until the end of May and we'll see what's going on after that.

Landon's group was next. Since he is a big boy, he gets to do his class all by himself. Since he is the shy one of the two, we thought this might be a problem because this was an entire group of strangers. He took to it like a fish to water. They do something similar to this on Thursdays at his school, they call it Stretch-n-Grow. He looks forward to that day every week. Kylie isn't ole enough yet to be involved in the class at school, so until then I think we'll do the Little Gym. We're not sure we're gonna enroll Landon, but he already wants to go back. Besides, at 8:15 this evening, he was already out. Might be good for all of us, for him to get a little extra exercise on the weekends :o)

I went to a baby shower this afternoon for one of Landon's former teachers. She also babysits for us in a pinch. Now that she's having a baby, we'll be needing a new sitter. She is one of the sweetest girls I know and I hate her because she is one of those cute, always put together, and glowing, pregnant women. Don't you hate them too? Just kidding...we love you Miss Lauren!

After a speedy trip to the grocery store, I headed home. We weeded through some of the kids baby toys for the neighborhood yard sale next month and then went outside to play before we started dinner. We made hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill and after dinner the kids had a bath and went to bed. They were pretty worn out. Maybe they'll let us sleep in a little tomorrow? Nah, I doubt that's gonna happen!

Long Time, No See

A quick update on the bees:

Kylie is quite the talker.

Favorite Words:
Wossy(horsey)
Assat?!?!(What's that?)
Monny(Barney)
Ball - perfectly clear!
Lan-nin(Landon, in her best sing-songy voice)
Done
and last, but certainly not least....
MINE!!!!

Favorite songs:

E-I-E-I-O (she sings this randomly at dinner, kind of under her breath)
Itchy Bitchy Pider (The Itsy Bitsy Spider)
Monny (The Barney Song, "I Love You, You Love Me")

She and Landon will fight over virtually everything. The other child may have never shown any interest in a particular toy/cup/sock, etc., but let one of them pick it up and you know all hell has broken loose! Kylie is a shrieker, too. When she is happy/sad/excited/angry she shrieks. And it's the ear-piercing, only-dogs-should-be-able-hear-this kind of noise.

Kylie is also a bit rough-and-tumble. She is injured more than any kid I know. She cartwheels down the stairs and shakes it off with a look like "Wow, can I do that again?". This week alone, she has 1.)flipped herself out of her chair, 2.)gotten a black eye from Daddy as he tried to catch her from falling off the swing because she let go in mid-air, 3.)fallen completely off the swing and got a taste of some grass, 4.)fell on her hands and knees onto the concrete and didn't spill a drop of milk in the process, and probably countless other incidents I know nothing about. Don't get me wrong, she's not clumsy, quite the contrary really. She is a risk-taker. She acts and then thinks about the consequences later. Landon couldn't be more different. They make the perfect team. Landon as the sly, calculating mastermind of the plan, and Kylie the fearless operative. I can just see it now.

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Oh, Landon! Sweet, loving, gentle Landon.....well, sometimes!

This boy is about to drive us crazy. This must be payback for skipping the terrible-twos. He is so afraid to miss something that he flat-out refuses to go to bed. Once he's asleep, there's no waking him, but getting there is quite tiresome and very frustrating. I know that him actually being over-tired exaggerates everything, but the constant excuses are wearing thin. Potty, water, chocolate milk-no-white milk-no-water, I need my puppy, I wanna watch a movie, I want my daddy, no, i want my mommy, I gotta go potty, I need to go poop. Aaaaaacccckkkk!!!!!!! I'm about to pull out my hair, one strand at a time! So after all is said and done, and done again, he finally gives in about 8:30. Poor kid, I know he's tired.

Besides the whole sleeping situation, Landon is doing very well in school. He has been on green all week. He is writing his name, and almost all of the letters are legible. Landon memorizes a new Bible verse every week, and enjoys his time in Chapel on Wednesdays. And the boy looks forward to Fridays. For those that don't know, Friday is Donut Day at our house. If Landon is on green all week, he gets donuts for breakfast on Fridays. A side-effect of this routine is that he is learning the days of the week.

I have signed both kids up for a trial class at the Little Gym on Saturday morning. Kylie is in the Beast class and Landon is a Funny Bug. We'll see how they do and if they like it and go from there. I think it might be something fun for them to look forward to and to burn off some energy. I'll keep you posted and hopefully, i get some good pics of that.

Brian is busy at work and, frankly, so am I. Summertime is coming and that just means we get really busy. I do prefer being busy over being bored any day.