of my preschool graduate. I can't believe my Clarkie boy is going to be in Kindergarten next school year.
Marching to "Pomp & Circumstance" - love the flying tassel!
Accepting his diploma from his Pre-K teacher, Miss Becca.
Clark begged me to wear his new flip-flops. At least they coordinated with his cap and gown. :o)
Congratulations, Clark! We're proud so of you.
Back in February Rocket turned three. We asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate his birthday. Naturally, our train fanatic asked if we could go for a train ride. It was his first ride on the Metra, and we took it all the way into Chicago.
We asked Rocket what he wanted to do once we got into the city. His older siblings tried desperately to convince him that he wanted to visit a museum. Much to their dismay, he announced that he wanted to visit the Sears Tower. (And, yes. We refuse to call what is now the Willis Tower anything BUT the Sears Tower. After all, Ronald and I were both born in Chicago and have lived in the area our entire lives. It will forever be the Sears Tower.)
We went all the way up to the Skydeck. It was the kids' first time to go up, and they loved it! Something new to both Ronald and myself are the see-through ledges on the west side of the building that protrude out and over the city. At first I wouldn't go on (scary!), but I couldn't miss the photo ops with the kids. Cadence, Clark, and Ronald loved being out on the the ledges.
The birthday boy would have no part of the picture taking. He wouldn't even walk out onto the ledge. In the middle of my picture-taking, I eventually found him doing this . . .
Silly boy. I love him so.
Clark turned five almost three weeks ago. Blog post about his special day to come, hopefully before the end of this month!
Rocket boy turns three years old this Friday. I'm happy and sad and proud and teary-eyed. I'm pretty much an emotional wreck! Every birthday with him will be bittersweet because he's my number three. My youngest. My littlest. My baby.
I remember taking this picture of Rocket when he was just one week old. He had been the easiest pregnancy. The easiest delivery. The easiest recovery. The easiest baby of the three. He was the only one who didn't want to share a bed with us. The only one who preferred sleeping in the bassinet and the crib. The only one who didn't mind sitting in his swing or bouncer for long periods of time. The only one who had baby acne. The only one who sucked his thumb. The only one who was able to put himself to sleep in the crib.
I miss those baby days SO much. However, looking on the bright side, I'm that much closer to being a diaper free home. Hooray for that.
Happy belated Valentine's Day! Happy Presidents' Day! Happy week!
I don't do resolutions. I always break them anyways. Solution - these past several years I have have chosen words to live by and to embrace througout each year. Words I've used include FOCUS, BREATHE, SIMPLIFY, DESIGN, COMMIT. This year I've chosen the word ENJOY. Life's too short. For example, ever since I went back to teaching I haven't scrapbooked a single layout and I miss it so very much. I also want to enjoy my kids more while they're young. They have grown up so fast. Cadence turned six two months ago. SIX! I don't know how it happened. I am determined to spend more time enjoying my kids and doing more enjoyable things with them. For inspiration on choosing a word to live by LOOK HERE.
Anyhow.
A few pictures for you to enjoy. I know that I do my fair share of enjoying when it comes to sweets, haha.
Happy new year, and thanks to those of you who continue to stop by my blog. I wish you many blessings and all the best in 2010!
that my baby, my number three, my Rocket boy is just that. A little boy. Not a baby anymore, that's for sure. He's the most independent one of the bunch. Fearless. (Look at how he puffs out his chest when he walks!) Stubborn. Smiley. Such a rascal. He talks in sentences. Repeats everything we say. Loves clocks, trains and Lightning McQueen. He has a girlfriend. An older woman. Adorable little Chloe who is older than him by three months, haha. Met her during his brother and sister's swimming class. He shared his cereal with her. He NEVER shares. And he didn't scream at her either. He has had this habit of screaming at every kid he sees to the point where I just go ahead and apologize to parents and their kids before he even has a chance to start screaming at them. He's still the pickiest eater on earth. Pasta, fruit and cheese. That's pretty much it. He would eat candy every day for every meal if he could. My gray hair count has definitely increased in the past year thanks to this little guy. But you know what? I love him with a love so fierce, he's worth all those gray hairs and more.
I've been trying to be better about taking more photos of the kids because they grow up so fast. My goal is to focus on the everyday things that we do together. Here are some from Saturday after we attended church. Clark was cracking up when he found this branch. Why he thought it was so funny, I'll never know.
Miss Cadence being her cute self. She has grown so much in five short years.
Rocket discovered the beep-beep button and refused to leave the van.
And a few from yesterday morning . . .
My sweet Clarkie put this 100 piece puzzle together by himself. He spent over an hour working quietly, diligently putting the puzzle together. He really surprised me because he is incredibly active and loud and not the most patient kid in the world. But he did it and I'm such a proud mama!
Rocket with his, "Don't tell me what to do, Mama" look. He can be such a stinker, falling quite often to the floor flailing around and screaming in fits of rage when he doesn't get what he wants. Then two minutes later he is cute as a button and all is forgiven. Like I said, stinker.
This gem of a picture is quite telling of their personalities and who they are right now - Clark doesn't like looking into the camera and generally avoids eye contact with people as well, Cadence, our mother hen, is trying her best to hold on to her brothers so that I can get a picture of the three of them together and then there's Rocket who's attempting to run away so he can go off and do his own thing. Glad I captured this because it really is so hard to photograph the three of them together.
Have Tuesday!
We were all finally feeling well enough to play outside in the snow! Two hours of fun in six inches of fresh powdery snow. Shoveling didn't even seem like the arduous task it usually is because I was having the best time watching and listening to the kids play. (Okay, so Ronald did the bulk of the shoveling, but still!)
On our way out and look - I'm actually in a picture with the kids!
Clarkie doing what he does best - wandering off on his own. Unfortunately for me, he has a knack for doing this in public places.
Miss Cadence spent her time throwing snow up in the air, hoping that it would land in her mouth. There was a lot of snow-eating that took place during our time outside. I'm thinking that I really need to have "the talk" with the kids about the hazards of eating snow, especially since all our neighbors have dogs. Ha.
Rocket saw his sister in the picture above and proceeded to copy her. He was great at throwing up his hands, but not so great at making the snow fly up in the air. Regardless, Rocket was having great fun!
Wanted to share this one because I'm in it as well! :o)
And finally, a photo of Rocket demonstrating that Power Wheels are apparently all-weather, all-terrain vehicles. Who knew?
For those of you who have as much snow as we do, be safe and stay warm!
Ronald celebrated number 32 back in June. I made him a chocolate pudding pie - my first try at making a pie and it was really good! The kids thought so too. Ronald's not a fan of chocolate (*gasp* not normal, I know!), but he still had a piece. Bless his heart.
Here's a goodie I found that I had completely forgotten about. Totally makes me smile. I think I need to blow this one up poster size and hang it up as a reminder to Miss Cadence and Clarkie that they do love each other and are able to get along despite the eighty trillion squabbles they go through every day. And to think that they are only three and four. I shudder to think what it will be like when they are teenagers. Yikes!
And I can't leave out the baby who is obviously not a baby anymore. He'll be seventeen months tomorrow and I'm sad because each time I look at him he loses more and more baby chub. *sniff*
Let's see . . .
New blog banner photo - we have a frequent visitor in the pond behind our backyard. A heron, I believe. Beautiful bird. The kids and I look for him every morning. He's such a graceful bird, I'm hoping to get an even better picture of him next time.
New pic in the sidebar - thanks to my pal Grace for taking photos of us during her most recent visit this past weekend. Had the best time with her here since her whirlwind visit (36 hours to be exact!) involved a salon/spa, haircuts, highlights, Sahrie, lunch, shopping and a wedding. Good times. Thank you, Grace!
Have a happy weekend!
Discovered this little gem while cleaning out photos off my hard drive yesterday. Totally cracked me up. Despite the fact that Clark is more vertical than he is horizontal, he managed to stay on the swing while doing his best Superman impression. And how funny that as I write this, my Clarkie boy is sound asleep in his bed wearing his Superman jammies.
Happy June!
is where the kids want to be. Can't blame them. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. The sandbox, slide, teeter totter, dandelions and the "sticks" along the edge of our property keep them busy while they're in the backyard.
Here's a picture I took last week of the little guy hanging out underneath our kitchen table. Rocket finally took his very first step without any help yesterday. Shortly after, he stood up from the kneeling position and then took two steps. Go Rocket!
Yesterday we drove to Ronald's sister's house so the kids could hang out with their cousins, including the ones who are visiting from out of town. On the drive there we saw more than thirty cows and about a dozen horses! Ronald's sister only lives 15 minutes away from us. I guess we kinda sorta do live out in the country! No worries though. A Super Target is opening up out here very soon and it is only 4.8 miles away from my driveway. So really, we aren't THAT far out.
This past Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day. Here is one of the layouts I made for NSD, inspired by a fellow "Pea" (member) of twopeasinabucket.com. Layout created using elements from various digital kits available for purchase at Two Peas.
