the next DaVinci

Not sure how closely you looked at the pictures of the kids' painting for Joe's birthday. I missed something on one of them that I think you probably missed as well. All my kids have written their names backwards when they begin writing. John has not failed to live up to this reputation. However, he has added a level of difficulty to it. He not only writes his name backwards, he writes the mirror image of his name. We didn't teach him how to do it. It just comes naturally. According to Joe (who knows all such things) DaVinci used to write like this too. Ahh, our next DaVinci....you have to admit that it takes some talent.

(I cropped the picture and rotated it so that you could see it too)

Nathan and an egg

Have you ever noticed that when you don't want an egg to break you always have to treat it like the most fragile thing ever created and when you do want it to break you think they've added cement to the egg? At breakfast I'm always afraid that even if I breathe on it that it will break the yoke and my husband's eggs' over easy will be forever ruined. However, when I place an egg in something like cookies or pancakes I feel as though I'm going to have to take an axe to it to get it to break up. I think my Nathan is related to eggs. Whenever I don't want him to go potty, he has to go right now (Walmart, in the car, at nap time!) and whenever I do want him to go you would think I had told him that I was going to sell all his toys on ebay (oh, the wailing!). Oh well, at least he likes to wear pants now! One thing at a time...

Belated birthday pics

Last week we celebrated Joe's birthday. I decided to be brave and have the kids paint pictures. I got some framed canvas and let the kids get creative. (Yeah, Hobby Lobby!). We don't do this nearly as often as we should because I get way too concerned about mess. They did a great job and I only had to bite my tongue a couple of times as I watched them paint (are you sure you want to make a flower--your sister is doing that; aren't lions suppose to be brown--yes, I know, stifling their creativity!). Here's some pictures of the painting event:

Online again...

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've sat down to post in the last couple of days. After numerous plugging and unplugging and resetting my router, my wireless is finally working. Yes, I'm very, very spoiled. Anyway, now that the holiday weekend is over, I can get back into my scheduled routine and post more often. BTW, my parents came to visit over the weekend and I took the weekend off while they were here. That meant that I got to spend Labor Day, well, laboring. I did 6 loads of laundry, three loads of dishes, had the kids try on all their winter clothes (and realized that Sara has only one pair of pants to wear for school and they won't even make it to Christmas before they will be too short), ironed 4 shirts and a pair of pants, and cleaned my bedroom and the boys' room. Whew--it was a very productive day.

Anyway, a huge event happened last week. I am now the proud owner (well, at least pay the mortgage on) of an official five bedroom house. Nope, we didn't move. We had egress windows put in the girls' bedrooms in the basement. So now our girls can safely get out of their bedrooms if there is ever an emergency. Here's one of windows partially completed (the trim isn't put in yet on this picture). I'll have some better ones to include later.