All I Want for Christmas...

... is my two front teeth!

Leeann is proudly showing off her second missing tooth, just one night after the first!

Daddy was trying to 'get it' from her, but she was holding on for dear life!

Rob and I are both floored at how big she is getting, she's growing up so quickly--losing teeth and starting school!

Rob seems to be having an especially hard time with this new mark of girlhood. She's so excited to be 'growing up'. We are 1/3 of the way to her being an adult you know...

This is Leeann on the phone sharing her good news with either Aunt Shelly or Aunt Suzy. They usually get the good news phone calls first around here.

As for me, well I'm one step closer to broke :0) This money in an envelope thing is going to get spendy if we make this a nightly occurrence!

Several people have asked me if we do the tooth fairy around here. In short no, but kind of. I've said before on here that we're committed not to lie to our kids. This means that you can't blatantly tell them that a magic fairy came and stole their tooth in the middle of the night. So, the night before last she put her tooth in an envelope under her pillow and I replaced it with a dollar and a note from me. Last night Rob did the same, but with a note from him. So, we kind of stuck with the tooth fairy tradition without giving credit to the tooth fairy. Now you know!

Toothless Wonder!

Leeann lost her first tooth tonight. Boy, was she excited! I think the next one is coming out in the next couple of days too. I'm proud of her for yanking it out. She was very brave!

I'm Feeling Hopeless

Really, I am. Hope (and Logan) left this morning and they'll be gone until THURSDAY! I love Hope and Logan dearly, but it does feel good to be Hopeless for a couple of days :0)

The noise level decreases dramatically when even one of the kids are gone, and it doesn't matter which one. When two are gone it's almost peaceful in my house!

So, my kids and I are enjoying our lazy morning. Our house is on the real-estate tour on Wednesday so unfortunately I have to spend most of my time over the next couple of days getting my house ready for that. At least it's so much easier to do with two kiddos than with four.

Once again, I'm sorry for the lack of posts lately... someday I will get better. Someday...

Ta-Da!

Hope and Logan left our house at 9 this morning to spend the night elsewhere. About an hour after they left Titus went pee AND poo in the big boy potty. I had forgotten that he was even in the bathroom and then he came around the corner with a sly look on his face. And sure enough, success!

I think he just so desperately doesn't want to miss anything that's going on that he won't take the time out of his day to 'wait it out'. I was so proud of him! Hopefully this will continue because this whole potty training thing had been a long time coming. I was so excited to see a small amount of progress today. Maybe I won't end up with a high-schooler still in pull-ups after all!

A Birthday and Nostalgia

I stayed over night in St. Helens with the four kiddos on Monday and managed to pack a fair amount of nostalgia into a day and a half! We stayed over to get to do Logan's 6th Birthday Party with my family.

This is the R2D2 cake that Aunt Pam and I stayed up way too late working on. It was fun getting to make the cake with Pam. It was also fun that she did all the dishes! Oh, and that she let me invade her house to host a Birthday party...

She let the kiddos play with the left over frosting tubes. Leeann mostly just put hers in her mouth. Can you tell which color she got?

We have a new crop of kids that have recently blessed our family. This is a picture of each of them with their mommy's.

And one with their daddy's.

This is Leeann in hog heaven surrounded by all those babies. She still says she wants 10!

Thanks to the wonders of facebook I got to catch up with a really old friend while I was in St. Helens. Serah was my best friend from 1st-3rd grade before she moved away. She's staying with her grandparents this summer and we got to spend a few hours together. It was a great blast from the past!

This is a picture of the kiddos walking through the garden with Serah. They have 26 beautiful acres full of wonderfully imaginative places. The kids had a ton of fun! I now want a place with some land... and a gardener to take care of it :0)

Leeann plucked several plums off of the tree for her tasty pleasure.

All was well and good until she started to break out in hives everywhere the plum juice had touched. Add that to her growing list of allergies.

Titus also enjoyed the yummy goodness. He didn't care for the green beans fresh off of the vine nearly as much!

Rank this among the coolest places to sit. It was a little swing beneath the grape vines.

And, this is one of the reasons I haven't been posting much lately. This is our kitchen. Or rather, was our kitchen a few days ago. It's not completely finished, but it looks much better now. There's still a fine layer of white dust on everything in our kitchen, and a few spots that need paint touch-ups.

The people who last painted the cabinets used latex on top of oil based paint, so the paint was peeling terribly. We had to sand everything. Needless to say it's been a pain and time consuming. I feel like Rob and I have been two ships passing in the night for the last month now (between VBS prep, VBS, repainting the cabinets and the kids and I leaving out of town twice). I'm anxious to get these cabinets finished and the clean up finished!

Did I mention we recently put our condo on the market? We haven't had any lookers yet, which is good considering that our house is currently in shambles. It's hard enough to keep it relatively clean with all four kids, let alone show worthy among a fairly significant remodel project. Minor details!

A Weekend With Mom

The kiddos and I enjoyed several days at my mom's house this week. It was a nice, relaxing time... especially coming after VBS which happens to be my most busy, most crazy time of year. I didn't have to cook or clean for several days. My mom spoiled us with wonderful food, and I got to spend way too much time watching t.v.! It was beautiful! Besides, I only see my mom once or twice a year typically so it was good to get a nice chunk of time with her and my step-dad, Keith.

This is Leeann smelling the sunflowers at the nursery where my mom works. She took us on a little tour just before we headed home.

My daughter, my mom and me.

My kids with mom and Keith.

Titus stole his grampy's hat.

Leeann LOVED the swing in their yard.

But, she especially loved playing outside getting dirty all day. In this picture she is proudly displaying her 'sand castle' that was composed of various items stolen from other places in my mom's yard! She loved digging holes and making mud pies with the other kids.

Seriously, check out the dirt on this kiddo!

The kids also enjoyed swimming in the hot tub and playing on the slip n slide.

This is the only decent picture I can post of Titus as he spent most of the days running around in the back yard without any clothing! It was a semi-successful attempt at potty training. We told him he could pee on anything he wanted. He kept trying to pee on trees and yard statues to no avail. Finally though he decided that an outdoor garbage can would be a fun target. Hey, I was proud that he went anywhere. My mom gave him a hot wheel and told him that if he went anywhere other than his clothes or pull-ups that he'd earn a batman hot wheel next.

So, he went on the front porch, next to the garbage can. He didn't quite make it, and it wasn't just wet either. Reluctantly we gave him the car. He technically didn't soil his clothing!

I can't wait for this child to be potty trained. He's now less than four months away from being four years old. I'm so beyond ready to be done with pull-ups!