the MORGAN montage

This is Morgan. Today is his last day of Pre-K. He has grown up alot this year. He has gone full days all year. He has made alot of friends. In particular Tanis and Hunter. They are a funny little group. They have developed there own little crazy language and greetings and games. It makes me chuckle to see them together. We have loved his teacher Ms. Hamilton. We are very proud of all he has learned this year. I am surprised at the new vocabulary he has picked up (thankfully all of it clean). He is able to read a lot of words on his own now. We love to hear him read books with us. He tells me that he is "pretty good at not making any trouble." He has had a great year.
He continues to be a master block builder. I can always count on blocks to fill the time when i need to get things done. It helps that he has such a great imagination. He can always come up with something for he and Emma to play. Often he can suck kids who have never heard of Magic TreeHouse books into playing "Jack and Annie" with him. He makes it so exciting that they can hardly resist. He also loves to explore and find little treasures outside. It is really fun to watch him discover and take care of rocks, bugs, plants, sticks, seeds, etc.
He loved going on his first Father and Sons campout. He said it was the "best time EVER." They went canoeing and hiking, he rode a pony, and they caught a crawfish (and several ticks). He just loved being out at the church ranch. I am glad that he had so much fun but we sure missed him at home. It was hard to face coming home for bedtime without him. I missed him alot. And Emma cried about going to bed alone.
Even though he often practices new teasing technics on Emma (who is the perfect victim), he continues to be a wonderful brother. One night Emma had no blankets on her bed and because of her behavior i was not going to go in to give her one. She was very upset. After awhile she calmed down and when we went in to check on her we found that Morgan had given her one of his favorite blankets to sleep with. It was so tender. He can always make Talmge smile.
Even though he has often been described as intense, we are sure glad to have him around. He is such a good little friend to all of us.

the EMMA enterprise

This is Emma. She is 3 3/4 years old and she can't wait to turn 4 so she can go to school just like Morgan. She says that Morgan's school is her favorite building. She is very social. Everyday after we drop Morgan off at school Emma asks, "Mom, what friends house can we go to today." She always wants to be with friends. Luckily she has some pretend friends who get her through the boring days with Mom. All day long she says, "Mom, remember when . . . ?" and will ask if i remember something Curious George, or Jack and Annie, or some other book character did. It is pretty funny. I am impressed by how much she does remember from books we read.Emma is a silly girl who loves to be fancy and funny. She loves to do silly tricks and make us laugh and she loves to dress up in fancy clothes. She comes up with some pretty awesome outfits and wild dress-up combinations. One of her favorite things is to wear Mom's clip-on earings. The other day we got to go to a doll's tea party. She had so much fun wearing a dress and making a fancy hat and teacup.Emma got a new big bike for Easter and she rides it like a wild woman. The first ride we took her on i was a little concerned that Morgan would be frustrated by the slow learners pace. Boy, was i wrong. Emma hopped on that bike and zoomed out of the driveway speeding right past her more cautious older brother. As soon as we get the concept of brakes down we will be good to go. This picture reminded me of a funny story. For FHE we talked about the many beautiful things Heavenly Father has given us. We went out on a walk to take pictures of things around us. As soon as we came out Emma asked if she could take a picture of "that red thing down there". Seeing red bushes and red maples and red flowers in front of us i said, "Sure, lets wait until we get a little closer." After a bit of walking i asked which red thing she wanted to take a picture of. Finally she pointed and said, "That red thing with big tires!" Ah, i guess we have a true OK truck lover.She has so much fun with her brothers. She loves to hold Talmage and try to entertain him (which sadly often ends in him crying). She is so happy when 3:00 comes and time to pick up Morgan. They have a lot of fun playing together, building block cities, saving Jack and Annie, driving cars, exploring outside, and many other adventures.We are so glad to have Emma in our family. She is so eager to help out in any way. She is strikingly beautiful with her curly blonde hair and big brown eyes. We love our silly, lovey girl.

the TALMAGE report

This is Talmage. AKA Mr. T, Talm, or Tal pal. He weighs almost 14 lbs. now, nearly double his birthweight. Talmage is six months old already. I can hardly believe it. ( Maybe because he is still wearing three month clothes and waking up as much as a newborn.) The time has flown by. I can't believe we have had him for half a year, but i also can't imagine our family without him.
He is doing so many new things. In the last week and a half he has learned to do a fast army/ inchworm crawl. He can move all over and get into all kinds of things now. Talmage loves this new freedom. I am constantly baby-proofing to keep him from eating non-edibles.
He can sit up pretty well, but rarely does so because sitting means he can't move around. He rarely stops moving and is always happily kicking his feet.
He has teeth. His right bottom tooth is all the way out and the other one is just barely visible. The teething means less sleeping and a lot more drooling. (Too bad drool isn't a good cleaning agent for hardwood floors.)
He is now eating solid food, and he LOVES it! He has tried rice cereal, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, peas, green beans, applesauce and peaches. He really likes to be at the table eating with us.
He is such a cutie. He puts up very well with all the running around and craziness at our house. He just loves Emma and Morgan and smiles when they come near. We love his smiles. Talmage is such a friendly baby. I just love him to bits.

In the Leafy Tree Tops . . .

In my morning walks i have discovered that we live in a very noisy neighborhood. No, not alot of traffic. It is rare in a half-hour of walking to see more than one car drive by. Not alot of people out either. It is still early and usually house lights are just quietly winking on.
But oh, what a commotion as the birds sing "Good Morning"! There are morning doves hooting, and cardinals singing, and robins converge in whole flocks, and the geese fly overhead, honking to keep the whole gaggle together, and various other varieties twitter unseen from the trees.
So if (no, when) you come to visit us bring your bird books and a pair of binoculars. Come out on a walk and you will be greeted by a whole chorus of cheery "Good Mornings!"

My kids are ADoRaBLe!

I don't like to brag but, how can i help it with these three cuties!!
We had a great Easter weekend. We partied for three days. I will post more pictures later.

What I Did Over Spring Break

according to Emma: "Go camping, make a robot, and . . .i don't know."

according to Morgan: "Camping." (me: What else?) "Um, nothing else i think. . . .Oh, made a robot" (not a "really alive one", just out of our recycling).On a wonderful, warm Sunday walk with our family

We had a great spring break. Morgan was out of school for a whole 10 days! We didn't do anything really big but i tried to make it special without being too crazy. We ate at the "rest-aur-ant" (McDonald's), went on walks, watched movies, and played skeeball and whack-a-mole at the mall arcade. And of course we went camping. It was really fun. We just went to the State Park near our house and had a wonderful time. It was alot of work getting things ready and camp set up but by the morning i was so happy to be there. I am so thankful to have a husband who knows how to camp and is happy to do the work it requires. It was the first trip with our new tent and the maiden voyage of our canoe. Exciting stuff.

Happy cute Talmage all bundled up for a cold night. He did great! Out on the lake in our very own canoe. (Come on Grandma Chele, you know you want to come out with us!) Tired Talmage in a floatation chariot. After breaking camp we went on a hike with some friends who came up for the day. We found two old rusted out cars along the trail. Morgan got a tick on the hike which was one of his most "exciting" things that happened. As i looked at our pictures i realize that there is nothing that makes me feel more like a real live family than camping does. (did that sentence make sense?) Maybe because camping was such a wonderful part of my growing up life. It feels fabulous to be a family on a camp-out. (You can ask my friend, Sarah, if you want to know the 25 reasons why this is true.) What a cute family!

Anyway it was a great week, but it was fine to have it over too. By the end, Morgan had decided that school is more fun than Spring Break so i guess it was time to go back and our house needed a little attention too. Hope you all had/are having, or will have a great Spring Break too.

We Three Kings of Oklahoma

He wore these giant gloves for "Glove day" at school.

Morgan loved his Dr. Seuss week at school and has been begging for green eggs and ham every day . (We made blue french toast but it just wasn't good enough. He is developing a little boy sense of humor. He thinks burping and underwear are hilarious. (He doesn't often burp himself but thinks it is pretty funny in a book or from someone else.) Morgan will happily listen to Magic Tree house books for hours (if i let him). He often tells us new facts that he has learned from them. He and Emma are planning a trip soon. According to them we are going to paddle our canoe across the Atlantic ocean so we can go see the Eiffel tower. Anyone want to join us?

Here she is wearing pajamas from her cousin that are two sizes too big and because it is hard to decide which pink jammies to wear, she put an extra pair of pajama pants on her head

What do Angelina Jolie, the octuplet mom and our Emma have in common? Full, pouty lips. Emma has developed a pouty lip face. Most often she uses them to pout but sometimes it is just a deep thinking face. It is not flattering. The other day she asked me if we could go live by the "Hoowas". I was racking my brain to figure out what friends she might be talking about until she said, "Yea, so then i could learn to do a "hoowa" dance. Ah! She wants to live in Hawaii and dance the hula. Fine by me. Anyone have a job for us there?

What a cutie! Just look at those eyelashes.

Talmage is now four months old. Wow! He is now rolling around quite a bit. He is not a big fan of the hardwood floors in our house. He continues to be very social. He is so smiley and loves to laugh. He loves being tickled and thinks getting his clothes off for a diaper change is very funny. He still isn't sleeping very consistently but we have hope that this stage will pass one day (if it doesn't we may have to send him to live with his non-sleeping cousins). The kids sure love him and always want to hold him and talk to him. He gets ample attention around here.