it's a l-o-o-o-ng one, folks!

because we have several weeks to catch up on, make sure you have more than a minute. 'k?

i've tried to keep things in chronological order... hard to do when you're weeding through several weeks of unshared stuff!

first things first: our new door! finally, no more bitter cold winter wind and snow drifting it's way into our entryway. and the red? well, the door came primed, so we had to pick a color, and according to many asian and other cultures, a red door attracts love, luck and wealth. no-brainer choice for me...

i love it!

the kids had a blast watching daddy work on it...

one of the several days we got up to mom and dad's:

the kids spent time with auntie sarah....

... "bapa"...

..."gamma"...

..cousins...

... took a break to fill daddy's hubcap with gravel...

... met stephanie...

... played with uncle "tid"...

... and learned relatively well to play together. for the most part.

there are moments...!

we also attempted potty-training. after slacking for the last two weeks or so, we'll be trying it again soon. sometimes the schedule is just too full for it to even be worth trying!

cole's methods have somewhat to be desired as he potty-trains george...

... but george doesn't seem to mind too much!

we DID have one success!!

daddy taught cole the finer points of shaving (mommy laid down the law- daddy gets "no-shave november" to go scruffy, if that's what he wants. the other eleven months require regular appointments with the razor).

pretend shaving cream- all the fun, no mess!

miss squish certainly wasn't out of the picture! she's been her normal happy self (for the most part)!

an encounter with the toilet paper...

... and his first shiner! the lesson learned that day was "forget scissors; don't run with legos!"

seriously, folks. it was a lego. a green one, if you must know.
(this was about 10 minutes after the accident)

the next day, it was still there! poor kiddo...

she's the master of goofy faces!

there was a day when she didn't want to nap. at. all, so madison and mommy had some fun time together. it's pretty rare that the two of us can just play away on the floor without some looming toddler-influenced threat, so we took advantage of it! i have SO many photos, i wish i could share them all, but alas, time and tide wait for no uploader.

cole and george watched the homecoming parade the other weekend.

it goes right past our house for easy viewing!

cole was SO cute- he was holding george up, saying "see!"

madison got a LONG ride from cole- he figured out how to push the exersaucer (walkabout, whatever) in a circle and did it for a good 20 minutes one day. i got video too- they were having a ball! you should have heard the giggles and screeches...

madison got her very first baby doll! we realized that she's got only boy toys to play with and really needed something more feminine. she got all excited over the baby cabbage patch at mom and dad's, so it was high time she got a "baby" of her own. cole's laid some claim to it, too, but i guess that's fair, since madi's a pro at 'driving' his cars.

checking out baby's eyes...

she was SO cute, talking up a storm, telling it all she knew!

and not to be left out, cole picked out a four-wheeler. he even ditched the general "hemi!!" term he gives to anything with four wheels and called it his "whee-wer" for awhile.

speaking of other cole-ism's, we've noticed a big jump in his vocab. a few times, he's even put three words together ("i run, mommy!" and "where bapa go?"). to keep him somewhat entertained during longer diaper changes (the smelly ones), sometimes we'll say "oh, sick!" in place of "oh gag me, that's raunchy". well, it wasn't long before he started saying "sick!" in his cute little voice. before it was with prompting; tonight, as he watched me try to scrape pizza crust dough off my fingers, his little face screwed up and he proudly proclaimed, "SICK!!"

i laughed.

thanks for bearing with me as i try to compile the last month (almost) into one, long, time-challenged post. there's plenty of photos i've had to leave out and i'm sure i've forgotten a good portion of the little things that are worth mentioning, but slowly they'll come back to me and eventually make their way onto a post or two.

the good thing about being without a computer? i've had plenty of time to work on hat orders!! i have a new one- the "olivia" hat. it's not posted to the green*vanilla baby blog yet, but for those of you who are on facebook, it's been added there.

thanks for stopping in to catch up- it's great to be connected again!