daddy, birthdays and letters

sheepishly i offer another late posting... this one only a week and a half since the last.

i blame the hormones- i'm either half-asleep, nauseous or forgetting whatever it was i wanted to remember.

(lists don't do me much good- i always forget where i put them)

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anyway, we backtrack to last week thursday...

the kids and i went to mom and dad's in the afternoon so they could go to bed there while i ran to appleton to meet kelvin's plane.

madison had a fun time putting all the shoes she could find into a paper bag and dragging it around before emptying it and starting all over.

she has a not-so-subtle shoe fetish...

the kids were SO happy to see their daddy in the morning!!

he even got kisses from madi

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kelvin took a few of madison's blueberry face... i posted only one because i tend to go overboard with the visuals, ya know?

(it was lemon-blueberry pecan bread, in case you were wondering)

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sunday was cole's party;

since kelvin was gone for his actual birthday, we celebrated with family while he was home.

family!!

family eating.

cole and his birthday cookie

he blew the candles out before i had a chance to snap an action shot. first they were lit, then they weren't. sometime between his last birthday and this one, he figured out the candle thing.
(sarah and kelvin had their own birthday cookies since their birthdays were this week)

cole got this remote control caterpillar toy.

it was the first one he opened and it was the only one he really cared about!

one of the buttons plays a rockin' tune, so he was stomping one of his feet (in his boots, it looked like he was leading a hoedown!) and madison was jiving next to him.

quite entertaining- wish i'd have gotten video of it!

it was the day for machines- he got lots of wheeled things to play with, including an r/c hemi from uncle ted.

the little man was quite impressed!

cole's been showing a marked interest in music (even attempting to replicate tunes on the piano), so we thought it would be cool to get him his own little keyboard. not a baby one, but not a "big" one either. we found one, but unfortunately, we had to return it because it didn't work.

wouldn't even turn on.

he's got a raincheck on the keyboard. we're keeping an eye out for a different one.

i'm anxious to get one so i can see what evolves!

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monday was spent playing with new toys... there were plenty of wheeled things for both littles to play with.

they played together (nicely!!) on the couch for hours.

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yesterday the kids and i met up with my aunt mary and my cousins from montana.

mary, anna, and i took three of the kids shopping for the afternoon at the outlet mall in oshkosh.

aaron did wonderfully- he's such a calm baby!

madison did well too, and cole outright surprised me. he was SO well-behaved!!

we went to grandma and grandpa's house for pizza for supper with the rest of the montana crew, sarah and stephen and their kids and mary and dale.

it brought back memories of when all of us cousins were that age, the meals and playtime spent in the same kitchen, living room and basement... sigh. those were definitely the days!!

erin and cole hit it off, playing together on the chalkboard in (great-) grandma's basement.

i've been showing cole what his name looks like when it's written, and encouraging him to copy the letters. he did it on the chalkboard last night, much to my amazement! i didn't have the camera handy, so i didn't get a photo of his very first writing, but we tried it today with similar results.

he wrote it in blue...

... and i've taken the liberty of "deciphering" it for you.

not bad, eh?

now i've really got to start buckling down and getting a preschool curriculum together- i think he'd have a ball!

of course, now i'll be dreaming of having a bigger house with more space where i can set a room aside (or part of a room) to devote to education. one where i'd have the space to be nicely organized and everything would be neat and tidy.

that's not really possible where we are now.

speaking of new houses (or rather, different houses), our listing is done with o'connor realty in a week or so. we definitely want to keep it on the market and plan to lower the price, but does anyone have any suggestions for GOOD realtors? as in, motivated, ambitious... fiery would be nice. someone who cares enough to actually make an effort?? of course, they'd have to be willing or able to list properties outside the valley area...

any suggestions would rock!