Charlotte is 3.5 Years Old!

Her half birthday really comes out of nowhere every year and I can't figure out why that is.  Maybe it's because she's my baby and time goes so fast.

She seems older and smarter every day.  She LOVES to drive Mr. Mater.

She can do the monkey bars! Who is this child? Isn't she still at the crawling stage?

At Barnes and Noble, she took the stage and put on a jumping show! She's quite the performer.

She loves to be silly, especially at dinner time.

She knows she has the best big brother. She thinks everything he does is the coolest. :)

She's no stranger to shopping for dog beds since they fit her perfectly.

Who has five fingers and likes peanut butter?? She does!

Her class had a spring day parade. She's second from the last in line.  They can send videos on the school app now.  Her teacher sent some videos where the kids were dancing to songs and doing hand motions.  Charlotte was just kind of standing there.  I sent the teacher a message and said, "Is she doing okay today? She looks tired."  Her teacher wrote back, "Yeah she's fine.  She told me she just wasn't feeling it today. HA!"

She's a definitely fashion force.

Check out those boots!!

Don't you love her choice of dress and pants? She can really put those prints together! :-)

She LOVES smiling with her bottom teeth. :)

Her class is so adorable.

When it snowed recently, Charlotte had to be outside in it.  I don't know how she got those pink boots back on.  They are two years too small I think.

But boy was she happy to be in the snow.  Full bottom teeth smile!

That smile really isn't that rare though.  She's my smiley girl.  The Beauty Bat Moana Girl!

She is learning all letters, I can tell.  She knows the sound, words that start with the letter, and what it looks like up to the letter T. She knows her numbers but always skips 21 for some reason.  She loves soccer and plays at school.  She still has the same besties, Lakynn and Olivia.  She still blames one boy in her class for all her boo-boos even though I know for a fact they are not all his fault. She is SOOOO good at stalling bedtime but asking ridiculous questions (mostly starting with why) until I have to just RUN out of the room.  She thinks (well, like the rest of us do) that butts and the word butt is HILARIOUS.  She's our favorite girl.

Happy 3 and a half birthday, Charlotte!

St. Patrick's Day at the Heaths

We were invited to a family St. Patrick's Day party.  We were able to have drinks and the kids played.  It was a great time.

They had 2 cats and a dog.  I was afraid that the kids would be scared but they did great.  Tommy sneezed and coughed for awhile when he ate his dinner but then once he started running around and playing, he was fine.  They ended up LOVING one cat.  Charlotte chased it around and tried to take it home.  Tommy even liked the animals, even the dog.  Really surprised me.  They might be coming around on pets!

I was also really happy that the kids all got along so well.  There were so many kids there. It was nuts.  But super fun for them and us.  Yay for family nights of partying!

Oh and sidenote.  The kids started watching Avatar at 11:30 pm which is when I decided to take our kids home.  The next morning Charlotte grabbed a blue marker and colored her entire lower leg blue. It was impressive.  But hey, she wanted to be an avatar!

Whadup, Tomster?

 What's new with Mr. Tommy?

Well he's on tooth number 2! He lost another.  Very exciting.  He's growing a new one in the last space.  It's halfway in and it's huge!! His new teeth will definitely change his looks.  He's growing up and there's nothing I can do.

 Look at him.  He told me he's a man now because he drinks coffee (or hot chocolate, either way).

School is going really well for him.  He loves it, that's for sure.  He loves math! He's not confident in his reading but he really is good at it.  Science is up there with math.  He's a big fan.  There's just so much to learn and he can't wait to learn it all. 

 He had to make a Leprechaun trap for St. Patrick's Day.  Since I basically did the Valentine's box by myself, I thought maybe he should be in charge of his trap.  I showed him some pictures online and he picked out a lego house trap.  He made the whole thing himself.  I did help him by making a sign that said Free Gold but that was my only contribution. He did great. Tomorrow he has to stand in front of the preschoolers and tell them about how he's going to catch leprechauns.  They practiced today in class and his teacher said he did great so far.  Awww his first school presentation.  OMG.

 He's a still a picky eater.  I made these fan-freaking-tastic no bake cookies that he could have.  Fake butter, almond butter, cocoa powder, oats.  They were LEGIT.  Andrew, Charlotte and I mowed down on them but Tommy wanted nothing to do with them.  Of course.  We finally convinced him to eat one.  Sheesh.  Chocolate almond butter cookies? Are you kidding me? They never did totally harden due to the fake butter but MAN they were good.

 This kid.  Seriously.  He cracks me up.  This is our living room dance party. He was performing some blindfolded ninja moves.  Love it.

 He cracks me up daily with the things he says.  I disciplined him on something today and he got really mad at me.  He told me angrily, "Mama, you have struck darkness in my heart!"

 But he still likes to get out of bed for late night cuddles.

 This is our Tomster T-man.  Happy 6 and one quarter year old, my favorite boy.

Going Out on the Town

 After our nice little Saturday with the kids, we invited our niece over to babysit and we went out on the town with friends to see a show.

We started at Harry's because... Harry's.  Andrew tried to take our selfie.

 Needless to say, it did not go well.

 So then I tried.  Better!

 But then some Phi Mu's offered to take our picture for us.  They were graduates coming back to visit their first year out of school.  That was an interesting conversation!  Boy, that time of our lives was a LONG time ago.

 Well not long enough that we have forgotten... :)
So we made our way from Harry's to Elliott.

 The show was super fun!

It was a stage of many colors.

 The front man for the band was definitely a showman! He was all over that stage.  He had moves like jagger, if you will.

 He wore a red sport coat and gold shiny boots.  I loved him.

At the end, he got dragged across the stage by his feet.  He also sang Last Dance with Mary Jane and dedicated it to us (Indiana town people) which made me really happy.  I love when there's even a little bit a personalization.

A great time was had by all! Nice to get out and do some adult stuff once in awhile. :-)

Nice Little Saturday

We haven't done much lately but we have had a great time with our everyday tasks.  We really enjoy running errands on Saturday.  We always have to go to the grocery and take recycling.  We usually try to go out to lunch too.  On this particular Saturday, we went to Firehouse Subs and stopped by Gigi's to see if they have any vegan cupcakes.  They don't offer them in the case unless there was an order that ended up with extras.  We asked if they had any and this week, they had carrot cake! 

Tommy was excited to try it so we grabbed it to go along with Charlotte's frosted sprinkled pretzels and our chocolate chip cookie sandwiches with chocolate chip cookie dough filler.  Yeah, they exist and they are amazing.  

 Tommy really liked his cupcake.  One thing I did not think about was the fact that carrot cake sometimes has nuts in it.  FART.  There were walnuts in it.  He only took one bite of the actual cake and then ate the cream cheese icing (vegan cream cheese icing, whaaaa??? so good!).  But I don't think he is allergic to walnuts. I need to put out his listing of freaking nuts that he is and is not allergic to.  We normally just stay away from all of them but this was a rare situation.  Anyway, he was pleased he got to chow down on yummy icing so it will still a win.  Plus I got to eat the crap out of the cake and it was AWESOME.  Yum.

 After the cupcakes, we headed to Target... of course.  Charlotte was a big hit with everyone we passed.  She decided to stay in her jammies and then throw a mermaid princess dress over the top. Fashionista.

 She really rocked the look.

Seriously, these are the best days.  Fun little outings doing whatever, wearing whatever, eating fun foods.  Like sands through the hourglass, am I right? :-)

Tommy is a Shoe Sheriff!

Tommy is a shoe sheriff!
What exactly does that mean? When you learn to tie your shoes and prove it at school, you have a Shoe Sheriff Celebration! You get a certificate and everything! Very cool!
I tried to show him the one-bunny-ear way.  It was really hard to do that and teach it backward.  So I decided to do the two-bunny-ear method.  That was a lot easier for me and Tommy picked it up after 2 tries!  It was amazing.  Now he loves to do it.  He not only ties his shoes but he double knots them. Then he double knots them again.  And again.  And AGAIN.  They are so knotted up, there's hardly any tails left.
But I guess no one wants to deal with untied shoes. Tommy just wants to be super prepared.

Congrats, Mr. Tommy on your brand new skill for life.  You're growing up!

Sunday at the Park... in February??

For some reason, we had an incredibly beautiful weekend in February.  It was sweatshirt weather.  That calls for a trip to the Celery Bog! 

We walked so many trails.  The sun on our faces, it was such a beautiful day.  I'm pretty sure I got a little sunburned. 

We climbed trees! I'm not sure we were supposed to do that but we did.  

 It was terrifying for Charlotte.  Not so much for Tommy. You can't tell from this picture but they were really high up in the tree.  The tree was phenomenal for climbing. But we had to pick them up and put them in the tree reaching up really high above our heads.   So no wonder Charlotte was scared and wouldn't let go.

 There was a ton of running on the trails too.

 Yeah I saw this coming.  :-)

We walked down close to the water to see what we could see. 

We saw tons of turtles sunning themselves on logs.  By the time we got close, they all disappeared into the water.  They could hear us coming even from far away.  But a couple brave ones returned so I could take their portrait. :) 

 We stopped at every bench I'm pretty sure.  Benches just need sitting, don't you think?

 What a super Sunday at the park.  Can we get some more beautiful weather like that again SOON????

Finishing Up Valentine's Day

Welllll I guess I've definitely forgotten about the blog for a bit.  So now it's time to catch up. Yikes!  How about I finish up Valentine's Day real quick?

 Tommy cut out and wrote his Space Valentines.  They turned out pretty cute with the bouncy balls as planets.

 Charlotte's Valentines were super easy and included her favorite candy.  She was really jealous and wanted to give one to herself.

 Tommy's teacher knitted scarves for all the kids for Valentine's Day.  How sweet!

 The kids passed out their valentines into their boxes.

They also did some activities with candy hearts.

How cute are these pictures that his teacher made? They crack me up.

 For the evening of Valentine's Day, I took Tommy to the Purdue basketball game.  It was a nice little Mother Son Date Night.

 We had a great time, as you can see!

 Tommy even got to see his best friend and they happened to be wearing matching shirts!

Charlotte went on a Daddy Daughter Date to Culver's.  They also had a great time involving ICE CREAM.  What more could she want? Daddy and ice cream, best Valentine's Day ever!

Another super fun but late reported Valentine's Day! Happy Heart Day!