The Best

This is my new favorite photo.
When I look at it I see personalities entirely captured
in one moment.
Evan is cracking himself up with a fantastic belly laugh,
and Chloe is giving a sweet smirky smile just before she gets up and runs away.
I love it!

Uniform of Summer

They start out in shorts (soft ones, not jean shorts) and are usually without shirts.

By mid-morning they are in swimsuits, and they wear those almost the whole day.

For bedtime, they sleep in their undies.

So it would seem I shouldn't be having to do as much laundry, but that hasn't happened yet. What's going on with that??

The Creator

Evan spends about an hour (or more) every day assembling and dismantling his lego creations. Yesterday, he gave me one of his sets to play along side him. When I asked why I couldn't do the big red one, he said I needed to practice on an easier one first... I wasn't ready for it yet. After I finished my green one and showed it off to him, I asked if I could do the red one with him tomorrow. No, he said, that wasn't nearly enough practice. So I said okay. After all, he is the expert.

Cutie in a Suit-ie

So Not Like Her

Chloe usually only concerns herself with what her Daddy thinks or does or says.

If I like something, she doesn't.

If I say something is my favorite, she'll say the opposite thing is her favorite.

If I pick her outfit, she hates it.

However, If Dad says she looks pretty in something, she'll unquestioningly agree to wear it.

And on it goes....



So, imagine my shock when I wore a bracelet to church on Sunday, and when Chloe noticed...


she ran to get hers too!

"Now we're the same Mom!"

That is so not like her!

But I hope it continues :-)

A Peek

Evan has never really been an eager artist, but sometimes he just starts drawing something in his notebook and we're shocked... um... who showed you how to draw a forklift??? You know, that sort of shock.

The only drawing I ever really do with the kids is squiggling on the doodle pad. So what shows up in his art notebook is his natural skill and interest bringing his ideas to paper. I thought it would be fun to share a peek into it, so you could see what goes on in his mind and comes out through the colored pencil :-)

Most of these drawings he does at church sitting next to us, but a few were done at home.



Three houses, a tree and some mushrooms. With feet.


Hand tracing turned into turkey (this one he learned from Aunt Bryce). His name is Boozoo. His nickname is Boozo.


Rabbits. He and Chloe think that saying "I'm dead" is hilarious so here it is in the notebook.


Snakes with long wiggly bodies. Also on the left is a creature drawn by Chloe. The green on the right he said was a maze.



Another dead rabbit. Also... shapes.


A maze. And randomly he drew his own ledger lines and wrote "evan. i love floob" which he said was supposed to say I love floods. (He still talks about the flood from last summer.)


Two green pretzels. Two boys holding kites. Two mistakes crossed out. Two attempts at the word pretzel that stopped at pret.



A chessboard. Very time-consuming.


Another chessboard.


A race track. S for start and F for finish. The contestants are a worm, a slug, an ancient eel, a fish and a whale.


Hege the hedgehog.


A volcano erupting. Labeled nicely to show where the hot-spot is under the ground.


More erupting. This time it's an island volcano.


Apples. And a half-finished animal. (He wouldn't describe the designs within the apples, he just called them apples.)


A two-page maze/race. The cars are all at different places on the track. Watch out for the space shuttle launch and the tornado!!


Spaceships.


A jet.


A forklift.


A forklift driven by Evan. (seriously, where did he learn this???)


A forklift with bigger wheels.


Our house with stairs on the left. A confused teacher and his desk on the right.



I know you're smiling. I am too :-)

Still

Still.....


...chattering away, trying to express nearly every thought that enters her mind.


...imitating all of Evan's words and actions.




...screaming and crying and wailing at least five times a day.


...giving dozens of hugs and kisses every single day.


...showing absolutely no interest in doing what someone else wants her to do.




...trying to do everything by herself.




...choosing the wildest pattern and color clothes anyone could ever wear.




...complaining that "I'm just too tired" or "I'm just still hungry" all the time.


...thriving on nine hours of night sleep.




...laughing in a way that makes you want to laugh along with her.




Still capturing our hearts and changing our lives daily.


What a journey it has been.

*******************************

Since some of you have been asking again,

here is a link to This Post which has
a list of birthday ideas for Chloe.

Butterfly Garden

Four out of five painted ladies made it from caterpillar to butterfly. We released the first three as a group on Saturday and the last one today. We didn't see any of them emerge from the chrysalis state but we will definitely be re-ordering caterpillars soon to try again.

Butterfly Garden from Bree Monde on Vimeo.

I think they will like the flowering bushes in the yard. We've already seen them back a few times.

Thanks Gramma!!

Wrestling

Laughing so hard he's almost unable to breathe





Spinning so fast she's almost unable to breathe

Getting punched & kicked so much he's almost unable to breathe

What?

Isn't this how everyone spends family time??

Birthday Boy

He's SEVEN!!

Does he look older to you?

Evan wanted green yogurt with berries for breakfast this morning (food coloring chemicals = prayer before eating).



Birthday traditions here involve weighing and measuring to document the 'overnight growing' that all kids believe in on birthday eve. He is now 45 inches and 39 pounds.


Then it was on to the presents. His smiles were precious and grateful as he unwrapped lego creators and a walkie-talkie set.

After playing with his new stuff and getting ready to go out shopping with his birthday cash, we paused for a while to peek in the butterfly garden -- this was his gift from Gramma. Two caterpillars are hatched but we missed them both, so there are three to go.


We waited while one chrysalis was cracking open but it stopped, so we left for toys-r-us.

Back from the toy store with his gift of choice :-) More legos.


And that's what he's been doing all day. Creating.


He's pretty excited to be older. And have more legos.



(p.s. Gramma, Evan declared today that the butterfly garden was the best gift EVER. :-)

Festivities

The kids don't stay up much past 9pm and neither of them likes loud startling noise, so the Fourth of July is not really a holiday we celebrate. (Yet.)

For now, we eat hot dogs and baked beans and watermelon. We talk about our country and some of it's history... but we are usually laying in bed listening to the incessant booming, popping and crackling instead of being out in it.

This year, we actually did a little something, but cannot take credit for any of it. Aunt Bryce and Uncle Chris surprised the kids by bringing over some sparklers for a little 7pm show in the backyard :-)

The grand finale was the sparkler pit :-)

Tomorrow there will be festivities of the birthday sort here as Evan turns 7!!