Almost time for vacation!

We've been counting down the days until we depart for vacation to Wisconsin. At first it was 5 months, then 4 then 3, then 2 months, until we decided to count in weeks. But the boys were confused, all of a sudden the numbers were increasing- 7 weeks seemed like more than 2 months! Then we're down to 2 weeks, and now 10 days seems like more than 2 weeks. Sam is getting excited to pack the suitcases. We were talking about what we'd bring to WI. According to Sam, we need to bring lots of toys and a swim suit. I'm surprised that he didn't say we needed to bring his Curious George video.

Jackson looks at the calendar every day and helps to mark an x on each passing day. He says that he can play with his toys on the airplane, but not until the captain says it's ok to take out your toys.

Kari

Retro Chloe

I found this retro dress at the second hand store and knew it was perfect for a girl with fashion confidence. She wears it well!

Kari

Playing Teletubbies at the Zoo

There's this play area at the zoo that looks like a concrete version of the Teletubbies house. It's a partially underground cave/tunnel structure that you can climb on top of and jump into and run around. Sam is in the front here; Jackson is the kid in the background with the same boots and jacket. On this day, we ended up leaving the Teletubbies house with Chloe crying. When I came to her rescue, she was down on the floor crying. She either got into a rumble with another toddler or she fell and the other toddler was just looking at her crying. Either way, I'm sure we'll be back. Kari

Spider Boys

There's an area at the zoo devoted to spiders (not my favorite area). This super cool giant spider web climbing thing is located here. Chloe looks on, but doesn't yet attempt the climb.

Kari

Roasting marshmallows

Max comes over

We have one set of friends who also have 3 children- only one set of friends. And they came over this night for dinner. Max is their oldest, he is one year older than Sam & Jackson, Klara is their middle daughter and she is one year older than Chloe, then they have a little baby, about 6 months old. Anyway, the boys were super excited to have kids come over to our house. But as soon as they got here, Sam & Jackson turned into super brats! They took their garbage trucks and were driving them up and down the hall and Sam was saying to Max, "Max, you're not nice, you can't play with my garbage truck!". I was so horrified. I'd never seen the boys like this- but then again, we don't often have families over to our house. They did share their big obnoxious cars, as seen in the photo. And they did think that Max was pretty cool when he could write numbers on their MagnaDoodle (the boys can't write the numbers yet very well).

Kari

Jackson blows balloons

Jackson loves balloons! I'm not sure where this came from, but all of a sudden, he's obsessed with balloons. Maybe because they come in a pack and it's a collection, like his collection of bugs, seashells, farm animals, cars, rocks, etc. Anyway, Sam & Jackson got $10 from Traci and Peter for Easter and I said, what do you boys want to buy. "Balloons!" Jackson exclaimed. And then of course, Sam chimed in, "Balloons!" And Jackson began to name off what kind of balloons Sammy would get and what kind he would get and what color balloon every one would get to sleep with that night. Jackson and Sam get white balloons in their room, Chloe gets a pink one, Mommy gets a blue one and (I forget what color Daddy gets). So the top photo shows Jackson in one of his first successful attempts at blowing up his own balloon. Pretty cool.

Kari