Toodles and Doodles

Everyone enjoyed different parts of the zoo. Dave’s and my favorite part was the bird show. The kids all loved that as well. Even Nathan sat still for the bird show. It is rare for Nathan to sit still. He clapped his hands together and made excited sounds. I think Sara and Emma liked the Elephants and Rhinos best. We saw one Rhino very up close. Ty wanted to visit everything. He has such a desire to learn and I enjoyed seeing him take it all in.

We are winding down the day with popsicles and a movie. What a fun few days!

This is Dave. I think I will try this blogging thing as well. I think it is safe to assume that all posts are from Tanya unless otherwise specified as she is a much better writer than I am (but we won’t discuss who has more time to blog :-)) . I wanted to share a funny story about Nathan and his little pincher fingers. Nathan is always picking up very small specks of food, dirt, etc off of the ground with his thumb and index finger and usually sticks them in his mouth. He has been doing this for quite some time and is very good at finding stuff on the floor that the vacuum doesn’t find. He is an obedient little boy, however, and will usually bring me the items he picks up if I ask him to. Saturday, Nathan and I were in the garage and I saw Nathan pick something up off the ground. I asked Nathan to bring it to me. Very obediently, Nathan walked over to me and handed me…a live bug! Not at all prepared for this, I overreacted by screaming like a girl and threw the bug on the ground. The real embarrassing part is that there was a large group of people directly across the street that heard me. Wait, maybe the real embarrassing part is making this public information in a blog.

I was just thinking about all the fun, cute little things that make life worthwhile. I love watching Nathan and Emma play together. Nathan started this little game where he turns in a circle, falls down and giggles. Now Emma does it with him. Nathan likes to follow Emma around and Emma lets him do it. Nathan cries when Emma shuts her bedroom door on him because she has small toys out that she knows aren’t safe for him. I love watching them as brother and sister.

Emma and Nathan both have such distinct personalities. Emma can be quite the sweetheart. Today Dave was sleeping on the floor with a roll of toilet paper under his head as a pillow. He had taken the toilet paper from Nathan who was making a mess with it. Emma saw Dave on the floor and found a couch pillow for him. She picked his head up and replaced the toilet paper with the pillow. How thoughtful!

Then there is Nathan who can’t get enough of the world. He is curious about everything, especially the toilet. It is only a matter of time until the toilet gets clogged. So far I have found several toys, a toothbrush (yuck!) and an apple with little bite marks in it floating in the toilet at various times. We have to make sure we keep the doors to the bathrooms closed at all times.

I love these sweet memories and the kids that make them.

We had a great 4th of July. We invited some friends over for a BBQ and fireworks. Nathan loved the fireworks this year. Dave bought a few small fireworks including sparklers, ground bloom flowers and snaps. Nathan got so excited. He kept picking up the used snaps and throwing them again. We also watched the city’s fireworks. Emma loved them of course, but they were too far away for Nathan. He kept wandering around, but he did clap whenever they caught his attention.

After the fireworks ended at about 10:00 PM we camped out in our backyard. We set the tent up on the West side of the house. At about 1:00 AM I woke up to find that Dave was not in the tent! He was snug in bed in the house. I roused him and he joined us again. Emma slept through the night, but Nathan did wake up once. In the morning we cooked breakfast on the deck using our little propane camping stove. We all had fun.