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This kid loves the swing.  He always hated it as a baby, but now he loves to superman swing.  He also loves to sit in my lap and swing while I hold him:

Thomas and Nicole were actually playing together.  They communicated and switched activities together.  If you know these two, you’ll understand what a small miracle that was.

Isaac painting his Pinewood Derby car:

Zach helped Isaac and Isaac’s best friend, Evan make their cars.  Nicole observed and Mickey supervised.  (Actually Mickey did a little more than supervising, but in terms of this picture, I thought that title seemed appropriate).  Nicole did a little more than observe, she also knocked Isaac’s car off the counter at one point and broke it.

 

Yes, sometimes miracles happen more than once.  Here they are playing together again. I don’t think they’ve played together since this picture.  More Pinewood Derby car painting:

I don’t know why, but I found this toy covered in cheese slices.  My kids sometimes have bad ideas and not enough good sense.

We love nice days and neighbor friends. 

Thomas loves playing games on Starfall.com.  He usually plays while I clean up breakfast, and periodically throughout the day.

 

I wish I could claim that he’s so smart because I spend so much time tutoring him, but he’s really picking up a lot from computer games:

I had to make cupcakes for the Pinewood Derby.  Thomas enjoyed the results of my cupcake making:

I really wanted a trampoline when I was a kid.  My siblings and I started a campaign to get my parents to buy one.  We tried to convince them that it was an essential tool for family bonding.  In the end we all contributed birthday money to get one.  My kids get to reap the benefits of being good friends with neighbors who have one:

Sometimes I think of these kids as the “Three Musketeers.”  They’re all about the same size and sometimes they spend a lot of time together.  (The one with his back to the camera is Thomas’s neighbor friend).

I made chocolate fudge frosting to go with the cupcakes.  I didn’t have enough cupcakes to share with the kids, so we got creative with frosting and marshmallows:

The girl on the left is McKell.  She’s in Nicole’s kindergarten class and I babysit her 4 days a week.

Here are all the cars that competed in the Pinewood Derby:

This one is Isaac’s car.

Isaac won his first few races.  He came in second in his Den.

 

I had to leave early to go to Nicole’s Kindergarten Play performance.  She was Henny Penny in the play “Chicken Little.”

Here they are singing their opening song:

 

I have not taken much video with my camera, but I’m suppose to be able to take a picture while it’s recording a video without interrupting the video.  Unfortunately, when I tried to take a picture, it got out of focus and stopped and then restarted the video, so my recording of Nicole in her play is cut up into two videos.

Kids trying to drink from sprinklers is amusing to me:

Popcorn is such a messy snack that I’ve decided they should start eating it outside so the birds can clean up their mess.

Isaac and Evan built a Lego track and made some Lego cars.  They did a little demolition derby competition where they had to try to crash into each other and damage each other’s car.  They had a lot of fun with it:

Riding toy races with the neighbors:

We think it’s great to live across the street from our kid’s grandparents.

Ila wanted one pony tail.  Her hair is a little too short, but she posed for a picture and looked adorable, so here it is:

This might be my first picture of Charlotte this week on my blog.  I need to take more pictures of that girl!

Ila was sad to have to get out of the bath after only 40 minutes, so I promised her that she could finish her bath the next day.  She started asking to “finish” her bath right after breakfast.  She had to wait till after church, but she was able to “finish” it with an hour long bath on Sunday.

I actually had three kids in the bath, but there were no modest pictures that showed all three.

I encountered this scene right after baths.  I thought it was so sweet to see Thomas laying on his brother that I had to take a picture (or 10).