here are pics of the month of july

Tucker playing wormy with blanket

Papa snuggles

A beach day

Ethan at beach day before the monster poop

Ethan at beach day after monster poop

T and W call this beach the beach with the long walk.  This was on the long walk back

Watching Dora together

Smile!  6 weeks old

Tucker and I played a game of guessing which toy was in the bag before pulling it out.  The toys on the right are the ones that he guessed right only by feel.  The pile behind him were "tricky" ones.

Tucker found a rubber band and asked if it was for his hair.  Apparently.  But he is definitely boy riding in that heavy duty dump truck

Blueberry picking

The first blueberry picking day

Meow meow with her bow in awaiting T and W's return by the front door

Playing fishing.  The balloons are hanging down to catch the fish

I don't get it either.  They play this hours on end and like to eat in their boxes with their "lids" on

Running around to get "ice cream" at the "forest

Tucker handing ice cream to Whitney as she ran away from the forest

Whitne

Second blueberry picking day for Ethan

It escaped my notice that Tucker was wearing W's meow meow flip flops

Ethan at the second blueberry outing

Whitney's tulips and sun

Tucker in the "bird tree"  They are the birds

Whitney and Tucker birds

"I POPPED out"

Whitney up close on the top branch

Whitney modeling her newest shirt from Grandma.  She likes the magenta bow

Snack time in the summer.  Barefoot, chillin'

Tucker snuggling baby Ethan

Ethan 3 weeks

......when there is no baby brother to swing in the swing.....

Whitney is the first to make her own track for the trains

 beach outing end of June

Whitney at the beach

ethan at the beach, 3 weeks old

Check out the view!

Ethan experiencing sand for the first time

Papa snuggles

Whit burying Papa

Tucker asleep with glowstick necklace and bracelet

Whit asleep with glow stick bracelet and necklace.  I popped them off of them after the pick

Sous chefs.  Tucker is measuring and mixing and Whitney is prepping the asparagus.  They did it themselves, only needing supervisiong

bins on the pile

Another game they played

Ethan 4 weeks

Ethan 2 weeks

Fourth of July BBQ

Tucker's first sparkler

Getting the worm fireworks ready

all of us on the fourth

Whitney's smiley faces and two mad faces

Flowers whit drew herself

Tucker cleaning up after his big, big mess

Park time

ethan at the park.  Noticing a theme?  He only really sleeps well in his carseat

The day after his baby shower.  An outfit received

Playing Creaky Cranky with their pull toys

The day they played birthday cake with the bins and sang to me

Whitney putting her doll to bed

W:  She has started asking me on occasion if she is old enough to go to an amusement park.  I read one book that mentions it and then said in passing to my hubby that she would probably like roller coasters when she was old enough.  Apparently she agrees and wants to try them out.  Anything Papa says she would like, she is certain to agree.

She pointed out a picture to me and said she drew a hot dog.  It was a big hot dog and a small bun.  And by golly, it did look like a hot dog.  But where would she get the idea to draw a hot dog?  Probably from the fourth of July.  She also had a ton of fun jumping on the trampoline with the other kids that night.

I recently taught them to sing Row, row, row your boat while washing their hands.  Whitney caught on the first time.  She does it every time without fail.  Loudly, too.  And she performs in public bathrooms, too.  It makes us laugh because it's so dang cute.

Whitney likes picking out Ethan's clothes.  One day I picked out his clothes, which happen to be gingham.  Whitney didn't care for the outfit too much.  She said "Baby brother looks weird because he is wearing squares".

Whitney was eating grapes in a bowl.  When there was one layer left on the bottom, she said "Look!  A flower!"  Yep.  Sure enough, a flower.  Then "Look!  A letter C!"  Then "Look!  A daruma doll!"  A daruma doll is from a book from the library.  And her grapes stacked up do look just like it.

Whitney loves flowers.  She likes to talk about plant names at night and often says how Heavenly Father made them to cheer her up, just like He made trees to cheer Ethan up. 

While I was working in the yard, I heard Whitney saying that Tucker had on rainbow flip flops.  What??!  What are rainbow flip flops?  He had on one of his mickey flip flops and one of Whitney's Hello Kitty flip flops. Then he just ditched mickey for Hello Kitty all together.  Whitney wore Tucker's as a trade.  It looked funny to see her petite feet in his wide, stretched out flip flops.

Whitney is learning the art of distracting Tucker.  One time at the park, Tucker was crawling on Whitney's rock.  She started listing off options for Tucker to choose from to do something else other than climb on the rock.  Smart girl.  It worked!  And made me laugh at how skilled she is. 

E: Grew out of the newborn size.  I no longer can snap up those clothes.  He has dimples on his knuckles.

Blew milk out of his nose by accident for the first time.  Didn't like it.

He is now out in public.  I'm strong enough to haul that car seat around short distances with only some aching.  He had a baby shower to go to and went to church for the first time this past week.  I thought I was going to get out of a baby shower, but someone else had a baby 2 weeks after me, so they invited us to be nice:)  Just kidding.  They loved having an excuse for a party.  One of the cutest things at the party were these cupcakes that had duck butts on them.  It looked like the duck had dipped into the water for a bit of plant on the bottom.  The icing was blue.  Very cute!  Ethan got small shoes.  They are very, very cute and they actually stay on.  Apparently he has big feet.

T:  I called my dad up on the phone the other day.  After I hung up Tucker asked who I was talking to.  I said "Grandpa".  He said, "No you didn't.  You called Old Dad".

Tucker loves to check Ethan's diapers for poop.

Tucker put a bow on Meow-meow.  He likes to adjust the bow so it's in the middle.  If it comes off, he wants to put it back on.  He also holds meow meow so carefully.  He makes sure she is situated just right facing out in the crook of his left arm.

Tucker went outside to play and informed me not to open the ice cooler sitting outside.  He informed me it was stinky and exclaimed loudly and tried to push me away from it, reiterating that it was stinky.  I didn't believe him.  But boy he was right.  Apparently my husband forgot to clean it out after the last crabbing trip.  I didn't know it, but Tucker did.  I about passed out.  It smelled, well, literally of death.  I dumped it out and let it air, but we could smell it all over the yard the rest of the day.  Gross.

I was trying to do something on computer while Tucker and Whitney were in the room.  Silly me.  I forgot for a minute why I don't get on the computer when they are around.  Just for a moment.  During this moment Tucker was hovering, telling me which buttons to push.  He told me to push a q and I wasn't doing it.  He told me "Look.  It's down this isle."

Now I know why babies are good for older kids.  It has made me realize my kids can do more than I realized and that they are no longer little.  I've started teaching them some big kid things with supervision.  Tucker has really wanted me to let him help in all aspects.  Scrubbing toilets, stirring noodles in the pot, rinsing his dishes and putting them in the dishwasher (using the spray nozzle only) getting out his own dishes and food, etc.  I have realized from other parents stories that it is high time for some of these things.  I pick chores.  He picks food prep.  AAAHH!!

Tucker started a new game of running his indoor dump truck through mud puddle.  This is a pile of blocks.  Whitney modified it by making an open spot through her My Little Ponies.

The other day Whitney was "hungry" and so Jeremy started offering stuff out of the kitchen.  Fish sauce, salt, mustard, vanilla, cayenne pepper, mayo, etc.  Whitney didn't get it and told him no to everything.  I think she was hoping he would get to ice cream or something.  Anyway, I thought it was funny.  Later that week Tucker did it to Whitney.  He offered her salt and all sorts of random things like Jeremy did.  Then they both have started saying they "have a silly Papa".

W and T:

Tucker doesn't like it when I leave, so any time I might leave, he says he doesn't want to do said activity.  Every Sunday morning we have this discussion in the morning about how he does NOT want to go to nursery.  Then we have to talk about how he likes nursery and how Whitney will hold his hand so he's not too nervous.  He cries a bit getting into the car, says he wants to stay home, etc.  Then, when we get out of church he is all smiles and says he LOVES nursery.  I think it's for the fruit snack.  Whitney informed me this last week she held his hand.  Ah.  Tucker is so like me.  I distinctly remember going to some singing and dancing lessons of some sort with my aunt.  I was NOT  particularly excited about them, but would do it for one life saver from my Grandma once we got in the car.  I was a sugar addict from a very young age.  It has carried into adulthood.

I had a friend take Tucker and Whitney somewhere.  They were SO amused that they were sitting close together.  They exclaimed "we're close!" and laughed most of the way there.  That interspersed with a phrase they made up "ooo-aahhh".  I finally figured out they got that expression from me.  It's their impersonation of me lifting or pushing something heavy.  Like I say.  They are my mirrors and I'm so embarrassed sometimes! 

They like to run through the house to play whoosh clouds.  I don't know what this is.  I suspect it is something from Thomas.  They run through the house yelling that.

We spent an afternoon doing bubble paint.  They used the bubbles to paint my toes and fingernails.  Then they painted theirs.  Then they drew on their boxes and the ground bubble pics.  They did it for an hour.  It was warm and sunny.  I think this is what heaven is like!

As I was saying.  What goes in comes out in play.  They were playing with their babies and one got put in time out for not being kind.  That baby was hitting another baby.  Then the baby in time out was not allowed to watch Thomas because she had been kicking the door.  Yeah.  Whitney and Tucker had a few days of kicking the door or wall while in time out.  Grrrr.  Ethan sleeps through quite a bit, but never through that racket.  I'm sure he thinks the world must be coming to an end.  Sure sounds like it.  So I started letting the other child in time out watch Thomas if they didn't kick the door.  Whoops.  Now I have to figure out how to get out of not letting them watch Thomas just for not kicking the door while in time out and keep them from kicking the door.  Any ideas?

With Ethan, there is no longer room in the grocery cart plus groceries for all three kids.  In order to prevent fighting, I thought, the big kids no longer ride unless it has one of those car things on it.  Go figure. The car carts were used up when we went in.  What a hoop lala that was.  After lots of fussing, more from Tucker, about not riding in the cart, it was decided that Whitney would find the grocery item I was looking for and Tucker would push the cart.  Alone.  No Mommy touching.  It is nerve racking to say the least and I always stop him from actually running into someone.  A grocery store employee was watching.  She commented that she was surprised at how well Tucker was doing.  All those mop bucket hours are paying off.  He probably does better than I do because at least he can see.  I can't see around Ethan's car seat.

They were fighting with each other a bunch while I was trying to weed one day.  So I made them pull 5 weeds before going back to playing.  They ended up pulling lots of weeds.  Whitney insisted that they pulled 10 weeds each.  Tucker agreed.  That ended up turning out fun, to work together, instead of listening to them fight.  Took a long, long time, though, before they decided to pull the weeds in order to get back to play.

One morning Jeremy came in to give us good bye kisses before work.  Tucker wanted more kisses after the first round, so Jeremy obliged.  Then Whitney wanted another.  Then Mommy.  Then Tucker asked for a third one.  Then Whitney, but after Whitney's third kiss, Jeremy literally ran out of the room and said no more.  Since then Tucker brings up the story of how Papa ran away from kisses and how we have a silly papa.

He also likes to recount a story I told them about when they were little.  They like those stories.  I told them about Tucker sucking on Whitney's nose to nurse, he was so hungry.  And how Whitney screamed because she couldn't breathe.  Yeah.  Tucker thinks it's hilarious.  Brothers.

He also recounted to me about the port a potty at the strawberry field.  The port a potty at the blueberry field being pumped reminded him of that, I guess.

Tucker likes to match colors.  He tells me all the grey things that match my car.  Meow meow is on the list, along with his breakfast spoon.