The night before last, Paige stayed overnight with Grannybob and Aunt TT. It's really cute, she gets all excited, packs her bag all by herself, and keeps asking what time they'll pick her up. She always kisses everyone goodbye, and it's especially cute when she hugs and kisses Caso and Neely. The whole time she's gone I'm not sure how to feel. I miss her, and worry about her, but I also picture her having fun and feeling so big.

It's also nice how we can give more attention to the other two. Cason had lots of fun, and I got to play some Joe Purdy and dance around with Neely until she fell asleep. Jess came up behind me to look at her over my shoulder, and she was so sweet, gazing up at us, almost asleep. Then as usual I nearly ruined the moment by insisting on trying to get a picture of it.She woke up first this morning, and Caso was still fast asleep. So I called to make sure Paige was okay, and then Neely and I went out to the living room. I put on Yo Gabba Gabba, which she apparently LOVES, to entertain her for a few minutes while I fixed myself some breakfast. She was lying down, using her boppy as a pillow. I always peek in at her every 30 seconds or so, now that she's mobile, to make sure she's not sneaking off to do something scary. But today she was WAY too into the show to move a muscle.But she did give me a smile when she noticed me taking her picture.

Then Cason woke up, and pretty soon my mom arrived to bring Paige home. She walked in, looking happy and so cute, AND carrying a flower for me!
She and Cason joined Neely for the rest of Yo Gabba Gabba, and it was one of the cuter scenes I've witnessed.

Kidnapper Trapper

Lately if we're playing games or something and we tell Cason he did something well, he assumes we're thanking him for doing such a good job, and goes straight to saying "you're welcome."

Like yesterday, we were playing baseball in the front yard, and I was pitching to them. They're both really good at hitting off a pitch, which I realized will probably just end up making tee ball boring for them. Ha. Oh well. So Cason hit one almost out of the yard. It would've gone out except it hit the tree branches and fell back in. Paige jumped up and down and yelled "GOOD JOB Cason!!" He smiled and said "you're welcome." It makes us laugh every time. Paige giggled and told him "you're supposed to say thank you."

Paige has been drawing a lot the last 2 or 3 days. Today she randomly drew this picture and came to show Jess and me. She said "It's a rope over a tree branch, and Neely is holding the rope. She lets go and a box falls on the bad girl who's trying to kidnap her." Then she said the other 4 people off to the side are Jess, me, Paige, and Cason, applauding Neely's booby trap. Haha. So cute. I love how I can totally tell what everything is now, and our little stick hands are together, clapping, just like she said.
I like the "bad girl" in the box with her frown and tears because her kidnapping attempt failed.

Also, I found these new AWESOME carousel dessert plates at Anthropologie that I'm obsessed with now and want REALLY bad. I've always liked carousel horses, so now I'm on a carousel kick, and Paige knows it. So she drew me a picture of one today.
I guess it's a carnival really, there's a ferris wheel on the right, and the carousel on the left. She described it to me and Grama, and even made sure to make one of the horses going up while the others are down. I guess she remembers that they're kind of staggered. I also love that she put in the person running each of the rides. The one under the ferris wheel is easier to see, along with her little lever to start the ride. Awesome.

Lately...

...our days are spent in the playroom.
Swimming outside.
Trying out new fingerfoods,
and new moccasins.
Hanging out with Gia
And dressing up as mama and daddy. (with daddy's work shirt backwards)

"Lenomade" Stand

Today was fantastic. It started off with the kids going straight to the kitchen, dressed, but still with bedhead,
helping Jess make us delicious chocolate chip pancakes.
Paige has wanted to do a lemonade stand since like the middle of winter, and we finally made it happen today. She was SO excited. We got out their little picnic table, and I drew some lemons on the chalkboard for their sign. Then we wrote "Lemonade 25 cents". Lily was over at the time, so all 3 of them took turns writing letters. Cason wrote the "o" and was really really proud of himself.
I should have had them spell it "Lenomade", since that's how Paige says it. Would have been cuter, but oh well, live and learn.

They were pretty dang cute out there.
They sold like 15 cups of lemonade in the first 20 minutes. We have some nice neighbors, and of COURSE lots of family and friends who made special trips for a lemonade.
There were lots more, but apparently I forgot to take pictures of them all.

Cason had a date with his dad and grampa, to go see Cars 2, so he left and Paige and Lily took over.
Eventually Lily had to go home, and Paige was in charge.
She was pretty serious about it. Quite a businesswoman. She DID tell me she wished she had glasses, because she would look more like a business lady. :)
Neely hung around, but mostly just to look cute.
She did a lot of that today, FYI.
She thinks it's hilarous when I brush my teeth.
Pretty soon Cason came home, because Cars 2 had sold out before they could get there. :( They went to Panda Express instead. Paige asked him how the movie was and he hung his head and told her with big hand gestures: "They said there was too much people." He was back to help her, but he'd sneak in the house to play a little Mario some of the time too. So in the end we let Paige have half the profits since she was out there for over 4 hours, with only ONE lunch break. Ha.
Then we let Cason and Lily split the other half for their pay. It was a little over 19 dollars all together! I was impressed. No lemonade stand I was ever involved in made that much money.
After we put everything away, we went over to Dan and Veronica's house to swim.
We finished up with some Sonic.
VERY successful Saturday.

Trapped and Toasted

The other night Paige and I were brushing our teeth and getting ready for bed. She stayed in the bathroom chatting with me while I washed my face. Then she decided to play a prank on me. She walked out and slammed the door shut, yelling "HAHA you're TRAPPED!" I tried to sound scared and said "OH NO!" She came back in, giggling, believing 100 % that she'd scared me, and said in a reassuring tone: "I'm just kidding. I would NEVER trap you in a dungeon, mama." Ha. I like that she added the dungeon part there.
There's an unrelated picture of her for ya.

Neely definitely has the same curly hair texture as her siblings, and it's starting to curl up where it's getting longer in the back. But I still can't tell if it'll be like Paige's or more like Caso's hair. She has this cute little piece that curls up behind her ear.
There's this TINY little dog that goes with a doll we got for Paige's doll house. Any time Neely finds it, she picks it up and carries it around with her. She just holds it and crawls all over the place with it. It's definitely small enough to choke on, so I watch her closely when she has it, but she'll just carry it around. Once in a while she stops crawling, sits up and just moves it around in her hand, staring at it. Then she'll crawl around with it some more. It's been her favorite thing for a few days now. But yesterday she thought about putting it in her mouth for the first time, so it may have to be confiscated. :(
Cason has been telling me he's "Toasted!" when he's playing Mario and dies, or if one of his action figures gets beat up. Jess must have told him he was toast at some point, and Cason just added his own flair I guess. Yesterday playing Bomberman, Colton killed him and Cason came running to tell me "Come and see mom! I got TOASTED!"

"It's Okay Mom"

A few days ago, I was babysitting Lily for a bit so her parents could get stuffed moved to the new house. The big kids were playing with the slide in the pool, and started jumping in, from the top of the slide. I was nervous someone would get hurt so I told them to stop. I took this picture of Cason explaining how it was "okay" because they "would NOT get hurt.". He makes me laugh.

Padres

Before Paige was born, Jess had held a total of two babies, one time each. So he was pretty much like me, nervous that we'd have no idea how to take care of our baby when she arrived. But as soon as he held her I could see it came naturally to him. He loves his kids so much, and the feeling is mutual.

He's also pretty much the perfect dad for them, to complement my mothering style. In EVERY area I am not so great, he's awesome and makes up for it.

Plus, he makes some seriously cool children. Like today, we went to Sonic, and Cason asked for a "Blue drink of the sea", which we realized meant an ocean water.

I want to post awesome pictures of him with them, but apparently I've reached my limit for pictures with this here blog, and it's a little late for me to be figuring out plan B. But tonight Paige told me I should write on the blog, for daddy, FROM her: "I love you. It's nice how you say 'Goodnight princess. Goodnight ballerina.' I want you to hug me, cuddle me, and kiss me, and call me Squaidzo. I love you. Happy Father's Day."

So Happy Father's Day to all the dads we know and love, my awesome dad, the dad who raised my awesome husband, and of course the daddy of my babies. We love you.

Ballerina Paige

The last couple of days we've spent mostly at Paige's rehearsals.
The recital was tonight. SO cute.
Paige and Lily are in different classes, which was actually nice, because then we could actually see our own kid AND our niece dance. Because how can you tear your eyes away from your own baby dancing on stage.

Between dances, the lights on stage would be turned off while the dancers got into position. When Paige and her class walked on, it was all quiet and dark, and Cason loudly said "I can see Paige in the dark!" It was cute.

Paige had her little shy face on, but did such a good job, and looked so pretty. My eyes started to water, but I didn't want my mom to make fun of me so I was keeping my head turned more toward Jess on my other side. Haha. We're so lame. I used to be able to will the tears away when I thought I was going to cry, but I have way less control since having kids. I cry pretty easily now.

It's so cool to see your baby doing something like that. I felt so proud and happy. You really do want to tell everybody "That's my kid!" Haha.

I went backstage to get her and she came running up and attacked me. We'd gotten her flowers, but I left them with Jess out front, so I wouldn't have so much to carry. She saw all the other girls getting flowers and stuffed animals, and asked me why the other girls "won". Haha, so cute and sad. So thankfully Connie had cash on her so we could buy a stuffed ballerina bunny last minute and make Paige's night. Here's a blurry picture of how happy it made her.
She also had 3 bouquets of flowers and was SO happy. She always gets excited when Jess brings home flowers for me, and he'll give her a couple of them. But these ones were ALL for her, and she was very excited.
I got like 3 pictures for some reason. I guess she snuck out some makeup while they waited backstage and put on some more, so her left cheek got some extra pink. I'm not surprised, I caught her putting stuff on in the bathroom before we left and she said "I'm just putting on a little extra, so it will look even prettier." :)

When we got home she changed into pajamas, had me wash off her makeup (which makes me feel like a weirdo by the way, putting makeup on my four year old), and took down her hair. Then she ran around all hyper and pumped up. She goes "I was SOOOOOO happy because of the flowers." Then she told me "I was soooooo embarrassed because of all the flowers. I'm blushed." Haha.
My little brother Matt had his graduation from chiropractic school today too. Sorry we couldn't be there Matt, but we're proud of you and we love you.

Thanks to all our family and friends who could come watch Paige tonight, and for the rest of you, there was no video or flash photography allowed, but you bet your biscuit I ordered the dvd.

Running in the Sprinklers

Yesterday started off nicely. Paige slept in, so the other two and I had breakfast together. Cason wanted a cinnamon waffle with milk, and Neely was having pears.
We left the room once to get something, and Gia the food thief stole Caso's waffle while we were gone. He was sad, and put her outside for me while I made him a new one. When I gave it to him and sat down again he was telling me "I was mad at Gia, and I say 'GET OUTSIDE GIA!'", and he made a mean face to show me how it was done.
He makes everything fun. And cinnamon waffles reminds me of how he mixes up "medicine" and "cinnamon". He tells me he needs some "simmon" when he's sick. :)

Anyway, then at lunch time we brought food with us and visited Jess during his break. He only gets a half hour in the summertime, so that he can get Friday off. Woohoo!

We came home and Paige cruised around the driveway on her hand-me-down scooter, while Neely and I sat and watched from the front seat of the pilot, since Caso had fallen asleep on the drive home.
Paige felt pretty cool.
Hard work on a hot day though, so she took some breaks. :) Takes after me. Ha.
Then we went to Starbucks with my mom and aunt TT. Paige modeled while we were there.
We left there and headed for the new house to visit Veronica and her girls. We beat them there though, so we hung out in the car while we waited. Cason found a sweatshirt Misty sent with Jess yesterday for Paige, and put it on, since it was only 98 degrees out.
And Paige made Neely queen of the babies again.
Haha, I love the look on her face.

The kids love playing at their cousin's new house, especially since there's no big furniture moved over yet, so just toys and big open spaces to play.
The babies like crawling and sliding all over the wood floors.
Eventually we picked Jess up, and went home. Neely watched from the swing while Paige and Cason had an evening sprinkler run.