Some pictures

Four smiles, a non-smile and an almost frown. Still, it was a good use of the long grass in our front yard that will hopefully be gone after our mower gets out of the shop this (fingers crossed) Friday.

Aren't they a couple of cuties?

Another good use of a non-mowed lawn. Aren't they adorable? It only took me 40 pictures to get one where everyone was looking and smiling!


This one is from a couple of weeks ago. Mom stopped by in the evening as the kids were getting to bed. she read them one of our favorite books: Ira Sleeps Over. By the way, See how Ivy sucks her finger? Now look at Vitali. He is not itching his nose, that's his little comfort thing, he sticks his finger or all his fingers against his nostril and breathes past them. weird, isn't it?

Camping in the back yard!

Look at those sweaty, happy boys! No shirts, plenty of dirt smudges and excited over their first time to sleep in a tent! Let me tell you they were so excited when I pulled this out!

Last weekend began a streak of beautiful weather here and Monday and Tuesday nights, I slept in the backyard in the big tent with the kids. Steve slept in the house since he had to work the next days. The nights were pretty chilly and the boys confessed to being cold, but eagerly declared they wanted to sleep there every night!

We found that we needed a few more sleeping bags although since we were in the backyard it didn't matter so much. But this week at church a new friend brought us some things her son had outgrown and among those things was a Thomas the Tank engine sleeping bag! Isn't God good?! You can bet that the boys were pretty thrilled about that!

This week is beginning as winter and ending as spring again. That is the nature of spring, isn't it? They say we might get snow on Monday but Friday is near eighty again! Maybe we'll get to take that sleeping bag for a spin this next weekend. And maybe this time, Mommy will sleep in the comfy bed and Dad can rough it with the kiddos!

Spring here...

Here are a couple of quick pictures of spring here today:

(Violets in my side yard.)

I love our side yard; especially the hammock. Doesn't that look inviting?
It is! I like the excuse to lie there and supervise the kids' bike riding in the dead-end of our road! It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!

I put this next picture in here to say that Misha was very afraid of the "worms"
on this, our paper tree!
You can bet the girls capitalized on that opportunity!

Hooray! Tulips are open!

...and for some pictures of the kids playing in our beautiful weather, click on over to our adoption blog to see this post!

Now...I really have to get some work done!

What's on your to-do list?
Anyone spring-cleaning?

Happy Spring!

Vitali is four, and More... (hey! that rhymes!)

Look at those cheeks! I just love kissing them! I can't believe he is already four! It seems like he's only been here for a month or two!! {Wink, Wink!}

This boy was soooo excited about his birthday; I can't possibly express it to you! He was singing and talking and springing non-stop all day long!
It took him quite a few tries to get those four fingers all standing up like that! See that smile? It was there all day! In fact, I took this picture right before I put him to bed. It only disappeared when he finally fell asleep! I have more pictures on our adoption blog.
For his birthday, Vitali got a huge Tonka dump truck from my mom and dad. I need to post a picture of him riding it down the driveway. He does it in such a funny way, sitting behind the raised bed of the truck! Anyway, today he left the driveway and tried the steeper hill beside it. This turned out to be a bad idea as this hill was bumpy and even my skinny little boy was top-heavy going down.

Here you can see what he looked like at the bottom of the hill! (Actually, here, he is back at the top again. At the bottom, he had too many tears for picture taking! Poor little guy!) I am wondering what this will look like in the morning?!
I love Ivy's long hair. At barely three years old, it was so long before I trimmed off three inches that It could easily get tucked into the waistband of her pants! It never seems to tangle much and is always so pretty and shiny. The last few days she has pretty steadily been a "bannerina" and has been asking me to put it in a "bundle" or, to us, simply a bun.

We were taking Steve to the dentist today so she had to put on "real" clothes and Vitali took his spill while I was freshening up her "bundle" so I got these pictures of her spinning and playing on this absolutely gorgeous spring day!
Can you see all the petals on the ground that have been picturesquely floating from the trees with every breeze? Mmmmm... I love spring!

And also, would you like to see what we had for dinner tonight? Mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and chicken nuggets....Look good? Keep reading!

• The mashed potatoes? Vanilla ice cream! The "gravy" is caramel sauce.
  

• Those nuggets are actually toasted coconut covered marshmallows snipped in half and pressed a bit to make them slightly less marshmallow-y

• And the green beans are not the peas and carrots candy I was hoping to find, but they are a sort of junk food since they are green bean chips. Meaning that they are crispy and salted and yet somehow still look exactly like normal green beans!
  

Hannah said she thinks that this was the least healthy dinner she had ever had!
I should hope so!

Happy April Fool's Day, everyone!