Ethan's First Day of School!!!

I can't believe that Ethan is now a first grader! We walked him to school and he went and stood in line and waved goodbye. He did remember to give me a hug, but there were no tears (on either of our parts)! When I went to pick him up yesterday he was like "Mom, you really don't have to walk me to school or home..I can do it myself". Is my child ALREADY embarrassed by me?!! He is getting so independent! I walked him to the corner of our block today and found an older girl for him to walk with. I told him that he is not allowed to walk alone, but he can walk with older friends. I think that is a good compromise...breathe Annie, breathe.. :)

We will we will ROCK you!

Lainey has recently had a real jump in her vocabulary. The other day we were outside eating popsicles and she comes over to me and looks right at my popsicle and says "share mamma, share". Who could refuse that right?!
She loves to feed you too and she will say "try it, mmmm" as she shoves whatever wet, soggy food she has in her hand right into your mouth whether you like it or not.
She is great at saying please and will say "more water please". She also surprised us the other day by pointing at Ethan's scissors and saying the word really clearly. She also knows that we don't touch them. All knives, scissors, etc. are "owie" and she steers clear of them.
Other things that Lainey is doing right now are:
She loves to "help" me put on my makeup and LOVES lip gloss.
She is awesome at somersaults.
She is climbing on EVERYTHING. If you can get up on it, Lainey has climbed it. She can now get in and out of her crib with ease.
She loves loves loves babies. I am not talking about the dolls (which she does like), but the real ones. Every baby we see she has to go and say hello to. She gets right up in there face, about 3 inches away, and will just stare at them. I know what some of you are thinking and no, I am not going to have another baby for Lainey to adore! Two kids are quite enough for us :).
She is ridiculously strong willed and is a pro at temper tantrums. I am learning to just breathe and walk away. For the most part though Lainey is a sweet loving little girl whom we just adore!



Here are the kids singing We Will Rock You!





She looks guilty huh?! I don't remember what she was doing,but I am sure it was something that I wasn't too happy about :).


You have to have a few pics of tub time mowhawks!

New Teeth and Grumpy Lainey Bug

As we all know, Ethan is a bit accident prone when it comes to his teeth. At the age of three he used to grind his front teeth making them smaller than the others. We decided to have the front 4 teeth capped. A year later, our little shit of a neighbor boy karate chopped out his right front tooth. This was about 2 weeks after we had finally paid our final bill on them. Fast forward another year and Ethan was going down one of the Japanese roller slides and somehow managed to land face first into it resulting in the other front tooth being knocked out! His two side teeth (the capped ones) were a bit banged up, but not too bad. A few months after that he was on the neighbors trampoline and hit his teeth on something (a head, elbow..who knows) and really chipped them. I took him to the dentist and convinced her to cap the teeth again. Here is the finished product! Please pardon the scrapes on his face, they are from his loving sister....
Oh, he got a new haircut too :)




Lainey was not in the mood for pictures. She wasn't in the mood for a headband either. Did that stop me?? NOPE!

I have been watching my neighbor's kids this week and we HAD to get out of the house. We decided to go to Comprehensive Park..it was fun, but really really hot out. Here is a clip of the adventure...You can tell by my commentary, I just LOOOVVEEE pigeons.





Ethan on the zip-line:





Lainey playing with her stroller:






The kids were playing in the dryer again.. Looks like Lainey is having a blast huh?!!

Poor Lainey Baby!

Lainey got a mosquito bite on her forehead. She has such sensitive skin (like her mamma) that it somehow radiated to her poor eye. This is how Andy found her yesterday morning..Poor thing! We gave it a few hours and her eye and forehead went back to "just a little swollen". Damn bugs!!! She looks all googley eyed..kinda funny, but I shouldn't say that now should I :)
P.S. Please pardon the drool. Daddy felt so bad for her that he gave her a peanut butter m&m!

Afternoon with Daddy!

Last week was a rough one for me. Lainey is always "on one", but last week was especially bad. She would throw a colossal tantrum at least once a day. These were the 20-30 minutes of screaming and chasing after me when I left her to her tantrums. By the end of the week my patience was all but gone. Andy was a great hubby and took the kids out for the afternoon on Saturday. My friend Rumi and I got to go and window shop at JUSCO. Jusco is the Japanese version of a mall. We had a great time and have decided that we need to have our time away once a month. Next time we will make sure to have saved up a bit of cash though :).
Andy took the kids around to a bunch of different parks and random places that just looked cool. They all had a BLAST! I think it was nice not having me around. I tend to be the super overprotective/cautious mother and don't let the kids have as much fun as when daddy takes them out.

Here are some pictures of their adventure:









Lainey loves leaves..she picks them up whenever we go on walks. I am sure that this great big one provided many minutes of entertainment!



Andy was trying to get a shot of the kids together. Lainey had other plans and would not hold still. Ethan tried to help out...



Gotta love the vending machines that are EVERYWHERE!





You don't see this too often..a kinda tall Japanese man!



Andy took a picture of some model doing a photo shoot....



I love old people on bikes!




Ethan on some awesome zip-line:




He isn't the most graceful of kids!




This one makes me laugh!


Here is one difference of mommy vs. daddy. I would have been scared out of my pants to let her swing by herself..I just picture her flipping over backwards and hitting her head or breaking something.
But look, she had a blast!



Lainey climbing all over some weird whale.


The kids always make friends wherever they go.

Swing Batter Batter!

Ethan swinging...

Here he is at third base...


Running to home...

And sliding. Of course that is his FAVORITE part!
When the other team was in the outfield and a ball was hit, they ALL ran to it. It was so funny!

Even after a kid got the ball, a few more kids came running to get on top of the pile. The coach had to come and break them up. It's so cute!

Lainey bug loves olives and she especially loves to eat them off her fingers! I hate black olives, they taste like metal to me. UGH!

Ethan's got moves!!!

I wonder who he gets his moves from??? Hint Hint...it's NOT his mother! :)
Sorry about the sideways view..I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn it around...
I apologize in advance about Ethan's goober noises at the end of the video. He and Jessica seem to think it's really funny to make such a horrid noise.