Jr2 now says prayers and has started saying parts of them without assistance.  You can tell what is important in his life.  First he blesses the food, then he blesses the vacuum, then he thanks for the vacuum.  If we forget to bless the vacuum when praying, he will assist us in remembering it.  Today he also added in blessing his puppy, who is sick and has been throwing up.  (His puppy is a stuffed animal.)

Jr3 got new, larger Sunday shoes of which she approves.  She also is still big into all things belly button and is starting to get the hang of trading a toy for a toy.  I also got her a new swimsuit for next year, since they are on sale now (hopefully I got the right size).  Sr was not sure what he thought of it until Jr3 saw it, grabbed it out of the bag, carried it around with her, and would not let Sr even hold it.  Hey -- maybe she will take after Auntie Roo and it can even help potty train her next year.

New Pics

So I have decided that I should sometimes get to do something I enjoy -- and I don't just mean playing games on the computer.  I mean doing something I like more than that.  I have decided to sew a few nights a week.  I have (mostly) completed my first project.  It is a balloon skirt I made for Jr3.  While balloon skirts are always a flop on project runway, they look pretty cute on little girls.  There is a bow to go on it that I have not yet finished.  The clock struck midnight and I didn't want the skirt to turn into a pumpkin.  (Uncle P probably thinks it looks like a pumpkin already.)

Anyway, this inspired me to take a few pictures.  One has Jr2 showing off his new haircut I gave him.  Another one has Jr3 in her new skirt she wore to church today.  Don't worry Auntie Roo, she wore a solid pink shirt with it.  The last one has them both posing with Jr2's favorite item in the house, which is asleep since it is Sunday.

My favorite hairdo of Jr3

I'm not good at doing Jr3's hair, but sometimes the daycare does it up cute.  They did today, so I thought I would take a picture and post it.

Jr3 and her cute hair (ignore the rest of us)

Jr2 decided to jump into the limelight with Jr3

And with the obligatory rabbit ears

Cousins are great!

Thanks to Jr2's cousin that was his buddy on vacation, life is coming along great.  Jr2 has significantly improved in the potty training area due to his cousin's stellar example.  Jr2 saw him going to the bathroom one day and was fascinated that his cousin would do such a thing.  

He has also begun actually closing his eyes and folding his arms during prayers.  Plus he now likes to say the prayers - in a whisper - even if we didn't whisper when we were helping him.  I again attribute the improved praying to his cousin's awesome example.  We have tried to teach him, but I guess this just underlines the importance of having good friends.

I'll post more about Jr3 and her birthday celebrations later.

Only in the South?

Liam likes to dance.  So we turned on the radio to find some music to dance to.  The first channel was a gospel preacher, but the next channel had music.  Polka music!  Wait -- polka music in the south?  I listened a little closer.  Yes, it was southern polka.  It was a polka song all about Jesus.  Only in the south can you dance to a Jesus polka.

Rainy Balls, Driving and Dirt Angels

Today we got to use the rainy ball.  A couple of weeks ago when Jr2 finally noticed umbrellas, he decided to name them himself.  Rainy balls is what he came up with.  It does make sense.

Jr went driving for the first time today.  He said it was not quite as scary as he expected, but harder than he expected.  It was not as much like the video games as he thought it would be.  He did great -- no wrecking!

Jr3 apparently likes to play outdoors as much as Jr2.  Her daycare teacher said that today while they were playing outside, she looked over and Jr3 was making dirt angels.

Sr continues to go to work.

I worked out at the local Baptist Family Life center.  It's free, it's close, and it's shaded.  Working out at this point means I walked one mile.  I'm so out of shape that counts as a workout.

Stairs

Sometimes I wish our house didn't have stairs.  Sr was sweeping the stairs yesterday.  Jr2 saw this and decided he should sweep the stairs as well.  He does pretty well at climbing the stairs on his own (with a parent following right behind), but he is not to the climbing without parental supervision stage yet.  Well, he might think he is, but he isn't.  So to add sweeping to an already iffy skill, jumped our blood pressures just a bit.

Then Jr3 also decided stairs are cool.  So she crawled over to the stairs and crawled up the first one.  Only the first one, since there was a gate on the second one.  However, since her forward momentum was stopped, she decided to go vertical and pulled herself up to standing on that stair.  Yes, the gate was quickly moved down to the first stair.  The joy of stairs.

Also, we got back the pictures from the daycare.  It seems like they are always taking pictures.  They are very cute, thanks to help from Auntie Moo's help with the children's attire.  We'll see if we get any prints or not.  The plan was not.  But the pictures are sooo cute (to my prejudiced mind).  But then there are just too many good ones to choose from, so the budget may be safe yet.