Family Fun

Well this post is sure to be random, but I'll try to summarize what we've been up to the last few months.  We did finish our basement - maybe a post later with before and afters.  But we love it!  Its nice to hang out down there, and the kids and I both have lots of space to play (or sew). 

Orrin is going through a sunglasses phase, therefore we keep losing them.  He didn't seem to mind putting on his sisters pink sparkly glasses until his could be replaced.  :)

Orrin loves to be outside.  He frequently plays on the deck or driveway while I'm in the kitchen getting dinner ready.

One day, Orrin found Joanna's brush and was gently brushing her hair so I walked away for a minute.  I heard the faucet running, but it didn't really register until I heard him telling her that he was fixing her hair.  I went in to find her a soggy mess (these pictures were a few min later).  While taking her pictures, I heard the faucet running again and he was "fixing" his own hair.  :)

We switched car seats a month or so ago, because I got sick of lifting the bucket seat into the van and killing my back.  So Joanna is in Orrin's old convertible seat - which she loves because she sits higher and can see out the window.  And Orrin got a new seat that will convert to a booster someday.  The box of course was the best part.

Orrin also got a new lawn mower.  We felt so bad last summer that he would take whatever he could find to push as his "mower" to follow Scott around when he mowed.  So this year, we surprised him with something to push.  He loves it!  He'll follow Scott around, but he also will "mow" anytime I let him play outside.  Its funny because he imitates Scott so well.  He'll pretend to put on his earmuffs, then fiddle with the controls, then pretend to squeeze the bar, then walk in circles around the lawn.  Over and over again. 

We had our small group over, and somehow the four 2/3 year olds were unsupervised for a few minutes (everyone thought they were with someone else).  We found them in Orrin's room feeding the fish.  :)

Took some fun pictures of the kids at the park near our house. 

Orrin in front of the huge beech tree there.

Orrin helping Scott put new dirt in our garden.  He was pretty excited about this.  I'm really hoping that he still enjoys all this work when he's actually big enough to really help. 

This was my mother's day gift.  Scott let Orrin pick out a couple of things all by himself.  Bet you can't guess which ones they are...  :)

Playing outside the other day - he mowed the lawn, swept the garage and driveway, fixed the motor on his truck... nothing left to do but shovel the snow.

Ok, I guess that was mostly about Orrin.  Currently, our favorite Orrinism is "draining your injury".  We tell him he is draining our energy when he is throwing a fit about something - and if we run out of energy, we won't be able to (insert whatever thing he wants to do at that moment, usually reading a story before bed).  It works quite well, so well that at random times he'll remind us that he's not draining our "injury".