We will have to get us one of these....

One day Lilly...one day.

Would you call him a mentor?

So my very lovable brother comes to town around the holidays and Lilly and Drew absolutely adore him and his every move. I would hear constantly, "Where did Matti go?" when he walked out of the room for a minute or "Matti come with me"(as Lilly goes to poop on the potty)They don't want to let him out of their sight when he is in town. To see what he taught the children when he came to town last...click here

So my brother, who is inherently a mentor(maybe more like a bad influence at times)really wanted to impart some fire danger wisdom onto my children with this last visit.

So he did many drills of STOP...DROP...and ROLL. At any time in any given part of the day, if he yelled "FIRE" this is what Drew and Lilly would do.







All you need is love, love, love..love is all you need :-)

Thanks for watching out for their safety Matthew. Your sister appreciates all the lessons you teach them.

Finally!!

It seems like they would never really catch on(and ride with control) and more importantly enjoy riding their little tricycle bikes, but that day has finally come!





For an interpretation of what Lilly says at the end of the video.
"Beep Beep mama. something something. Look out!" Yes, she has a speech therapist.

I am just happy they like and keep their helmets on.

Things we have learned from our Uncle Mattie...

Number One:
How to be cute.


Number Two:
How to build rivers out of sand at Howarth Park. Mattie admiring his landscape and planning his path for the river.




Number Three:
How to do some amateur UFC fighting moves as well as the ever important, "tap out..tap out when you've had too much Drew or Lilly"



Number Four:
How to hustle people for money like on the streets of New York in this, "Which cup is the grape under" game.


No matter how much explaining and moving the cups in slow motion happened...they always picked the original cup Mattie put the grape under. Hence Mattie's laughter.


Number Five:
If there is anything I want my kids to learn from my brother...it really would be how to play the guitar. Drew attempting here on a Kings of Leon Song.


They already miss him and ask every morning, "Mattie coming to play??" After I explain he had to go on an airplane home, they say, "Mattie goes to work, okay."

Happiness is time with the cousins

We celebrated Micah's fourth birthday at the end of May. I have to be honest, besides chocolate milk for Drew, and Nemo for Lilly, there is nothing that my kids love more than their cousins.


Evidence of the cupcakes


Why is everyone looking at me?


A successful group shot with a difficulty level of 10.0 due to 3 out 4 kids being under 5.

Can't anything be turned into a game?

How cute are they?

The big pool has arrived

Not as big as we thought...but it will work out just fine.







By the way, Drew was getting ready to slide down into the water and yells, "Here comes the bigness"

Should I be more worried about the fact that he referred to himself in the third person?

OR

That he has taken a liking to his nickname?

An addition to Lilly's room

NO...the addition is not a new or future sibling.

So traditionally girls tend to have more clothes than boys. I said traditionally. So we happened to come across this hand-me-down dresser from my aunt and TA DA...Lilly now can actually have all of her clothes in her room.



My kids have figured out another use for the dresser. Big surprise.


They did this all by themselves and yelled, "You count Hide and Seek"


We played hide and seek 100 times(it seemed like) and every time I opened the dresser, they yelled "surprise"


As fun as 100 times of hide and seek is...the dresser now has shelves.

Audtions for the circus

This is our gymnastics/circus class in Healdsburg. We seem to enjoy the things more realted to the circus aspect of the class.



As soon as Drew gets to class, he runs straight to these rubber rings and doesn't ever really put it down the entire time. Parents come up to me in class and say, "Is that your son with the yellow ring? He keeps telling me to 'Watch this'...'Watch this'" He proceeds to throw it up in the air and I cross my fingers that it doesn't come down and crash into some poor innocent kids face.


Lilly is asking for one of these in her room next birthday.

Traveling first class

Isn't my friend Casey so strong that she can carry me around on her shoulders like this? I know my body language or the evidence of a hand holding me up doesn't take away the illusion that we are doing this position all by ourselves.

The great thing about kids is...

They can play with the same jack-in-the box again and again and still be surprised every single time it pops up.

A stashed birthday gift

We were wondering what happened to many of our toys after our birthday. They mysteriously disappeared, but some have resurfaced like this cool tree house from our Nana and Boppa. It comes with awesome animal figures and we make great sound effects to go with each animal. Although daddy has been known to "hide" the tree house again when we fight about it.

So when can we wear this outfit outside?

I chose this outfit out all by myself. I mean did you see the close up of the raincoat? It's like it was made especially for Drew Bigness Petersen

*Lilly's rain gear will also be revealed at a later date

Dance Party USA

We love this song!!

Fun at the birthday party

These foam things were extremely difficult to get out of and I always needed an adult to help me. But then after the adult helped me, I usually screamed in their face because I wanted to do it by myself. Therefore after this pattern continued over and over, I was eventually banned from the foam pit


My Uncle Mattie came to our party all the way from his house that is far away. He thought he would try to show us how to do the iron cross. Maybe Lilly should show him how it's done.


Yummy cupcakes. I prefer the frosting on my face rather than in my mouth.


Lilly can do her circus swing and I will stick to the safer swing


I had to ask Nana to feed me my cupcake because I didn't like frosting on my hands or really on my face...seriously a clean eater

Birthday Parties...part 1

Ummmm, so I could hang up here all day if you want


Still having fun, what's the big deal about this hanging thing?


Okay, getting a little tougher. I think my hands are slipping


I am not Lilly, get me down please