What are these kids up to?

The following is a brief look at what Colton is up to these days.  As a 2 1/2 year old, Colton....

* loves to play with trains, cars, puzzles, legos, and swords.  Oh, and the occasional barbie courtesy of his big sister, Sienna.

* favorite phrases are "utz that?" for what's that, "I choose" when he wants to pick out something, and "Mommy do" when he wants Mommy to do something for him and no one else.  And my personal favorite, "I na-know" for I don't know but he just says it in the cutest way possible!

* loves his routines.  For example, at night, when it is time to go to bed, he must be the one to turn off his light, turn on his night light, turn on his soothing nighttime music, and get his elephant (just gave up his paci!).  Then, and only then, may you put him in his crib.

* is a bit of a Momma's boy.  But, I secretly love that he is!

* loves to watch t.v. in Mommy and Daddy's bed.  Oh, and in the car.  And then there's the movie room!  However, we limit his t.v. watching to no more than 1 hour a day.  Otherwise, he would turn into a total t.v. zombie!

* loves to go to school.  I was worried about him starting mother's day out at the beginning of the year since he has been so attached to me.  But, after the first two days, he realized how much fun it was and instantly became a grade A student!

And here is what Sienna is up to these days.  As a 4 1/2 year old, Sienna....

* is definitely our little princess.  She loves to dress up, put on pretend make-up, have her hair done, and have her nails and toenails painted.  She would wear a dress every day if it was up to her!  She calls herself a "fashionista" which I believe she got from a barbie movie!

* loves to go to school.  She has already learned how to write all of her letters - uppercase and lowercase.  And she is learning so much from her wonderful teachers!  We are also learning basic addition and subtraction and Sienna is already saying how excited she is about starting Kindergarten in the fall!

* loves doing art projects at home and at school.  Give Sienna crayons, markers, scissors, glue, glitter, etc. and she is one happy camper.

* enjoys her ballet and tap dancing class very much.  She is definitely our little performer.  She also is excited about taking swimming again and really wants to start going to gymnastics.

* has an amazing memory!  I thought I had a great memory, but she is in a class of her own!  She is constantly amazing us at the amount of information she can retain for such a small child.  We are starting to turn to her more and more when Mommy and Daddy can't remember things!  She also tends to memorize songs and lines from her favorite movies after only seeing them a couple of times.  Her favorite movie at the moment is Annie and she sings the songs from Annie pretty much every day!

* likes playing with our next door neighbor John, who is the same age.  But, we are sad b/c he is moving soon.  They do lots of pretend play with each other, for example, princess and knight, husband and wife (not so sure I should encourage that one!), and good guy bad guy.

Blue Bonnets are blooming!

This spring, the wildflowers seemed extra abundant!  So, of course, I had to drag the kiddos out to take some pictures!  On our first outing, Sienna and Colton did a really good job of humoring their Mommy and posing for pictures.  However, they preferred walking around and exploring, so I took lots of pictures of that too!  Then I realized, "Hey, it would be nice if Bart and I were in some of these pictures!"  It is so hard to get family pictures especially since I am usually the one behind the camera.  So, a few days later, I dragged the entire family, along with my tripod, out to the same spots.  Taking pictures with the tripod was pretty tiring and difficult b/c I don't have a remote and Bart and I kept taking turns to run in and out so we could press the timer button.  So, if we look flushed in the pictures, that is why!  But, all in all, we got some decent photos and were able to catch the blue bonnets before they faded away.  Gotta love the spring time! 

  

  

Sienna In A Fashion Show

One day, as we were looking at shoes in the Nordstrom kids department, Sienna was asked if she would like to be in a fashion show.  Sienna's eyes lit up and she squealed, "YES!"  I probably would have politely declined if it wasn't for the look of excitement on her face.  So, we agreed and about a week before the show, we went to Nordstrom to pick out her outfit for that day.  When asked what she would like to wear in the show, Sienna quickly said, "a dress".  So, we got to walk through the department as Sienna chose about 10 dresses to try on.  We were given the biggest dressing room and as I helped Sienna try on dress after dress after dress, Colton entertained himself by being silly in front of the mirror.  On a side note, I was asked if Colton would like to be in the fashion show as well, but knowing Colton, I decided to say no.  He is still just a little shy and I don't think he would have that much fun with it anyway.  Back to the dresses, remarkably, Sienna and I agreed on the same dress!  There was absolutely no question that the one we picked was the most adorable on her!  The night before the fashion show, Sienna was so excited - you would have thought it was the night before Christmas!  I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but let's just say that Sienna was such a professional.  I don't think I could walk down a runway with that much confidence!  We were all very proud of our little fashionista!

Getting her (very light) make-up done.

#33 is ready for her close-up!

Cute back drop for pictures!

Relaxing before the show.

Here she comes!

Such confidence!

Almost there!

And now the pose!  Where did she learn this?

Picture under the clouds!

Little bro' joins her!

Maybe I can pull off this modeling thing.