A day in the backyard

 The girls enjoy the flowers on this tree. If you notice, there are no flowers on the lower half of this tree. They have plucked them all off to put in the dump truck, of course!

 Theodore wanted to munch on a car for his morning snack. He likes to bite the tires off...

 Claire was munching on a Nutella sandwich and Marie was eating goldfish crackers in the tree. The three buckets hanging in the tree are full of dandelions they picked for the bearded dragons. Theodore kept dumping out their buckets, so we hung them from the tree.

Claire is rarely found without a princess dress. 

Konnichiwa

We had some Japanese friends over to play! The girls were so excited to be able to speak some of their Japanese phrases they know. The second they showed up, Marie ran over to them yelling, "Konnichiwa, konnichiwa, KONNICHIWA!"

 Everyone enjoyed jumping on the trampoline and it was fun being able to show the girls that people, besides Pa, actually speak Japanese. We don't come across many Japanese speakers in Ohio.

We had them over for a BBQ and everyone had a fun time learning each other's language.

The Pink Tree

 The girls like this tree because it is the best one for climbing. It also turns pink! Which is great for girlies whose favorite book is "Pinkalicious" which we frequently have checked out from the library.

 We made some snacks for the birds by rolling pine cones in peanut butter and covering them with sunflower seeds. Something ate them, but I don't think it was a bird because they managed to rip the whole thing off the tree!

 Marie wanted a crown of braids.

This little lad is getting so big! He looks huge compared to Thaddeus! Theodore is actually starting to talk a little bit, but he starts speech lessons in June. We'll see how that goes!

Rain and gummies

 These girls had a blast in the rain. Marie was very excited about using the umbrella. These girls are great friends.

 Marie and I have started doing kindergarten at home. Claire likes to join in as well. We are working on identifying numbers up to 100. They really enjoy math when it comes with candy, so we play gummy bingo sometimes. They are such smart girlies.

Garden Time

We are excited for another year of gardening in the OH weather. The girls enjoyed planting the seeds. They were a little aggressive in their seed distribution, but we have thinned them out now that they are starting to pop up.

Teddy oversaw the planting. We planted corn, zucchini, yellow squash, pumpkins, mustard greens, collard greens, onions, bell peppers, egg plant, and carrots.

Family home evening consisted of grilling hotdogs/hamburgers and fire extinguisher training.

Outdoor Fun

 Claire looks great with all of her hair clips!

 Theodore loves to chat with the neighbor's dog through the fence.

 Marie was having a little dance party on top of the logs that are waiting to be made into either tables or firewood, but they make good stages for now!

 Even Charlie and Bocephus got to enjoy the outdoors.

Summer Fun!

The new toys at our house are large trampoline balls. I let the girls each pick out one from Walmart, thinking that they would either pop or lose interest in them rather quickly (they were cheap at least), but they are still a hot commodity!

 The girls like to pretend to be a bullfrog and jump while holding the balls, and land with them under their belly so they get launched off.

Theodore likes to get in on the action too, but he almost prefers the smaller, more manageable sized ones. He likes to copy his sisters!

Stuck

 Marie lined up all of her babies between the two doors so they would be stuck. It was mandatory sitting up time for them. She was proud of her discovery on how to get them all to sit up at once!

We had another friend who was stuck. We try to trap the squirrels that like to eat our garden, but we caught this opossum instead! You can't tell from this picture, but this is actually a new mama that has at least three babies in her pouch! I let her out of the cage and she walked with the biggest waddling belly ever. I have sympathy for her. Thad is being induced on Friday morning at 6am if he doesn't come out on his own before then. None of my kids like to come out on time.

Bearded Dragons

 Meet Charlie and Bocephus!

They have grown as quick as the kids! The first pictures are from when we got them in the beginning at probably 6 weeks old. They were about 3-4 inches long. Now they are huge and take up Theodore's whole arm!

They gets lots of loving and lots of crickets. I think they are happy in our home. The kids sure like to play with them. Theodore even gives them kisses.

Easter!

 We tried to get a couple Easter pictures before we headed off to church. Theodore wasn't really excited about it, but at least we got some.

 After church the girls had a scavenger hunt with the next location hidden in each egg. They had a great time following the clues and were excited to reach the end where the candy and new baby dolls were!

Theodore just wanted to finish all of his candy before moving on to the next egg!