Catching Up (Yes we are still here)

I know, it has been a while. I have no excuses. I am just lazy. But hey, the holidays are here so maybe I will pick up the camera a few times and take a picture or two. Anyway, this is the last two month recap.

This is one of  the only pictures I took in September...that's what a good mom I am.

Charlotte has graduated to booster seat. For some reason seats became an inside toy on this day.

Elaine turned 5! She is very grown up. She still loves preschool but thinks she is ready for kindergarten.

We Aunt Jennine and cousin Lisa came for a visit in October. Lisa obviously spent some time worshiping the sun. My kind of girl.

The biggest change at our house in the last two months: Charlotte started preschool. I went back and forth with putting her in and since I have been working so much I decided it was better to have her at a structured class rather than at the gym daycare. She and Elaine are at the same school two days a week.

Another set of visitors in October was my cousin Jim and his wife Karyn. They came from England and we had the chance to take them to their first ever Pumpkin Patch.

Charlotte is wearing her "cute boots" on the pony ride.

Elaine thinks she should have a pony. I told her not even Santa will bring her one. (I didn't tell her Santa might accidentally set the guinea pig free for Christmas either.)

If you ever need someone to play horseshoes with Elaine will step up. She loves it!

This is Charlotte at the Country Fair at preschool. They do this in lieu of Halloween. She is wearing her "cute boots" again but I forgot to picture them.

This is probably the cutest Tinkerbell ever!

Our baby is 3! .Whenever someone asks her how old she is she will come to me and say "Mom, fix my fingers". The whole pinky/thumb thing is a work in progress.

So, there you go....

Preschool Take Two

Elaine started her second and final year of preschool this week. I was very  ready for the new year to begin. After 4 days she seems to love it. She found herself a new boy to love this year. She is not a girl that is afraid to show affection so she kisses him on the lips at school. I thought that we had a few years before she said "I kiss him because I love him and want to marry him."  Guess not. Charlotte has not been very sad to see her buddy off to school and she is probably relieved we decided against having her start this year.

Summer is Over

I am equal parts sad and relieved. We had a lot of fun with swimming, dancing, gymnastics, vacation bible school and playing. Elaine missed her school but probably not more than I missed taking her.

Here is our summer in a few pictures.

Wild Thing

Rob went running. He always like to run the desert landscape near our house. This morning he came across what he calls a Desert Tortoise. I call it "get that thing out of my house". Let me paint you a picture: Rob is running and sees this thing on the trail. He thinks to himself "I will pick this up and carry it home for me kids to see". He gets home with it and yells up the stairs to me "I found a Desert Tortoise" (I am thinking tiny turtle.) He walks around the corner with this monster who is moving his head and legs like crazy hoping to escape. I screamed so loud it hurt my throat and promptly told Rob to get it out of my house. Elaine immediately was in love and Charlotte was in love from a distance. They followed him around the backyard and fed him before taking him back where he came from. Elaine named him Jack and says she loves him. If you ask Charlotte about him she will say she stepped on him (apparently, she got excited while following him and forgot to notice she could move faster than him) and that he pooped in the backyard. Fun for them but there is no pet in our future.

Vegas Baby

The first ever Wilkinson Family Reunion happened in Las Vegas over Memorial Day. It was the first time we had all been together in 4 years. We rented a big house and went swimming, played pool and ping pong, did family photos, went to the strip, hiked, laughed and more. We had so much fun!

The house we rented. It was a 4 bedroom 2.5 bathroom house that made into an 8 bedroom 3.5 bath house. How did they do this? By turning a bay of the garage into a bedroom, the master closet into another bedroom and the pantry off the kitchen into yet another bedroom. As for the extra bathroom, that was a free standing building in the back yard. That's right, an outhouse.