They're Ba-aack!!

Ok, so the kids are back and into the full swing of regular old ordinary life. They had a great time on vacation, but I can't really tell you everything they did because when we picked them up, they were both talking a mile a minute...at the same time. I think going on every roller coaster in sight pretty much sums up what they did all week! Unfortunately, Greg was not quite as enthused about the coasters as Ben was. However, they also got to see a cool show in Vegas, and Jennifer made them a super duper cool breakfast one morning (refer to pic), and they roasted hot dogs and marshmellows at the swanky Buttler Resort (Jennifer and Scott's backyard), and they went swimming at Kimmy's ritzy club pool!

So, Ben is back into baseball. The first couple games he played after vacation, Matt decided that Ben had left his brain in California. We had it FedExed back, and he was in prime condition at his next game. Last night, however, not so much. Oh well, he's got lots of time to practice.

Greg's soccer is over with now. He had a pretty good season. Now he's ready to move on to golf apparently. Hmmmm, not so much.

Alex is still very much in the first stages of potty training. We went to Sioux City for my sister Chris's bridal shower last weekend, so I didn't do so well getting him to the bathroom on time. Auntie Karla actually really helped in getting him there though. Thanks Karla. We hope you move here! So anyway, I'm trying to get him (and myself) back into the groove. This is NOT fun. Is there some potty training camp I can send him to?

Ellie still is not crawling...I think she will skip this altogether. She wants to walk, and she does pretty well holding our hands. I did hear that the longer they take to crawl, the smarter they are! :-) What do you think? She's trying to pull herself up on things, and she can stand by herself at the couch or her play table. She talks all the time, and mimics me when I holler at the boys. We've started listening to the B-I-N-G-O song, and she LOVES it. She starts clapping as soon as the song starts. And she thinks that all of her big brothers are a hoot! And she loves watching herself on video. I have taken some videos of her on my digital camera and uploaded them to my computer. When she gets fussy, I put them on and she instantly stops fussing and just gets a huge smile on her face. It's too much! Oh, and Nana, she is a true Italian...besides the brown hair and brown eyes, she LOVES pasta sauce!!

Well, while I was in Sioux City, Matt and Ben tackled some home improvement projects. He replaced the bottom step of our porch, tore off the rails and spindles on the porch, stained the porch, trimmed out the bottom of the two posts that are left on the porch, replaced the doorbell and address numbers, and painted the shutters to match the door. It's looking pretty good. It's a work in progress right now, but when it's all done, I think it will look awesome.

Well, I think that's all I have for now.
Love ya
Lisa