April

So good gracious! Here we are at the end of April and closing another school year. Wow did that go fast! Things are really starting to bloom out here and it is beautiful. Natalie is pulling herself to a stand and will also stand on her own for a few seconds before she pauses, looks back, and drops on her padded bum, which sends Matthew into histerical laughter followed by, "Sissy fall down!" Today she started walking behind the little red wagon! She was one determined little girl wanting to master walking and not pushing too hard so that her little legs had to scramble to get underneath her. Other tricks that she's mastering are the clap, "so big!", MaMa, DaDa, and imitating whatever we challenge her with.

Matthew's really into baseball and the Cubs; his father's so proud! We can actually toss him a ball and he'll swing and hit it on his own! Our neighbor, a Phillies fan, walks by and Matt says to Matthew, "Phillies" and Matthew says, "STINK!" Then they procede to have their father-son moment by singing the "Go Cubs Go" song.

Matthew is now sleeping in the big bed which has no head-board and sits right underneath a window. The window has blinds on it...do you see where this is going? Matthew likes to turn around, peek through the blinds and watch Daddy do his yardwork or walk around in the backyard talking on his cell phone. Matthew knows that if he touches the blinds, he gets a spank. So Matt caught him one night peeking through and Matt ran inside and upstairs and Matthew started with, "I go nigh-night, no spank, go Cubs go, go Cubs go, win today." I'm proud to say that Matt held his composure and followed through on discipline and then laughed the whole way down the stairs.

As you may have noticed, both Sprouticus and Matthew got their haircut.

Here's Matthew and Keating, the next-door neighbor, with his hair styled by the barber...

Yes, all of his lucious curls are gone. Don't talk about it. It is cute, but he's now officially a little boy.