Just some updates

 Honestly, we really haven't been up to a whole lot the last week or so and it's been wonderful!!  Most of our summer was crazy, stressful and felt like it just flew by so I'm happy to just lay low and really enjoy the kiddos before school starts.....tomorrow!!!  Yikes!

We have made a couple trips to my classroom to start getting things situated but I've had to take the kids with me both times so I'm sure you can imagine just how much work I got done.  Cole stays plenty busy, drawing on my white board, making crowns out of wall borders, etc.  But Finley, that girl is a disaster.  She is a monkey child and wants to climb on everything.  She would climb on the chairs and eventually fell a couple times and hit her head on the floor.  You think she'd learn right?!?

 But....look at this cute girl.  Surely something this cute wouldn't give her mother a heart attack or stroke out, right?

How do you like them lips?  Thank you daddy...

 One thing I'm really going to miss when I go back to school is all the morning snuggles.  Each morning both kids drink their milk in our bed and we lounge around for a good 30 minutes.  I'm going to miss that.  Finley especially is going to have a rude awakening when she has to wake up an hour earlier than she's used to and is immediately thrown into the car :(  Sad...but I'm sure she will get used to it, may just take a couple weeks.

This is Cole this morning, he said "mom, that is way too bright" :)

 At least I will still get those afternoon snuggles.....ok, Finley really isn't much of a cuddler (unless she has her paci) so I guess this is payback for what I did to my own mom.  My mom always said she wishes I had a daughter like me and sure enough, I'm pretty sure I have her.  Sassy, doesn't cuddle, laughs when I reprimand her, does everything I tell her not to.  Again, heart attack waiting to happen :)

 Oh yeah, you know how I was talking about how she's a monkey child and climbs on everything?  This is what I saw the other day when I walked into the family room.  Are you kidding me?

So now, those pub chairs are gone or laying on their sides.  Yesterday, I put one of them up for a split second and I turn my head and she was sitting on top of the pub table....just playing with toys up there.  I mean, that is the ideal place to play with dolls right!

 I'm just not used to all this climbing, naughtiness....the worst Cole ever did was climb in the fire place and after we said "no no" and spanked his fingers a bit he got super sad and never did it again.  Guess this is the difference between having a little mini-Nick and a mini-Annie.  

I'm sorry mom and dad I was such a bad child.....:-)

We also took Finley to get her first milk shake the other day.  I think she was a bit excited and I love her little fake laugh :)  However, don't let this video fool you into thinking that "oh, look how good she does with the cup and straw, and she doesn't spill at all".  As soon as I stopped video-ing her, she punched a hole in the cup and spilled sticky ice cream all over.

I also love that Finley is getting to the age where her and Cole can play together.  It warms my heart when I'm busy getting dinner ready or cleaning the kitchen and they can entertain each other for a few minutes.

 This past weekend Nick's dad was in town and before he headed out to London for a few weeks, him and Gigi wanted to have a sleepover with the kids.  Nick and I dropped them off Saturday and then went on a real date with Pete and Katie.  This was the first time the four of us have gone out without kids, it was delightful!  AND, what made it better was that even though we got home kind of late, we didn't have to get up early with kiddos.  Thanks Gigi and Granddad!

That next morning, we all went back to Gigi and Granddad's house for brunch.  We spent most of the day there and as usual the kids had a blast.

 Finley was pretty interested in Uncle Blake....probably because he had such a cool hat on.  

Auntie Emily was cleaning out her closet and found some fun things to play with and apparently Uncle Blake thought this awesome denim hat was worth wearing.

 Me and my Hawaiian girl (sorry these are horrible phone pictures)

Now we are just getting ready to have Mimi and Papa come stay at our house.  My mom gets here late tonight and will be here 10 days and my dad will be here for the long weekend.  Can't wait to have them, it's been a long time since they have been here.  

I start inservice tomorrow.  I thought I was going to have to do a lot of the "new teacher" inservice but after talking to the right people, I was told I didn't have to attend all of it since it's only been a year since I've been gone.  I am getting very excited about getting started with school again and hope some of my new classes go smoothly.

Hopefully I can be more frequent at blogging, I've been pretty bad the last couple months.