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I've been posting on chadanderinneth.wordpress.com. Word press is much easier for me to post on with my iPad :)

Mike

We love our Mike. He is our little peacemaker. We are so grateful to have in our family.

He is our little sportsman. When we started swim team this year, he was mad at me everyday for making him do swim team. He'd tell me hated it, and ask me over and over again if I was going to make him do swim team next year. He'd get out of the pool after every lap and have a reason as to why he could not swim another lap. Until the day they had time trials. This is the where all of the kids on our swim team race against each other, so the Coaches can put them in the correct heat for their first swim meet. The time trials were all it took for Mikey to love swim team. He loves it so much that if we were going to be a minute or two late he would get upset because "he didn't want to miss a thing!" he's having a blast at swim team, and especially at the meets.

He also loves running, this year at school he participated in running club. Once a week he and Brooke would stay after school, and the kids run laps around the track. All year Brooke would tell me how Mikey was running with all of the 5th grade boys, (Mikey was in 2nd grade). At the end of the year the Running Club Coaches count all of the kids laps from the entire year, and give a trophy to the runner with the most laps. Mikey got the trophy! Pretty amazing for a second grader running against all of those older kids. I think Mikey grew six inches that day :) I'm really not kidding I don't think I've ever seen Mikey stand so talk or hold his head as high as he'd did that day. It's so so fun to see.

Mikey loves, loves his baby sister Kate, and she loves him. He's her little protector. I think Mikey is the only person in Kate's life that I haven't heard her scream or yell at. Which is pretty impressive.

This is a pic of Mikey and Andrew with Mikey's best friend, Carson. They've been buddies since we moved here, and they were only two. Considering how much time they spend together, you'd think they would fight, but not these two. I've seen them have small disagreements, but they end so quick I never even know what they are about. Mikey & Andrew on the other hand have their fair share of full on fights, but it builds character right?

Another thing Mikey loves is money. He saves and saves, and is constantly coming up with business ideas. The one he really really wants to do is to find lost dogs and help find their owners. Im not sure how he is planning to make money off of that, but He's actually found a few dogs and helped them get back home, I'm just not sure whether or not the dogs were really lost or not ??? :)

Andrew James

Here's a look at Andrew's year. Andrew went to a pre school near our house 3 days a week. I think he really liked going there, but there were plenty of days he screamed and threw a fit because, he just wanted to stay home with me. It broke my heart, but the teachers would text me after he'd been there a few minutes and tell me he was perfectly happy about 1 minute after I left. Sounds like it was a big show to try and get me to take him home. Even though I knew that was what he was doing, somehow it still got to me every time.

This is a picture of Andrew with his teachers ( Miss Elysha and Miss Lisa) at his pre school graduation. I'm sure you can see by the look on his face that he did not want to be there. Miss Elysha told me they had to threaten to carry him out on to the stage to get him to go out. She said she thought he was going to try to run. Poor boy, I know exactly how he feels. But he did a great job once he got out there.

Andrew celebrated his 5th birthday tithe end of April. We had a water party in the backyard. I'd planned a bunch of games, but the kids had so much playing on our little slide and pool that we never even got to any of the games. It was super fun until Kate pooped on the grass right next to the pool, that put a little damper on things for a minute.
(get used to it Andrew I have a feeling she'll be doing things like that to you for the rest of your life:) Andrew & Kate have a love hate but mostly love relationship. I've told Chad several times that I've never heard two kids laugh so hard together in my entire life. But, they certainly have their moments when the laughter turns quickly to tears.

It's gotta be rough being the middle child.

Andrew loves to swim. Brooke and Mike have been swimming on the League City Barracuda swim team for the last 3 or 4 years. During the month of May Brooke & Mike have swim team everyday after school, and during June it's every morning. Andrew isn't quite old enough to swim on swim team yet. So, he and Kate swim in the Barracuda training pool (a.k.a. the baby pool). Anytime he hears me talk about swim team with another adult he tells them "I'm a Barracuda in training."

Andrew is also a singer. I've been amazed lately at how well he can remember lyrics to songs. Sometimes he remembers the words a little bit differently than what they really are,that's when it gets funny. I can't think of any of the funny lines he says right now but when I do I'll add it.

We love this kid and are so glad to have him in our lives!

Kates

I thought it'd be fun to highlight each of our kids for a post.

I feel like these pictures show the "REAL" Kates....

Kate is a sweetheart. She loves loves babies. I don't think she has any idea that she is the baby in our family. In her mind she is a little "Mama". Anytime we pass by a baby you'll hear Kate say "Ewwww that is a tute baby." She has this desire inside of her to take care of anything smaller than her. I watch Kate pick up balloons, or washcloths, or pillows and rock them and talk to them about how cute they are.

But there is also another side of our darling little Kates. I can't tell you how many times I've found her getting into my makeup or hair products. She LOVES the stuff, and loves to make herself "beautiful" you can literally watch her confidence grow as she adds makeup to her face and product to her hair. And I wonder why I'm running out of makeup all of the time.

She has learned to lock bedroom doors, which is super scary. We never know what form of liquid she is breaking into behind her locked doors. A few months ago Kate and I were home alone, and I was grilling chicken in the backyard. I walked outside to turn the chicken and Kate locked the back door.

The blinds were open so we could see each other through the window. She stood there and laughed as I asked her to please unlock the door. After a few seconds of laughing at me she walked over to the pantry, pulled out our big bucket of sugar, and a spoon from the drawer and smiled at me as she ate spoon full after spoon full of sugar (which she has been put in time out several times for doing).

I walked around to the front yard to see if I had a neighbor home, so I could call Chad and have him bring me a key to our house. Luckily our neighbor across the street was outside and let me use his phone. I stood by the front door as I called Chad.

You'd think Kate would've been scared that I'd left the backdoor and that she couldn't see me anymore. But, no, not our little Kates. Our little Kate was in the house singing a Kiss song (shout it, shout it, shout it out loud. We've got to have a potty :) she'd heard on a Scooby Doo cartoon, and dancing in her princess panties.

By the time I finally got a hold of a friend, Chad had been in a meeting, and was taking the phone back over to the neighbor. Little Kate graciously unlocked the front door and came running outside in her panties to sing for the neighborhood.

She got some big consequences for that one.....