Oh, what a beautiful morning!

It is so nice having children! They wake me up so early so I get a chance to enjoy the beautiful morning we are having! Hey, even 6:30 in the morning can be wondeful sometime. Right now I am on the computer, drinking some coffee and enjoying it. Let's just say my glass if half full at the moment. (and where ARE the kids you may ask? Well, one is watching a Barbie cartoon and the other is terrorizing my house. More on that in a minute.) Emma and I are probably heading to church this morning so Tim and Evan can get some bonding time in. I am trying to get Emma used to the whole church thing as she starts Sunday school in September. I think it will be very good for her (and good for me) to get into a religion routine and to start learning about God. I have said before that I am not 100% convinced that the Catholic faith is the way for me to go, but the priest at St. Ambrose doesn't seem as stuck in the old rigid Catholic ways as some of the other priests I have met. Anyway - no need to get into a religious debate at 7 in the morning :-)

We decided to stick around home this weekend, which was okay with me! I have got a LOT of stuff done, although not as much as I had planned... but when does anyone ever get as much done as planned?! I had book club on Friday night, which was nice. We are reading (and supposed to be done with "Always Looking Up" by Michael J. Fox) which is a pretty good book. We have tossed around the idea of a "book club goes running" or some race/event like that and I think we have decided to do some sort of event at the Twin Cities Marathon. We have one member who is doing the whole Marathon ( go Sarah!) one who is doing the 10 miles and 3 (myself included) who are discussing doing the 10K. Since I am considering my triathlon career OVER, I think I need something else. So, we will see. More posted on that later I am sure.

The kids are awesome and definitely keeping us busy. Emma has been enjoying the cooler than normal summer and is perfecting her bike pedaling and her new swingset. Below is the final product. I think Tim did an AWESOME job!

Both kids really enjoy the sandbox, which is under the little play house and Emma's favorite thing is the playhouse. She really enjoys all of it, except the tube slide, which stinks because that was by far the biggest investment of the whole play set. Oh well, she is only 3 and I am sure will like it eventually. Emma and I have also started playing preschool at least once a day. That is time where I sit down and really try to teach her more of her letters and numbers. She knows some of them, but her daycare doesn't do a formal preschool, so I want to make sure she is exposed to it as much as she can be.

Evan, oh man, where do I even start?! Let's just say the differences between this little boy and my little girl are HUGE! I just can't keep this little guy down. He is constantly into everything and I swear he has a 6th sense about terrorizing the house. He knows when the baby gate wasn't put back up by the stairs. When he senses this, he looks at me, smiles, and then crawls as FAST as he can to climb up the stairs. He knows (after much trial and error) which cupboards and drawers in the kitchen have baby locks on them. He is constantly into those, pulling stuff out. God forbid I forget to lock up the garbage cupboard, as he can sense that, and he is instantly crawling over there to try and get into it.

Okay, I gotta go for now. Two kids that are now hungry and not understanding why I am clicking on the computer... aka typing.

more later (with pictures!)