Andrew and Molly - 4th of July

Ever since we came to Cleveland, we've spent the evening of the 4th of July watching the fireworks on the grass across from the school with our friends from church. Andrew has always met up with his friend Molly, and we couldn't miss the photo op again this year. Here are pictures from the past four years of Andrew & Molly:

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Easter Pictures?

Last week we had the kids' pictures taken at JC Penney in their Easter clothes. Yes, I know it's July. We're a little slow.

You can see them all at the Thompson Family Tree.

Strawberry Pickin'

Picking strawberries at Patterson Fruit Farm.

Logan was the best strawberry picker! He was very careful to look for big red ones without brown or mushy spots. Whenever he picked a berry, he would hold it up and shout, "Hey Mom, can I pick this one?!" Funny guy!

Hannah was shoveling the berries in her mouth as fast as she could. She didn't care if they were still green on the plant or mushy and moldy on the ground. Mmmm!Hannah looking so cute and matchy-matchy with her friends Maddie and Bella. (We didn't even plan this!)

Shupe-e-doo Barbeque (and Fathers too!)

On Sunday we threw a BBQ in honor of our dear friends, the Shupes, who are moving to Washington this week....and Father's Day too (love ya, Babe!)
SUPERDADS: Bryan, Colby, Chris, Grant, Jeff, and Eric We love BBQs!

Your playhouse and police car are getting LOTS of love, Lanes! THANKS!I made a doctor scrubs cake for the occasion.

Eric had a patient once who saw his name badge and thought his name was "Dr. Shup-e-Doo" (SHUPE D.O.). HaHaHa! The name has stuck ever since.Cake! Guess what I'm going to do...

Mission accomplished.

Hannah's First Word

Hannah doesn't say much yet. She's plenty noisy and babbles a lot, but doesn't really bother with actual words for the most part. A couple of weeks ago though, we noticed that she would often point to things and say, "Uhn-Dish." She was pretty consistant, and after a while I noticed that when she pointed to things, we would point and ask, "You want this?" It was then that I realized she was saying, "WANT THIS!" So that's it. That's her first word:

"WANT THIS!"

It's a pretty efficient phrase to learn, if you think about it. Why learn several words when one single phrase can get you just about anything you want? If she wants the cookie you're eating, she points to it and says, "Uhn-dish." If she wants you to read her a book, she hands it to you and says, "Uhn-dish." If she wants you to pick her up, she holds her arms up to you and says, "Uhn-dish." I could go on and on.

Last week when I was making the cupcakes for Andrew's school party, Hannah pointed to the cupcakes and said, (you guessed it) "Uhn-dish." I said no. She didn't like that. Later, I had to leave the kitchen to check on the boys. I came back just in time to see Hannah standing on her little tippy toes to grab a handful of cupcake from the countertop. I forget how tall she is now.Just then, I noticed her T-shirt said, "Eat a cupcake." Check. It was a pretty action-packed day. Later that afternoon, she fell asleep in her Ramen Noodles.

School's Out!!!

For Andrew's class party yesterday, we decided to do a beach theme to celebrate the beginning of summer. I made beach cupcakes. (Thanks for finding the umbrellas for me, Kimberly!)Outside we played beach games like Limbo...
...Musical Beach Towels, and a Water Balloon Toss with beach towels.
Here's Andrew's class. Andrew was lucky enough to have his best friend, Noah, in his class again and TWO fantastic teachers, Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Devine. Today was a pretty memorable last day of school, as the power was out all morning. They had a generator to supply power to the school most of the time, but near the end they lost the generator too, and were in the dark. It was raining, so they canceled the traditional flag-lowering ceremony, but Andrew got to show me his self-portrait in chalk outside.Because of the weather, we had to skip our planned picnic at the park, and picnicked at our kitchen table instead. They didn't seem to mind.
The official start of summer! YAY!

Last Day of Preschool

The last day of preschool was actually almost two weeks ago, but I'm just now getting around to posting this. We talked about homes and families and made these little family trees out of real tree branches from the yard. The name of a family member was written on each leaf.

Gavin, Logan, Brigham, and Wesley. We were sure lucky to have such a fun group of boys for our little preschool this year. Brigham will be sticking around for round two next year, but we will really miss Gavin and Wesley who are moving away.

I can't take the credit for this awesome craft; this was from Miss Lisa's beach unit a few weeks ago. She made sand dough for the boys to shape into a "sand castle" and then let them decorate it with shells, rocks, sticks, etc. This has got to be the best craft for little boys EVER! When Logan arrived home, he stuck R2-D2 in there for good measure.

I Can't Even Go to the Bathroom!

Before you get the wrong idea from the title, let me explain. It's 2:00 and Hannah and Logan are all ready to go to Hannah's well child check at 2:30. I went into the bathroom to finish getting ready. When I came out, I realized that it was very quiet in the house...too quiet. You know what that means. My first thought was that they had escaped out the side door, but was relieved to find the door still locked. I thought, maybe every thing's okay... until I saw these little footprints on the carpet leading to the back porch.Oh boy. They had dumped out a bag of potting soil and several of the little seedlings we had been growing out on the porch. They must have dumped it on their heads and rolled in it too, because they were COVERED head to toe! I had to take these pictures to keep from strangling them! It's a pretty good parenting strategy, I've found.

Isn't she adorable. Keep in mind that this was 15 minutes before we were supposed to be at the pediatrician's office. Lovely.