In Bloom

The Great Outdoors

One of our favorite parts of our new house is the big backyard. Now that the boys are walking almost all the time, it's much easier to just let everyone roam freely and explore.

Alex and Maguire love to climb up and down the deck stairs, play peek-a-boo through the railings, fight over the slide....

...and could literally spend hours (Maguire especially) staring at our backyard neighbor's dogs.

Plenty of time is also spent figuring out potential escape routes from all angles. And if you're thinking that gap between fence and house is much too small for someone to squeeze out, you'd be wrong. Just call him MacGyver -- despite having one of the biggest heads around, Maguire is capable of wiggling into/through/out of some of the teeniest spaces.

Ellie has a new favorite outside activity (which I'm sure is endearing her to our many senior citizen neighbors with beautifully manicured lawns) -- blowing dandelion fuzz off of every dandelion that crosses her path.

Bear with me on this next one, I had to let her do a crazy face before she'd smile for me.

And with boys, there's always lots of bug-gazing and stick eating to be done.

Happy Days

It's Official -- We're Huronites

Or maybe it's Huronians? Who knows -- but all that matters is that all 5 Studers are living in the same house in the same city again! It has been a long 4 months of living apart. I think I almost forgot what it's like to have another adult around all the time -- actual conversation is pretty fun! Not that Ellie and I didn't talk or anything, but lengthy discussions on which Disney Princess was our favorite just aren't quite the same.

We are busy settling into our new home. It has much much more space than our old house, including this 3-season room where the kids spent hours locked in playing while we moved in furniture last Friday. All kidding aside, it's probably my favorite room in the house. I forsee many hours of playtime spent here.

We've also devised a plan for making some extra money for a little remodeling. We're going to hire out the boys to new parents, set them loose in their house, and be dazzled by their amazing ability to find any door, cabinet, shelf, or surface that is unsafe for children. I can't even begin to count the pinched fingers, arms, and legs, bumped heads, and small children wedged in inappropriate spaces that we have had to deal with this week. On the bright side, most of the cabinets are still empty and can be used as great hide-and-seek spots. You won't find Ellie in a lot of these next few pictures -- she is thankfully big enough to know better, or at least she can run away from the messes faster than we discover them.

Yesterday I heard the boys in the kitchen cupboards, and then all was quiet. A sure sign of trouble. When I went in to see what was going on, this was the sight I was greeted with:

The little stinkers found the applesauce and popped holes in the top with their teeth. They were having a grand old time sucking it straight out of the container -- but at least it took care of afternoon snacktime!

Fun with oatmeal!

Another big winner -- the fireplace! So far, no major injuries, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Maguire is chatting away on the phone with his own reflection in the fireplace glass, while Alex tries a side-arm throw with what appears to be a bulb syringe (booger catcher). Gross. And how did that end up packed in with the toys?

A few high points of the week:

Chris and his new big screen. Love at first sight.

The boys, just chillin' in the car taking a phone call or two.

Napping in the same pack & play on moving day because we only have one and neither crib was set up.

This picture needs a little explanation, but is a great illustration for my mental state this past week. Notice anything funny about these shoes?

The week before we left Sioux Falls, I bought the boys each a pair of the blue sandals for summer. Same style/color, same size. Well, it turns out that size 4 is still a little too big for Maguire so his pair needed to be returned. Luckily KMart is one of the few major retail stores that's actually in Huron, so a few days after we moved I brought one pair back to the store. They didn't have the right size, so I just got my money back and bought a different pair (see brown shoes above). The next day I went to try on the boys' new shoes and noticed that we had another tiny problem. Did you figure it out? -- look closely! Yes, I returned two left shoes to the store and kept two right shoes! Oops. Thank goodness the ladies at the store were very understanding when I returned to KMart once again to let them know that I needed to exchange a right for a left. Sigh.