Spring has Sprung!

Flowers are blooming.  Emma playing with her Easter chick, or duck, or something.  Kendall enjoying sunshine.  Clark is mowing.  Wait!  Clark, mowing?  Just getting practice so he can help out Uncle Tom and Tommy someday.  A goose is sitting on a nest of babies-to-be while her "baby daddy" swims protectively nearby.  Trust me, I have a zoom lens on and couldn't get any closer than these shots for fear of "baby goose daddy".  I didn't want him to attack me and poke my eyes out.  Oh, and there's a cute little turtle in the flower bed. 

Little Dumplins

I sure do love my little dumplins!  They had lots of fun outside in the sunshine.  I think the sand table is a huge hit.  And bubbles always catch their eye, though Emma and Kendall are constantly putting the stuff in their mouths.  Yucky!

Triple Play of Cute!

I just have a few shots to show off their utter cuteness.  Check out Clark kickin' it in the baby doll stroller.  He LOVES to park himself there and try to scoot around on his own (although we try to discourage this sort of thing since these toys are meant for baby dolls and not toddlers).  Kendall and Ems were being pretty cute at breakfast when they told Mommy "Bye bye" before I was even ready to leave.  Guess they had BIG plans for the day with Nanny Barb!  "Mommy, don't let the door hit you on your way out!"  Nice.

Lazy Kids

Our alarm clocks kids didn't wake us up until 9:45 this morning!  Seriously?!?  Lazy kids!!!  But am I complaining???  Nooooooo way!  I was so excited when I looked at the clock and realized we had all slept in a little longer than usual.  It was awesome and much needed to get us through a busy cleaning day. 
Troy and I managed to get a lot of cleaning up and cleaning out done today.  The kids were patient and cooperative so that we could get a lot done in a small amount of time.  We had a surprise for them in the form of a new Bear in the Big Blue House movie that they seemed to enjoy since Bear was cooking pancakes.  Yummy!
Since we were stuck in the house due to RAIN RAIN and more RAIN, I didn't get to the picture-taking until bath time (and beyond) tonight. 

Park Lovin' Freaks!

The kids love the park.  In fact, when you hear the family leaving the park with screaming kids, it's probably us.  OK, doubtful, because we try to find parks that are a little less crowded, but it just might be our kids.  We are hopeful that the return trips will cause them to realize that we really WILL COME BACK again sometime soon.  It's not just hype that Mommy and Daddy are trying to tell us so that the trip to the car will be peaceful.  We will also try to teach them that tantrums do NOT lead to return trips anytime soon, but how to you enforce that when Mother Nature's gift of beautiful weather is sort of hard to predict and losing a good day outside because of prior park tantrums is a bigger punishment to the parents???
Auntie Karen and Uncle Tom met us at the park today which allowed for Mommy to handle the camera more and with Daddy there as well, all kids were supervised (sort of ..... with all of that basketball talk going on, I'm not sure that the men were supervising as well as they would normally).  :) Kidding!  Anyway, it did give me a chance to focus on picture-taking, but also some swing-time with the Mommy and the dumplin's too.
This afternoon, we decided to try eating out and the Louis clan joined us (Grandpa, Uncle Stevie and Uncle Albert) and we ended up at Puleo's Grille.  The food was yummy and the kids did really well (aside from Clark's need to throw just about everything I handed to him on the floor).
There was still a lot of whining going on, especially by the big boy, but I was thrilled to see that I got some shots that are "Clark-all-smiles".  Sometimes I wonder if I can get any giggles on camera if they are too fussy all day. 
Even Ems was having a rough time this evening, although I'm sure that has EVERYTHING to do with her lack of desire to nap.  She is a nap-skipping-munchkin!  She loves to spend naptime talking, singing and just goofing off and always seems like she is finally knocked-out by the time we are waking them up.  I keep thinking that she will adjust, but it never seems to happen.  At least she is usually very entertained and doesn't require getting up, so I just let her have the "rest time" all on her own.  
I feel like today was Kendall's day in front of the camera.  Often one or the other seems to just be available to me for the right shot and it was her day.  I'm sure some of you might notice that she appears in more photos than the other two, so I thought I should explain (though that's just mostly "Mommy-guilt" kicking in).
All in all, it was a good day and I'm happy that I was able to get more pictures of the crew.
Happy Saturday!

My name is Kim and I have three two-year olds. What?!?!?! When did that happen?!?!?!

Today I had three two year olds.  I have been spared the terrible twos for all three at once...until this afternoon.  There have been lots of fits and tantrums and even more whining in our house today.  Mommy is about to fall asleep at the computer, so I'm going to just have to leave it at that for now.

Three two year olds.  Look out world, here they come!

Cheating...just a little

OK, so I should just admit up front that I'm cheating on this post.  Yesterday, I posted during naptime (which was a great plan since I felt like a dirty mop rag after they went to bed).  BUT I took more pictures yesterday afternoon while we had the kids outside.  I decided to save them for the post today because I'd be away for most of the day abd it was doubtful that I'd get to take any pictures.  Brilliant, right???

Anyway, I also want to mention that tonight was my last Fundamentals of Digital Photography I class and each student had to bring in four pictures to be viewed (and reviewed) by our peers.  I was stressed about the whole thing, although I think it was mostly just trying to look at all of the pictures I have taken in the last two months and choosing four to have up on the big screen in the class.  The point of me taking the class was to learn what freakin' button to push to get a picture how to better use my camera and also how to get better photos of my kids.    Admittedly, I've become more interested in the composition along the way and want "cool" pictures of anything, but most importantly my precious dumplins.  Well, the close up of Emma seemed to draw some interest and I was thrilled!  It was nice to be in a group of people who loved photography and thought this one was a keeper.  Whew.  Glad that is over.

Anyway, I'm hoping my friend W doesn't mind me posting pictures of her boys.  They were driving by when we were outside and joined in the sand table fun.  Her boys were SO sweet and it's obvious that Kendall was especially happy to have new friends who wanted to play.

What I did NOT realize was that my camera was in "auto" mode because hubby was taking some shots earlier.  Oops.  I don't think I caught it until just before we headed inside, so most of these were "cheating" and I had help from my camera.

This one and the one that's not great of Ems with her arms funny took place when they would play the music from the lawnmower and then Emma would dance.  The funny arms are part of her chicken-type dance.