Banks is the best big brother

It's BAAAAACK!

So, some of you may remember Ty's "Cheeseball Smile" from many months ago. I have a whole post of pictures of it on Kodak Gallery (if you want me to resend it to you, let me know! ha ha). Well, as of yesterday the "Cheeseball Smile" has made a reappearance on the countenance of our beautiful daughter, Marlo :)



First, here is the history. Just a few pictures of Ty demonstrating the Cheeseball Smile...I think they are kind of bad quality, but hopefully you can see it okay.

And now....check out this FUNKY girl!

She does this in two different situations: 1, when she thinks I'm taking her picture or 2, if she's trying to fake cry. It just absolutely cracks me up!!!

Here's a cute little video of her in action :)

Also, I know that I am not currently using Facebook because I gave it up for Lent, but I had to post a video from my phone on there because I have no other way to save videos from my phone. Go check it out on my page if you want!

And here's one last snapshot of her from last night, she REALLY wanted to play with ALL of the balls!

L-O-V-E

Switching it up and taking a "picture" of me with his very important camera...
I think he's looking for the digital display...ha ha

This is Marlo's favorite position lately, I had to snap a shot of it so I never forget how cute it looks! It's like she wants to stand up, but still wants to rely on the comfortability of being on all fours and crawling :)

And of course she still loves her ball pit, but little did she know there was a BIGGER surprise coming very soon...

On Saturday Ty had a very important date at Lowe's. They offered a kids workshop for building a little craft, and of course with his burgeoning love of all things handy and crafy and tools, he was ALL IN! This was a boys only trip, so Daddy and Ty met up with Grandpa at Lowe's for some good generational male bonding :) Awww. See the yellow in the background, below Ty's arm-that's his VERY OWN tool bag, he just HAD to bring that with him. I heard it was just a lot of hammering in small nails, but he enjoyed it (to a point, and then he lost some steam)...

He obliged and used one of their hammers! And are you loving his goggles as much as I am???

Learning from the best...

When he got home and presented me with the gift, I wanted to make sure I took a picture of him posing with his Certificate of Completion and his FINISHED PRODUCT-A JEWELRY BOX!

Of course he wasn't as compliant with my requests to just "smile and hold up the paper"...

Come on Ty!

Um, that is SO NOT Ty's smile! Cheesin'!

Okay, I guess that'll do-I captured my sweet boy, his "I Built It" certificate, and that adorable little jewelry stand...

Valentine's Day morning I made my boys some Wild Blueberry Scones (Marlo isn't quite ready for them yet, though I bet if she could talk, she'd say, "Ma, hook a girl UP!")

After Daddy's much loved trip to Sam's to stock up on goodness-knows-what (Is it really necessary to have like 40 boxes of Kleenex in one's home at a given time? 30 razor blades? 10 toothbrushes? But I digress....) Ty and Marlo did a little Pampers Box racing down the hallway.

Hm, what on earth could be the reason behind our obvious excitement in this photo?

An early BIRTHDAY GIFT! For both kids!

Mine and Marlo's reaction was one of elation, eager anticipation, mystery (mine was exaggerated of course!), Banks retreated, tail between legs to a safer place-away from the loud blowing fan and the gigantic inflatable bounce house growing before his eyes!

It's almost there Ty, what do you think???

After waiting a few seconds for it to be at full air capacity, it still felt a bit mushy, then Tommy realized he didn't tie off the deflating part! That might help!

Your bounce house awaits you! Jump right in-get those crazies out!

Socks (and later pants) didn't stay on long in the bounce house...makes for better traction to be bare-footed!

If only I could've snapped this photo on the INSIDE of the netting, Marlo's excitement and energy was priceless!

Does this look like a happy boy or what? At one point he looked right at me and said, "Mommy, I love this. I LOVE this."

Marlo approves too.

This looks like a body slam in the works, but I think Ty was just writhing around...

There go the pants...

Now, I'm not quite sure what part of this video will give you more enjoyment-1)the shaky videography skills by Tommy, 2)Ty's skinny-legged jumping around or 3)my barking directive at the very end...I'll let you be the judge!

A snow cone too large to eat...

All bundled up to play in the snow one more time! And with a bag of goodies from the fridge to make a Snowman!

He really liked finding these tire tracks from Daddy-it made it much easier to walk!

This photo just makes me smile...

He decided he'd like to CRAWL through the snow, just because he could, with that awesome snowsuit! Shortly after this he decided to finally eat some snow, to give it a try. He promptly spit it out and said, "It's not good, it's yucky." This coming from a boy who will eat edamame, avocado, quinoa, prosciutto, couscous, etc....

Cheese ;)

As we made our snow"man", Marlo was watching through the dining room window...

And here he is, our Snow"man", but he's more of a SnowCone. Ty was excited regardless, so we gave him all his parts (with Ty's very boyish request to give him a "Butt" and a "penis"!)

So proud of his SnowPerson!

Just about knee-deep in the snow in the front yard :)

And our last little feat was to try sledding down a little hill. Our only problem is that we do not own a sled yet (everyone is always OUT of them!). So we improvised, old-school style, and used a garbage can lid. Hey, it got the job done!

I wonder how many more snow days we'll get? There's another storm in the forecast for Monday, perhaps we'll be out there again making another SnowCone, and sliding down the hill on other yard waste equipment!