Yes, this is real. No, I didn't paint them with ice cream.

It was a Baskin Robbins day a few days ago. This is real. This was not on purpose. Kaitlyn was making kissy faces into the ice cream and James was trying to lick the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone. Hysterical!

We had a good laugh at these pictures!

Enter: Summer Vacation.

Sigh.

I haven't been very good at blogging lately. There have just been far too many season finales on TV, busy days and sicknesses and injuries to deal with in the last few weeks.

I have been helping Mom this week by getting her to her MRI appointments and such. She injured her back/sciatic nerve about 6 weeks ago and has been in intense pain since then. It all seemed to peak about a week ago when Dad left for Utah. She was sent to get an MRI which we thought would show the need for surgery. It doesn't look like surgery is needed at this point, and the pain is subsiding. Thank God. She was miserable!

Kaitlyn and James finished school this week, and tomorrow is our official first day off. We are starting swim lessons next week, I'm very excited to get these kids in the pool! I hope that by the end of the summer they will be jumping in by themselves and swimming like fish!

Kaitlyn has seemed to grow up overnight. She is really a three year old now. She is fully potty trained now (FINALLY!) and seeing her wear "big girl" undies is the cutest thing ever. AND even though she's adorable she can pick some nasty fights with James. Every day. Stinker!

They are both into bragging and taunting now. If one of them has a toy and they know the other wants it, they skip along merrily, hold the toy up in the air with a smug look on their face just to tick off the other one. It's so annoying. I've been trying to teach them not to brag, but so far I think only James understands the concept of bragging. James purposely pushes Kaitlyn's buttons by staring out her side of the car through her window. Why does this bother her? I don't know... but HE knows it bothers her so he does it. It usually goes something like this....

James says, "I want to look out Kaitlyn's side."
"No, James! Don't look out my side! Mom, I don't want James to look out my side!"
I try to intervene, "Kaitlyn, James can look out any window he wants to look out."
"But I don't want him to look out my side!"
When I look to the back seat, James' body is leaned as far forward as his seatbelt will allow, head turned to the left, gazing out Kaitlyn's window... GRINNING ear to ear. All because he knows it makes her mad.

Oh, and Kaitlyn likes to taddle. "James isn't listening!" Like I said at the start... SIGH.

It's gonna be a long Summer.