Leftovers from June

I have a big post coming about my Madsen family's visit to Michigan, but until my dad sends me his pictures, I can't finish it. In the meantime, here are the leftover pictures and updates from last month.

Josh finished his first season of soccer!

The coach gave me an extra copy of the team picture (because I'm the only one who was too cheap to order one). This is kind of ironic because I'm actually in the team picture. Josh would not cooperate unless I was right next to him, so here I am, pretending to be part of the team, all bundled up on an unusually freezing Saturday in April.

Josh asks "why" questions constantly, and I refuse to get sick of them. I don't want him to lose his curiosity, no matter how irritating it can be to answer questions like this all day long: "Why do cars move?" "Why do people go to their cars after the grocery store?" "Why do we pay for food?" "Why do we poop?" Sometimes I give him weird answers just so he'll correct me, because I'm pretty sure he already knows "why" and just likes to test me.

He loves to play games on the computer. Probably more than anything. He thinks he should get to play every time Jude takes a nap. I disagree.

He wrote his first sentence all by himself to Aunt Melissa for her birthday. I wasn't even in the room! He just really wanted to tell her that he was three-and-a-half, so he figured out how to write it.

U HAF = a half

3 Josh IS UN = Josh is three and

Not that you needed any translation...

Matt started reading little chapter books to Josh before bed at night. So far they've read a bunch of the Captain Underpants series and some Roald Dahl. This is so precious to me.

Here is a little warm spot in our family room that Josh uses to sun himself. I do the same thing.

We have so far found three ripe-ish strawberries in our patch this summer. It was a really bad year for strawberries because of the late frost, so I really didn't expect to get any. (Especially because I've had one- and three-year-old "helpers".)

We've been enjoying warmer weather. (Sometimes much too warm, but I shouldn't complain. We take what sunshine we can get!) We've had lots of yard work to do, and when buying equipment we came to a realization:  when you have kids, you buy a wagon instead of a wheelbarrow. It's much more practical and can be used for strolling as well as yard work.

Jude is walking everywhere now, and even trying to run.

He climbs on everything and has no fear when it comes to steps, water, heights, or wrestling. He's very different from Josh in this way.

A couple of other skills he's developed in the last month are throwing (everything), kicking balls, and scribbling. He's getting better about not eating markers recently, which is good because I can't tell you how many picture I have like this one.

He tries to say new words every day. Animal sounds are especially fun for him. There's a constant babble of commentary coming from him all day long. You can tell he's really trying to communicate and gets so frustrated when we're too stupid to understand him!

Jude absolutely loves babies. He always wants to touch their faces. He had his first experience with a baby doll this month, when we were riding in the car with a little girl friend. He was so sweet and gentle with it, and even pretended to feed her a bottle. Is there anything wrong with buying my son a baby doll? Because I really want to!

This is the Hands On Children's Museum in Ann Arbor. We drove here with friends one day and the kids couldn't get enough of it.

Oh, June, you were good to us. You kept us really busy, gave us the plague, and brought family our way. Now I'm ready for a vacation. Too bad July has other plans.