Here is another smile for Daddy. Getting better at catching the smile. Now if I could just get her to look at the camera and smile. Yes, I know it will come with time... and then it will leave again with time. "Mom I don't want my picture!" I have heard that so many times before. Maybe there will be a day where I can get all three of my girls in the same shot, all looking at the camera and smiling. My luck, I'll get it and it will be too posed for me and I won't like it anyways! Better to stick with the candid shots I love so much!

Here's looking at you Lewei. He is such a great dog, can't ask for a better one. I dread the day that he leaves us. He is a great help in so many ways. We take him outside with us and he just stays next to us... with no fence... he usually will watch as other dogs just walk by. Sometimes he loses focus and will think about running to the street to greet people and dogs, but he is very good at coming right back when we call. Just one of the family!

Here is my dry as a bone raised garden. Can't seem to get enough water in it. You can't even tell that I had already watered it for the day before I took the picture. Everything just keeps dying. And I keep replanting. Good thing we have 200 tomato plants in the house to replenish with! ha ha. Finally put straw on it this weekend hoping to keep some moisture in it. It is definetly full sun. It gets sun from sun up to sun down! Maybe we took full sun a bit too literally. It is most fun trying out this new method of gardening though!

Here is our future sunflower garden. I pulled up all the sod and put gardening soil on top of the clay that we have. The girls helped to plant sunflower seeds and then I mulched on top of it. Will have to take more pictures as the sunflowers grow. Some of them will actually be 8-12 feet tall! We planted a few of the bigger ones in the red house 2 years ago and the girls were facinated by the flowers that were bigger than their heads!

Kylie was an excellent helper planting sunflower seeds in their sunflower garden. I made the holes and she actually put one seed in each hole and covered them up. She had a great time planting them and was very serious about where every seed went making sure each one had a perfect home. She would have taken 4 days to plant them all if I let her!

Here Katelyn is "planting" sunflower seeds. They are actually starting to grow as of the past few days, so she must have gotten a few of them under the soil! She was trying very hard, but just wasn't getting the concept that you have to burry the seeds, not just set them down nicely and flick a bit of dirt on it. She had great fun doing it though and is very excited about the "baby" sunflowers that are sprouting up.

So the weekend before last we finally put in the girls sunflower garden. Taking sod away from the soil is not an easy job I found out. Jim is still hurting from the accident, so I spent most of Saturday ripping up sod and replanting it in the back yard. Claire was riding on my back for awhile in her backpack, but that was even more challenging, so when she fell asleep I just set her in the grass. Must have been a comfy bed as she slept for over an hour "standing up" in the backpack!

I thought that toads and frogs liked budweiser! This one must be confused from being held by Kylie so often!

Ok, she really loves this toad. She really does pick it up all the time. It was even funnier that the boys were running away from her and the toad. She has finally caught on that not everyone loves toads like she does. Luckily she didn't chase them around with it... not yet anyways. This particular toad did finally get smart and find another home. I think it was probably tired of being man handled... or should I say Kylie handled!

Hanging out with the neighbor boys in their bathing suits. And no, the glass of wine is not theirs! It's Jim's. He put it down to take the picture. The girls and boys had a blast in the pool. It used to have a slide, but it got popped after about 20 minutes of 5 kids sitting on it at the same time. At least it was entertaining for a short time!

Playing dress up is so much fun. This is how Kylie and Katelyn look on a normal basis. We have a strict no dress up clothes outside of the house. I tell them it is because I don't want their clothes ruined... but really... it's cute, but kind of crazy! They love it though and I am alway impressed with the outfits they come up with. It is always different.

So, can you tell that the girls love the photo of Kylie and her painted hands? They are always asking me to take pictures of their hands now! These pictures are of us making birthday presents for Papa... of which we still have and have not sent in the mail yet! Any guesses Papa? Going to the post office is a real challenge with three girls. Grocery shopping isn't so bad as we are constantly moving and it's pretty noisy already, but the post office is alot of "no touches" and is very quiet... not the easiest. Going to make that venture tomorrow though hopefully!

We finally caught her smiling on camera! Daddy can always bring a smile to her face. Claire is growing up so fast and actually has "conversations" with us now. She does have a few certain words that she uses to mean certain things. She says aaagooo for milk. She'll tell me over and over and if I don't get it for her she screams. Also, she thinks she is being funny when she says gooo. She just keeps repeating goo over and over and then giggles. It's very cute! Even Kylie and Katelyn eat it up! They actually sit and talk to her and show her how to do things that she will not be capable of for months and years to come. But it's cute regardless. I pretend to be Claire's voice sometimes and ask all sorts of silly questions, and they think it's hilarious. Their favorite is when "Claire" asks if everything tastes like "Mommy milk." She even thinks that toys should taste like "Mommy milk."

Alright... it's almost 1am and I am sending pictures... hope everyone is enjoying these blogs. Love you all!