We have a sweet little neighbor girl named Sofia. Eli and Sadie both love her and Dennis and I do too. She is very good at playing creative games and is very gentle and patient with both kids. Plus, she's teaching Eli Spanish, well, sort of. Eli's Spanish is not so good.
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I know this picture has nothing to do with spring or summer and it isn't the best photo, but I'm including it so you can have a look at Eli's favorite outfit. Eli's been into picking out his own clothes and this just happens to be his favorite shirt (well, this and his short sleeved tie-dye) and favorite shorts. On this particular day (and today) both the shirt and the shorts happened to be clean at the same time. The only thing this outfit is missing are the green and blue striped socks (or bright red socks that he's wearing today) that he usually wears with it along with his sandals (see trike photo above). He says that he is very "colorful." I can't argue with him there. He is very colorful. :)
Normally, Dennis isn't into monster trucks or cars in general, afterall he thinks my Honda Civic is a good ride, but when you have a two year old who thinks monster trucks are the cats meow, you cough up the $5 and go! And Eli had about the best time a two year old could possibly have. 
Grandpa bought Eli (and Sadie) five new monster trucks and that's about all he plays with. He rolls them over the cars so it looks a lot like this:
He likes to watch monster truck videos on youtube and now his favorite song is Bad to the Bone followed closely by Welcome to the Jungle. We had to download them from itunes for him! Seriously.
My favorite picture of Sadie of all time because it shows her foot-loose-and-fancy-free side:
This is usually the side I see of Sadie:
The best thing about this picture is that the floor is actually picked up. And look at that book shelf. The books are actually neat and orderly. Eli picked out that outfit too-- all blue! He's really into stripes now, like his mother. The only underwear he'll wear that doesn't have Diego or a car on them has stripes. You should see his new Monster Truck underwear that grandma and grandpa Z. gave him. Have I told you about his new monster truck obsession. I didn't? I'll post about that next! He's officially been white-trashified!!
Did I post this one last week? I can't remember. Well, if I did, here it is again..jpg){kind=spacer}
We found some acorns starting to sprout, puffed spores from mushrooms, found baby mushrooms growing from a log, and discovered this very cool blue beetle. 
An action shot of Eli running. It looks like he's running bases. And it turns out that the kids love picnics just like me. It's going to be a very good summer!
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I only hard-boiled a dozen eggs and that just wasn't enough for Sadie. I ran to get the camera and when I came back, she already had most of them put into bowls.
Eli kept putting them into different colors and when he thought they were just the right color, he'd say, "This one is perfect." and then put it back into the egg carton to dry.
Sadie just wanted all of hers green.
A dozen "perfectly" dyed eggs.
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The Sperles dressed in their finery. I'll post some (almost) naked egg dying pictures later this week..jpg)
We rounded a new corner and it's a corner that moms the world over wait for. It's the "kids entertaining themselves in their room" corner and it's a whole new world for me. They have spent up to thirty minutes entertaining each other in their room without a mishap. It's a fabulous, fabulous place. Granted the first time they were up there by themselves I kept the baby monitor on because I was totally freaking out and thought that chaos was sure to follow, but they totally proved me wrong. Now, I can actually prepare a meal, sweep the floors, clean the bathroom and check my email all while the kids do their thing. Pure mommy bliss.
The only problem with Sadie's new leotards is that Eli likes them A LOT. He wanted to wear them all the time. He'd put one on, run around and say, "let's wrestle". He couldn't figure out why Sadie could wear one to gymnastics, but he couldn't. (This decision came after a long discussion between mom and dad one evening about a child being two and doing what he wants to do versus social norms. It was hard because we've never told him before that something is considered "boy" or "girl" before. But, now he knows and he says it often that "Leotards are for girls".). So, after much search on e-bay for a reasonably priced unitard that was not pink, black velvet, or sparkly in any way, shape or form, we came up with this (this is Eli in his "wrestling stance"):
It's a little big, but it's not pink, velvety, or sparkly, it was cheap and as an added bonus it's Buckeye colors. Perfect! He wore it to gymnastics today and I think it made him jump higher.
It was a very good day!
