I have two escape artists-the new car.

Riley is now a kid. Yes she has been for a while now...but officially the "I do it myself" is her only mantra. She now can open the garage door. She says "I can reach mom" with a HUGE smile on her face. Now I fear that I cannot even take a shower anymore since she has the ability to exit the house through the one door without a dead bolt. I think we may need to add one in or at least a hook lock to the top so she cannot access the garage door buttons. She has to stand on her tippee toes on the top step and hang onto the doorway in order to do it, but yes indeed she can reach.  This morning she got an English muffin out of the pantry, got a stool from the playroom, opened the toaster and pushed the buttons. She then proceeded to butter it when it was all done (I got it out.) My baby girlie is a lil lady!

We have a lil hook lock on the porch screen door that I lock to keep her inside (Dev can reach it) but low and behold she has figured out that if she takes a little table over to the door she can reach on her tippee toes once again. I mean seriously! That was my other safety I had. Go out to the porch and do your craft etc but no  longer since they are both escape artists. How am I going to leave them downstairs so I can get things done upstairs? UGH. It never ends.

We got a new car. My car was on its last legs-correction...it could have lasted longer but it needed something done so since it was 6.5 years old and a sedan we thought it would be better to start fresh. Frank and I dropped the kids off to his mom and dads last Saturday and we went to the auto mall for a few hours. 8 dealerships later and looking at new and certified preowned....I chose a Toyota Sienna LE. I know I know a mini van? Well to be honest it awesome. Besides the plain fact it is huge, it really does have a lot of awesome features. All the crossovers we looked at are dwarfed once you put two big convertible carseats in them and the full size SUVs eat gas so the obvious choice in my mind-the mini van. We did look at the Honda Odyssey as well. Chrysler was not on the lot, but from what I read and people I have talked to-the two top vans were the Honda and the Toyota. I slid the kids seats back all the way so they cannot kick my seat-amazing and they cannot reach each other to piss each other off! HEAVEN just for those two factors.  My friend Jeff sent me a super funny video about it being a "Swagger Wagon" and that just reiterates the fact its awesome. HAHA it's totally fine-I am over the fact that I found my first grey hair (now 2), bought a mini van and turned 30 all in one year... I love the color and its space, not to mention the new car smell! and NO I will never have a soccer ball sticker on the back or the little family silhouettes along the back window.

As I was sitting here spell checking this-a woodpecker landed in front of me! What a cool bird and how pretty is he? He pecked the oak and then helped himself to the bird feeder. So neat. He requents our back yard, but rarely do I have the camera sitting on the table. I so need a bigger lens!