The Kleins: 30 months old, Donner lake, fun with grandparents

This is a blog entry I meant to post last month but was having technical difficulties...better late than never :)

Hi everyone! I am so sorry about the lack of posts and pictures lately. It has been a busy summer! The kids have been enjoying the nice weather and love spending time outside. We've been taking advantage of the beautiful weather and spending as much time outdoors as possible. We recently took the kids to Donner Lake and they had a great time playing in the sand and splashing in the water. Since they tend to get restless inside the house, Seth and I recently got them a new play kitchen and Thomas train table to occupy them when they're indoors and they all love it. I finally cleaned out all of their old toys and donated them. I didn't realize how many toys they had accumulated over the course of two years. Fortunately, the kids didn't notice some of their old toys were missing since they were distracted by their new toys. We got rid of their old "play room" fence, which if you remember, was the octagon shaped enclosure we had in our dining room to keep the kids contained in one area. Well, they were climbing over it without any problem so we figured they had outgrown it.

Caleb is still very into his trains. He has collected just about every train known to man, but his original Thomas the Train is still is all time favorite and he carries it everywhere with him. Madeline has recently become interested in trains, too. She carries one with her and even takes 2-3 to bed with her. Sometimes Madeline and Caleb fight over Thomas so we finally broke down and bought Maddie her own. She has become quite the tomboy over the past few months. She will not let me put anything in her hair, will only wear a dress if it's blue (or rather, not pink) although she prefers no closes and wears Caleb's shoes, too. It's so interesting to see their different personalities because we have the opposite case with Mischa. She is about as girlie as they come. She recently became obsessed with Princess Sophia and wears a pink and purple frilly Sophia dress everyday. In fact, I had to buy a back up dress so that she can always be wearing one if the other one is in the washer. She wants her hair fixed everyday and has a large selection of hair bows, clips and ties that she likes. She even has several pairs of pink shoes. It's pretty obvious pink is her favorite color.

We just had a wonderful 3 week visit from Grandpa Lanny and Grandma Lynn. We took the kids to the Sacramento Zoo, to Virginia City, and all over Reno. What a great time we had! My dad has become an excellent cook and whipped up so many delicious meals while he was here (gourmet pizzas, vanilla french toast, Chinese chicken salad, and buffalo wings to a few). Needless to say, we ate very well during their visit. Grandma Lynn of course provided lots of goodies for the kids. She and I have always had a sweet tooth so we had an extra abundance of candy and treats for the kids. Overall, we had a great time with them here and we can't wait to see them again soon!

Here are some pictures from the past month.