What the little guys have been up to

Strider's been off with his GateWay guys, baseball team and swim team, and Rayna's been going to dance practices and tea parties, but Colsen and Miles have been largely hanging around the house.

  Or, in Colsen's case, hanging ON the house.  This is one of his new favorite perches.  He somehow scales the wall to get to the top, which definitely startled me the first couple of (dozen) times.

Miles, meanwhile, is trying to assume more and more control responsibility around here.  For example, every day he races out to get the mail before anyone else can.  It's a bit of an ordeal since he has to drag a step-stool out to the street each time.  But he persists....

.... and brings me the mail.

Most of it anyway.

He also recently used a similar method to take a hot 9 x 13 pan out of the oven (because he thought it was done -- thankfully he used potholders!) -- and then dropped it on the floor.

Such a "helper!"