Are you talking to me?

*I will be using this heading for "Conversations" (Thank you, K!) that take place in my daily life that I find entertaining enough to share. To start, this one will be a double:

Setting: A few days ago in my kitchen/dining area, Sharlene is doing homework on her laptop at the kitchen table as I am scrubbing the cooktop and running the dishwasher.

Sharlene: The smell in here reminds me of the holidays.

Lacey: Really? I smell bleach and melting plastic.

(Hmmmm. WTF??????)

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Setting: In the car on the way to swimming lessons. Discussing birthdays which inevitably led to questions about the birth of each of the kids.

Zoe: Did Daddy hold your hand when you were pushing us out? (yep, we have had that conversation)

Mommy: No, I was afraid that I would break Daddy's arm if he touched me so he just kinda stood there and cheered me on.

Zoe: Nanny took care of us while you were in the hospital.

Mommy: Yep, she sure did. That was awefully nice of her wasn't it?

Zoe: When you were in the hospital, was Dr. Suess there?

This is the point when I got the giggles so hard I could no longer speak. I hearby issue an apology to any drivers on the road at the time - not sure how that was going, cause my attention was fully in the car. In all fairness, she meant to inquire about my OB who she has met many times but just got the names confused.

Backyard Water Park

So, Auntie Shar is out for a visit and Nanny sent us a package. We love packages here, and get very excited about their arrival. The girls were very pleased to find new swimming suits and beach towels! Hurray, Thank you, Nanny!!!! What's that? There is MORE? Yep, we got to go pick out new sandals for summer too. What more could a couple of kids want? Auntie got a secret note that instructed her to take us on a magical voyage to Target. While we were there, exploring the outdoor fun section we managed to loose our minds just a tiny bit. We couldn't find exactly what was on our shopping list so instead we got the "Cannonball Slide,"(more on that in a minute), an inflatable pool (more on that too), a tiny wading pool for the babe (oh yes more here too), and Auntie couldn't pass up a giant pack of water balloons (nothing further on this at present). Later Auntie returned tot he store and came back with Princess camping chairs, popcicles, and verious other goodies. Can you say "shopping spree"? Sure, you can.... Of course once we got back to the house we could hardly contain ourselves. So we plopped the kids in front of a movie with some snacks and went outside to play....I mean set everything up. What an adventure that was. We opened everything up and decided to erect the shade canopy over where we were going to put the inflatable pool to keep the kids from getting to sunburned. Yeah, I just have to say that during the course of setting up said canopy I managed to nearly knock myself out. I have a HUGE bruise and scrape on my chin. Anyway, we eventually figured that out. Then I brought the air compressor to the back yard to blow up all of the inflatables (heck there was no way I was gonna blow 'em up on lung power). Of course, being an amateur compressor user this was it's own adventure. Especially since I forgot to plug the quick release valve on the pool and lost air as fast as I pumped it in. Yeah. Go ahead, laugh. I thought it was funny too. Once that problem was sorted we got everything inflated and began filling things with water. Cold water from the hose was great since it was 100 degrees this weekend. However we decided to take the canopy off in hopes that the sun would warm up the water. Of course we started having so much fun we forgot to put it back on and ended up all being rather burnt. Oh well. They kids were finally released from captivity and allowed to partake in the joys of backyard swimming and sliding. Now the Cannonball Splash Slide is a small wading pool aty the end of a blow up slide. Nothing major, the kids are 5, 3, and 11 months. But man did they have a blast. And so did Auntie and I. Yep we certainly did test the wieght limit of that slide (which I believe was about 100lbs). So far it hasn't popped, and we aren't gonna stop sliding til it does. Hahaha. Of course, being the creative sort that we are, the kids decided to put the slide in the larger (about 10x6) pool. Auntie got in with them and helped them slide down. I watched from the porch with Bennett. Wheels started turning. Yes, most mothers would probably worry for the safety of their children, but not I. I decided to place the splash pool at the bottom of our regular slide and run the hose up to the top making a steeper slide! It rocked. Yep we tried that out too. Don't worry...nothing is broken...yet. Now The girls just jumped right into everything and played their little hearts out. Bennett, my boy, well, he is another story. I got him all dolled up in his swim gear and slathered him down with sunscreen and took him outside. There was about an inch of water in his teensy splash pool so I though hey he should be able to just sit right down and splash, as long as I am right here he won't freak out. Not so. A toe touched the water and he screamed like the was the spawn of the Wicked Witch of the West. I tell you, the neighbors probably thought some one cut that kids leg off. So we went tot he bigger splash pool at the end of the slide. Yeah, I'm no quitter! I sat down and put him on my lap and poured the water over his toes with my hand. Still, my little man screams like a banshee! Yikes. So Instead of torcher the poor kid I brought out the pack 'n' play to the back porch and filled it up with toys, cheerios, and a cup of prune juice. Hog heaven let me tell you. Now I would very much like to post some video of all the "action," and I may try....but bear with me, I am having some technical difficulties. So for now a collage of pictures will have to suffice.

**In case you are wondering what the front yard pictures are for: We planted som thyme in the front garden and picked out some "accessories" for the garden. And I put some fake flowers in the pot by the front door that I always forget to water so that it doesn't look dead all the time.

Summer Project - Week 1

Summer is up and running around here. And so is our summer project. This is the first year we have done a summer project so really it is in the experimental stages. I think I have a plan, but you know how that goes.... We started out by taking a trip to the Zoo. The three little pigs and I...I mean the three bears and I... or should I say the three kids and I managed to see most of the zoo within about 3 hours. Not too shabby if you ask me. We spent a little extra time at the alligators since they are the animal we are learning about this week. We just so happened to get there while they were being fed. Ew. The kids thought it was fascinating. Well the girls did anyway, Bennett was too busy Peek-a-booing me through the peek hole in the top of the stroller to even notice. Between that and scarfing down cheerios, he didn't notice much. The next day we ventured out to the library. We found a book featuring alligators as characters and one about baby alligators. The kids each got to pick a couple that they just thought looked fun too. We got pretty excited about our books so we came right home and read them. During this time I offered Zoe a dime a book as a summer reading project (besides our animal project) and challenged her to read 100 books before school starts back up. So far she is loving that. Lucky for me, we are just writing down the books she reads and I don't have to fork over any cash until the end of the summer. But I digress.... Next we decided to talk about what we learned about alligators - did you know that they only live in the Southeastern US and China?? Well, now you do. Zoe practiced writing the word and a sentence or two about them and Sydney practiced writing AAAAAAA. She's getting pretty good. We also colored pictures of alligators and whatnot. Today we did an "alligator craft" basically making paper alligators. It was fun. So Our summer Animal-of-the-week project is off and running. Somehow we gotta get back to the zoo and library among some other scheduled activities (like swimming lessons) in the next few weeks. But everyone seems to like it enough to keep it going. Wish us luck.....