Beach Fun

We're back from our annual trip to the lake resort with T! He had his conference and classes while the girls and I spent the days at the beach, the pool, and the park. And I spent many an hour on the balcony...which is better than spending hours sitting in a dark hotel room while they napped. :)
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We thought we got away scot free from our usual problems we have when we go on this trip, but alas...Boo Bear was the perpatrator this year. Bug has had MANY a car puking episode so I guess it was her turn, but WOW. No warning whatsoever. 4 rounds: Puke. Bigger puke. Even bigger puke. Projectile puke, puddling in the seat, spraying all manner of toys, books, upolstry, etc. Sorry for the graffic visual. So we did the whole pull over on the side of the road, strip the kid, scoop puddles of throw up out with glove box napkins and baby wipes. Tons of fun. :P
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Anyway, for some reason I am unable to load pictures at the moment...also unable to center text, spell check, etc. (sorry) so as soon as I can I will post pictures from our trip. Here is the one picture I did manage to upload. This was the view from our balcony at sunset. It was gorgeous. This picture doesn't do it justice, but it was beautiful.
And now I will go try to save the car seat that will never be the same. :)

The "Playground"

I realized that I never posted pictures of K's birthday "playground" as she calls it. The main reason is because it isn't finished yet. It is to that functional point, which is where all our projects get before being pushed to the back burner. T quickly nailed up some plywood so the bible study kids could play on it over a month ago and that is how it remains today. Functional, but definitely not finished. One day... :) The kids don't seem to know the difference. They think it is great fun. The favorite is definitely the swings. They love the swings!
You hardly have to push Boo at all and she squeals and brings her legs up. K on the other hand wants to go so high she can see over the fence. :)

Here is a side view. I thought the railing and the ladder turned out really nice. We still have to put the "windows" in, re-do the current plywood, water-seal the whole thing, and hopefully after our dormier project we will be able to side and roof it too.

Turned out pretty well! The slide is surprisingly fast though! It whips them right out onto the gravel.

Here is a little video of them swinging. You can see how Boo brings her legs up. They like me to push their feet so they are always sticking their little legs out for me to push. So funny.

We'll get it finished one of these day! Along with all the other projects lying around. :)

Make Believe

Living with a four year old also means living in an alternate reality 75% of the time. Most of the time I am happy to be one of the thousands of characters she comes up with every week, but inevitably, without warning, I reach the breaking point and just feel like screaming, "NO! I JUST WANT TO BE ME!" Usually I am able to calmly say, "No thank you, I don't feel like playing right now." But most of the time I don't bother b/c it is easier to just go along with it than to listen to the endless questions of, "Why? Why not? Why don't you want to be Mama bear? Would you rather be sister bear? Or you could be Belle. Or Cinderella? Why don't you want to play with me Mommy?" And so, most of my days are spent pretending to be characters from books, one of her friends, friends' mommies, people from movies, other family members, and most of all princesses.
Princess K has the power to dub others as princesses as well.

Sometimes Boo thinks it's fun and other times she just wants to be left alone. I am looking forward to the day when they both enjoy pretend and can go off and slay those dragons together.

But for now I am the one guarding the castle, and while most of the time I would rather make dinner without having to pretend to be the royal chef, I am trying to treasure these innocent moments of make believe.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy Father's Day!

(Okay, for some reason Blogger will not let me center the text. It's driving me crazy but I'm just going to have to go with it).
Once again we had a crazy busy weekend! After the VBS BBQ we came home for naps and as soon as the girls woke up again we were off and running. T had a golf tournament in town so the girls and I headed in by ourselves to a birthday party at a baseball game! He met us there a little later. K had a blast! The ballpark has a kiddie area with inflateables and batting cages. There was even chalk to draw on the sidewalks, which S took full advantage of. :)

Boo also took full advantage of all the fun ballpark snacks. :)

The kids had to wait in line but they were surprisingly patient. We left after the 7th inning stretch since it was already ten o'clock and our bedtime is usually a firm 8:30. They were running on fumes at that point and quite hyper. :) Thankfully Boo fell asleep pretty quickly but K stayed awake the whole way home.

After our late bedtime I was hoping K would sleep in a little but she was downstairs at eight o'clock on the dot. T and my dad were supposed to go golfing, but there was a closed tournament going on so we all did some garage sale-ing instead. Then at eleven K had another birthday party to go to! This was a fairy princess one, complete with her own sparkling tutu. :)

And she got to make her own fairy wand. After the party we all did some more garage sale-ing and took turns staying home while the girls napped. When the girls woke up T and I took them into town for dinner and a little shopping.

Sunday was just as busy with church and the Father's day BBQ there. Thankfully it was also youth Sunday so I didn't have to play the piano and was able to stay home and have breakfast with my favorite people. :) We let T open his present...a gift certificate for golf lessons! I got five lessons and the guy said that we could split them up so T could have 3 and I could have 2. T has been wanting me to golf with him but I am not very good so maybe this will help. :)

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We are so blessed to have such a wonderful daddy! I am so thankful for him, as well as our Papa and Grandpa. Happy Father's Day to all you great dads out there! We hope you had a wonderful day!

Circle of Friends Ranch

Phew! What a week! We've been moseyin' on down to the corral ever' day to stay a spell with the cowboys over at the Circle of Friends Ranch.

And there were quite a few cowboys and cowgirls! Our high for the week was 89 buckaroos! They averaged 22 preschoolers a day! Thankfully, Miss J was the preschool teacher and she kept those lil' pardners in tip top shape.
We sang songs, did crafts, played games, and said "Yippekai-yay!" all week long.

The little ones had some playtime out by the barn.

Our lil' cowgirl had a great time!

And Mommy had fun corralling little piggies and servin' em up to all the cowpokes.

We ended the week with a good ole' fashioned cookout.

What a whirlwind week! I think we're going to need several days to recover from all the fun at the Circle of Friends Ranch!

Wordless Wednesday

Sand Castles and Smores

We got to spend a fun weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's! It was time for the annual garage sale extravaganza and we had a blast! I think we hit somewhere between 30-50 garage sales. We got TONS of books! Books are one of my favorite things to get at garage sales because they are so expensive to buy in the store but people sell them for a quarter or fifty cents. We also got a few toys, a really cute rug for K's room, a really pretty oval mirror that I am going to paint for one of the girls' rooms, and some other miscellaneous finds.

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The rest of the weekend we spent our time relaxing at Grandma's house. T and I went for a drive during the girl's naps both days. It is so pretty out there, and we love to just drive with the windows down (something the girls don't enjoy).

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We had a lot of outside playtime since the weather was pretty nice. Here is K with her "Great walls of China" or "China's walls" as she has alternated calling them. Noni has been in China for the past two weeks and will be home tomorrow! Boy have we missed her!

Guarding the walls from the terrorizing toddler!
Yes, we had to have multiple baths at Grandma's. :)
Headed off into the sunset. Boo got up there all by herself. She is such a climber.
We also made smores both nights. A huge, albeit sticky, hit with both girls. :)

It was just cool enough, when the sun started going down, that the fire felt great!

I think K ate about half a bag of marshmallows all by herself before I realized it. She did have a stomachache the next morning. Coincidence? I think not. :)

After the sticky smores it was time for a little roughhousing before bed. When Daddy gets on the ground they know just what to do! It's no wonder they climb all over me if I sit on the ground. :P I think they both pounced on T pretty hard...judging by the look on his face. :)

Retaliation: tickle torture!

We always have a great time at Grandma's!

Life At Four

I never did a favorites post for Bug at 4 because I went back and looked at last year's and everything is pretty much the same. Her favorite color is still red, her favorite food is still fruit, her favorite thing is still her Koala. I can definitely tell that she is growing up though. I look at her and she seems taller, and more grown up.

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She can be quite the little lady when she wants to be, but for the most part she is still a wild and free spirit marching to the beat of her own drummer. :) Literally, at the moment (she is marching around, beating her toy drum and pretending that she is in the band).

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She is still a very intense and emotional person, but for the most part, she is a happy and sweet spirited little girl. Of course, she is on her best behavior for everyone but us. I think that is a pre-requisite of childhood. :) Everyone is always telling us how obedient and wonderful she is which we are very thankful for, but somehow that good behavior doesn't always measure up here at home. Haha:) I am looking forward to the day when I don't have to comment on everything that comes out of her mouth. It is either, "That wasn't a very nice way to say that, please try again." or "What a nice way to ask! Thank you for talking so nicely." It will be nice when I can just respond and not have to correct or affirm every single sentence. :)

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Education wise she is still doing really well. She can read pretty much anything if she stops to take the time, and has read us several books. She read her first official book (more than one word per page) all by herself just before she turned four. I need to get it on video. She is able to do basic math problems (2+1=3, etc.) and can count to 100 but she skips 20 for some reason and has to stop and think at each 10 transition (30, 40, 50, ect).

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For the most part she skips through her days singing, laughing, crying (she is extremely clumsy and hurts herself ALL the time), and then laughing once again. She loves to tell jokes and is always doing something to make us laugh. We definitely have our moments of tension, but she is a good little girl and we are very blessed to have her in our lives.

We love you Bug!

The Princess and the Butterfly

The friends that we had over for dinner on Sunday night were the same ones that have the little boy that K has told us, several times, that she is going to marry...probably because he apparently kissed her cheek at Awana...twice. Haha:) They are so funny. They actually get along really well together and play very nicely. They were playing dress up and somehow K became Rapunzel and her friend, N, became a butterfly. At least its a manly orange butterfly. :)The two boys are about a year older than our two girls. The little ones didn't play together too much but little C was kind enough to share his ice cream with Boo. :)

BFF's
:)

Showering a Friend

Wow, what a busy, fun weekend! We went to town for errands and shopping on Friday night, Sunday was church and going to a fun antique show with a friend and then having a family over for dinner, but our busiest day was definitely Saturday.

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T got to go military refueling flight (I'll have to see if I can get him to post about it...the pictures are really neat!!!) while the girls and I went to town again so we could attend the shower of one of my best friends from high school! The shower was right during Boo's nap, and since she has now moved to one long, three hour, nap a day I decided to ask Mama if Boo could come to her house. She agreed so after K and I dropped Boo off we headed to the shower. It is always so much fun to see my high school girlfriends, and even better when we are celebrating a new addition to the next generation of friends!

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I had so much fun making the baby's gift! (her name for her room) I loved working with the colors that the happy parents have chosen...aren't they pretty?

And it just so happens that little Addison will have a friend only 7 weeks younger than her in our little group! Don't they both look adorable?!? I love little round pregnant bellies. :)
I think the best thing about old friends is that no matter how often you see each other, when you do get together you just fall right back into that close friendship. Love you girls!
P.S. Today we are meeting with a realtor to start the process of selling our house in town! When we moved out here it was the dead of winter, and the housing market was in that big slump. Unfortunately it is now in a new slump, but since our renter has moved on we are going to try and see if it will sell this summer. We would appreciate any prayers you'd care to send our way!

Kantaputpshoosavayitus

I'm sorry to tell you that two members of my family are suffering from a terrible disease: kantaputpshoosavayitus.

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I've tried to ignore the signs, but I have finally accepted the inevitable. They need help. For years I have tried to encourage them, but I realize now that I have only been participating in co-dependent relationships. And now I am speaking out. Don't be afraid to let the truth be known.

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If you find six or more pairs of shoes lying about your house at any given moment you too may be a victim of this horrible disease.

So far, only two members of my family seem to be affected, but I believe it to be hereditary as I am already seeing the early warning signs present themselves in my youngest.
If you see any indication of this in your own family, get help, before it's too late. Unless you want this to happen to you...

:P

Pajama Story Time

Reason number 346 that we love small town living: pajama story time! One of my friends, who works at the library, recently started this. It's so much fun! Once a week we get ready for bed early and walk the three blocks to the town library. We meet up with about two dozen other people, 95% of which are already our friends, and listen to two or three stories. Then the kids get to do a craft together. Bug loves it!

Boo gets to hang out with some of her friends too.
She isn't as interested in the story...

...but scaling the book shelves is pretty good entertainment!

Cutting and pasting. So much fun for a four year old.

Ta da!

Yay for pajama story time!