Backyard Waterpark

I introduce to you my summer splurge (which is available for rent for local birthday parties, etc, by the way). I see these things every summer at the store and this year I decided to go for it. The kids had a ton of fun and Tyson even got into the mix and went down the slide with the kids. I tried chasing them around on it, but I kept forgetting that I'm pregnant and I can't climb up the slide like I might normally be able to do. Oh well, maybe next summer. :)
Tyson has a few phrases that he likes to say in a funny voice, and every time he says one of them, LittleMan cracks up laughing.

Pantry Progress

Tyson and his dad began working on building a pantry in our house about 3 weeks ago. So far I think this is the fastest home improvement project we've ever had. He's been motivated to get all of our projects in this house finished so that it will be ready to rent out when we close on our new-to-us home. We are in underwriting for the bigger house we are trying to buy. Our fingers are crossed that everything will work out quickly before the seller gets tired of waiting, as we were supposed to close June 30 and we still don't have an ETA for our closing date. We were told they are putting a rush on it and will try to get everything approved this weekend, but we'll see how that goes.

Here are the progress pictures for the pantry. Everything is primed, we just need to pick a wall color for the exterior and paint it.

When I was maybe five years old my dad and I were in the ward talent show for my church. I wore an "Annie" wig and my dad wore a fake cap on his head to make him look bald like Daddy Warbucks. I sat in his lap and belted out "Tomorrow".

My mom found the wig somewhere in a closet of old stuff and brought it over for me to give to the kids. LittleMan would only wear it as long as we'd hold him in front of the mirror to look at himself and laugh.
I guess this is what he could look like if curly hair ran in the family.

Where the Wild Things Are

...My kids, I mean.

Last night I found out another thing that my kids can do to entertain themselves when they are supposed to be sleeping. The kids have been resisting bed time a bit lately. Usually they'll open the door a few times and ask for drinks, or tattle on each other for something. I try to just ignore them so that they'll go to bed and they usually do fairly quickly. Last night however I was 45 minutes post bedtime when I heard a mysterious thumping coming from the kids' room. My mommy alarm went off immediately and I went to go investigate.

I opened the door only to see a giant white cloud settling over the entire room, with LittleMan standing in the middle of it coughing, laughing, and shaking the bottle of baby powder. I wish I hadn't been too angry to think about grabbing the camera at that moment, but unfortunately I wasn't able to calm down enough to think about pictures until after I'd vacuumed and wiped down the entire room, stripped the kids bedding and gotten new sheets and pillow cases, and had hauled LittleMan into the bathroom to begin cleaning him.
BittyBit was laughing it up until she realized she was in trouble too, then she turned completely serious and said, "Hey, that's not fair, why am I in trouble? He's the one who made the mess." I explained that she was laughing and encouraging him instead of coming to get me, to which she replied, "I thought I was supposed to stay in my bed and not tattle". Augh!!!

LittleMan thought it was hilarious until I realized that I couldn't get the cornstarch baby powder out of his hair without several shampoos. He normally loves bath time, so mean mom that I am, I stripped him down to his diaper and leaned him backwards over the sink to wash his hair and body instead of letting him play in the tub more than an hour after he should have been asleep.

This morning I awoke to a fine film of baby powder all over the house, thanks to my central air conditioning unit. Sigh. A day later I can see the humor, at the time, not so much.

Father's Day

Tyson suggested that we pick up my dad for Father's Day. We had him over for dinner then chatted in the living room while the kids showed off for him.

Quilt Project

The nurse practitioner from my work had a baby at the end of May. She and her husband decided to wait until the baby was born to learn the sex, so all of us at work decided to have a shower for her after the baby came. That way we could give personalized gifts. She ended up having a little girl, so I traipsed to the fabric store to pick out some girly prints for a quilt. I finished it in less than a week, which only required a couple of days where I completely abandoned my children. My mom came by the day of the shower when I was trying to scramble to finish the binding because a) I'm a procrastinator and b) a couple of days before the baby shower the hostess moved the time of the shower to about three hours earlier in the day. I was on a tight schedule as it was and I didn't quite finish, but it all worked out. I took it to her later and she absolutely loved it. Here are the pics of my project.
I originally had something more elaborate in mind, but as I got closer to the deadline and life kept getting in the way, I decided to do a simple 45x60 crib size quilt with 4"squares. I designed the quilt on my computer and color coded it for the fabrics
Then I strip pieced the squares together. I made a little puzzle for myself and labeled each different set of pieced blocks. Then I pieced them together using the labels I'd made "A-G-F-B-C" etc. All of the patterns repeated, so it was pretty easy to piece after I'd mapped it out. I double checked everything as I went then I went and then ironed the rows and lined them all up to make sure they still matched the original design. So far so good.
Then I sewed all of the rows together and pressed the finished top. I pinned the top, batting, and backing to the quilt frame that Derek built for Jenni years ago. (I inherited it when they moved to Florida years ago.) Then I tied the quilt together at the corners where each square met, 4 inches apart, with brown embroidery floss.
The finished quilt.

Fruit by the Foot Races

Most of the tribe met out at Jenni's house for a farewell to Robyn, who is moving back to Virginia. We all brought our own dinner and ate and laughed throughout the evening. The final event to our festivities is a game that Jenni calls "Fruit by the Foot Racing". The gist of the game is that each person unrolls an entire fruit snack and puts the end in her mouth. Then on "go" everyone tries to eat the entire thing as fast as they can. You can't use your hands, only your mouth. Fun stuff.

Baby Brother

This morning BittyBit found an oil and vinegar bottle from her play food set and decided that it would make a good baby bottle for LittleMan. The funniest thing is that at her request he climbed right into her lap and played along. They must have sat like this for 5 full minutes while she "mothered" him.

Daybed?

Ever since Tyson took the side rail off of the crib and we convinced BittyBit that it was a day bed, LittleMan has been sleeping in the toddler bed. He always ends up on the floor next to her bed sleeping on the sheepskin rug. Every night before we head to bed, Tyson checks on the kids and puts LittleMan back in his bed. He's mastered the art of moving him without waking him.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Our church stake organized a night for any members who wanted to be able to buy discount tickets to our local minor league baseball team. Tyson bought tickets for our family and we joined a lot of our friends for a night of hot dogs and baseball.
The game was fun, but at one point BittyBit said, "Mom, why won't that cat come shake my hand?". The mascot for our team is a cat and he came out to hype up the crowd. He was dancing along on top of the dugout and waving to everyone. BittyBit thought he should come right over and say hi. Just before the seventh inning stretch, he came out into the crowd a few sections over, and she begged me to take her to meet the cat. We made our way over to the big cat and he gave her a hug and shook her hand. That was definitely the highlight of the night for her.

9th Anniversary

Today was my 9th wedding anniversary. Tyson and I had already agreed we weren't going to exchange gifts this year. There just wasn't anything that either of us wanted or needed, plus we are trying to buy another house, so we are pinching all of our pennies. We had some coupons and ended up going to Souper Salad for dinner. It's not much, but at least neither of us had to cook.

LittleMan has been showing some interest in potty training and during dinner he exclaimed,"pee pee!" So I scooped him up and ran to the bathroom. My limited experience with him has told me that he says pee pee but usually ends up peeing in his diaper and doing the other business on the potty. So even though I had a fleeting thought of making sure all of his anatomy was angled in the right direction, I didn't actually follow through. A few seconds later I jumped back, realizing my mistake as he began to pee on me. I somehow found this hilarious as I was cleaning up the bathroom floor and trying to keep him from climbing under the stall door with his pants around his ankles. I think this shows my limited experience with little boys, but hey, I learned my lesson.

Shortly after this we finished up dinner and daddy made another rookie mistake. He lifted LittleMan out of his high chair and put him on the floor of the restaurant while he picked up the receipt and put it in his wallet. LittleMan was off like a shot running down the aisle, stopping just long enough to pick up a piece of bread off of the floor (which had been there long enough to turn it into a crouton) near an abandoned table and bolt out the front door. Tyson ran out after him and caught him before he ran any farther. When BittyBit and I caught up to them, Tyson had LittleMan by one arm and was squeezing his cheeks open with the other while ordering the little guy to spit out his floor find. LittleMan kept shaking his head and grunting something equivalent to "no" until I bent down and fish hooked it out of his mouth in a couple of swipes, while muttering "That is disgusting!"

I looked up to see a middle aged man standing about 10 feet from us observing the entire scene. He asked us with a bemused expression, "Should I even bother going in?" (Seeing as how we were trying to get LittleMan to spit out the restaurant food, this seems like a valid question). Tyson laughed and told him, "Don't worry, he got that off the floor." To which the gentleman replied, "Well I guess I'll be OK, I'm not planning on eating anything off the floor." Tyson and I must have laughed about that little incident for 5 minutes solid.

Slip & Slide

The other day Jenni and Derek invited us over for dinner. We had great BBQ and Jenni even bought a slip and slide for the little ones to play on. LittleMan wasn't a big fan of it because it sprayed water on the slide and he doesn't like it when water falls on him. He did enjoy the splash pool though and he and BittyBit had a good time.

Tyson related the rest of this story to me after the kids were in bed tonight. He was working in his office when he heard the kids shouting "Wheeee!" over and over. He thought he'd go and investigate, so he poked his head through the doorway to the living room where they were playing and saw that the two kiddos had emptied LittleMan's sippy cup of water onto Tyson's sleeping bag, which was on the living room floor. They were running and jumping on it and sliding across the slick fabric like a slip-n-slide. He told me he was laughing so hard that he had to leave the room and calm down so that the kids wouldn't see him laughing.

We're all about picnics

Lately Tyson's business has been so busy that he hasn't had much time to go grocery shopping or fix dinner. As I'm at work all day, sometimes we just don't have anything in the house to eat. We've started having picnics occasionally to get out of the house and have a simple meal. Afterwards the kids get to run off their excess energy, so it is a win-win situation.

Fireflies

I had our monthly Cub Scout pack meeting tonight. Usually I go by myself but tonight's activity was a picnic dinner at a nearby park, and everyone brought their families. I zipped home from work, packed a dinner in about 5 minutes and loaded everyone into the car. BittyBit spent most of the evening chasing LittleMan and trying to keep him from running off into the woods (she's such a good big sister!).After dinner the Scouts distributed Popsicles to everyone. BittyBit ate hers like she eats everything. Extremely slowly, which meant that most of it dripped down her hand and she was still eating it when we went off with the group to see the world's-most-something-or-other Bur Oak. I don't remember if it was the oldest or the tallest or thickest or whatever, but it was huge.
The kids also ran around catching fireflies. BittyBit had finished her Popsicle by this time but her hands were coated in sugary drips, so I told her not to catch the fireflies with her hands. She was a little disappointed but compliant. Instead she picked up a stick and gently eased it underneath the fireflies when they came close enough. She actually had several that landed on the stick and she was able to observe them closely.

Scarborough Faire

We finally made it back out to Scarborough Faire for the first time since the kids were born. Rex, Teresa, and Brittany joined us and we all had a great time, in spite of the heat. We saw quite a few of the shows and Tyson and the kids got to ride a camel.
The park entrance.
This tree man kind of freaked the kids out. He was on stilts and stood about 9 feet tall.
LittleMan goofing around at the Falcon show.
Part of the parade.
A fairy in the parade.
Waiting in line for the camels.
Camel ride.
Cousins.

Hall bath floor

We've been working on more home improvement projects. On May 9, Tyson and I decided to take up the indoor/outdoor carpet in the hall bath and scrape the paint off of the floor so that we could lay new tile over the floor. BittyBit wanted to help, so we let her go behind us with the trashcan and pick up all of the scraps of paint as we peeled and scraped them off of the tile.
This past week Rex and Tyson cut and installed the travertine tile.

This morning...

BittyBit: Mom, do horses have birthdays?
Me: I suppose they do, but they don't know to keep track of them.
BittyBit: They could have an apple on their birthday because horses can't have cake.

BittyBit: Can ducks fly?
Mom: Yes.
BittyBit: Penguins can fly too...if they are in a helicopter. But they can't fly when they are waddling around on the ground.

"I did it!"

The other day BittyBit came running into our bedroom in the morning and said, "Mom, Dad, he did it!" To which we warily asked what her little brother had done. "Well, I told him, 'just put one foot up, now the other', and he did it, he climbed out of his bed!" Needless to say Tyson and I were not nearly as excited for LittleMan's achievement as his sister was. But we were very proud of her for encouraging her brother and being kind to him. If we can only direct this energy into more productive activities...

Tyson went into LittleMan's room right after this to witness him trying to shove his blanket and toys back into his crib. When he saw Tyson, LittleMan threw both of his hands above his head and shouted, "I did it!"