We're Ready for the 2020 Olympics

Emily had her first party celebrating the big 4 on Saturday. Her birthday is on August 30th and we are having a family party on that day. She and three other kids in our Mom group all had a birthday within 2 weeks of each other, so we lumped everybody together and had a party. We rented the gymnastics arena at the YMCA. Oh my gosh, it was a great time. The kids got to play for an hour and they had 2 instructors on hand to help us out. Then we broke for cake and a much needed drink and we all hit the floor again. They had a long trampoline, balance beam, uneven bars, pommel horse, rope swing, rings and an obstacle course. It was a blast. David and I were the only "adults" who tried any of it. I did the rings a few times and some somersaults on the uneven bars. David and I both did the rope swing. I wonder why none of the other adults would do it? Maybe we looked foolish. I don't really care though. I wonder at what age I will see stuff like this and not want to (or be able to) participate. I hope never.

I'm posting mainly videos because the kids were moving too fast for my camera in most of the shots. I think we need to get a better camera and Emily can have our current camera to pursue her passion for photography. I couldn't decide which videos I like the best, so I'm posting almost all of them!

Like Sister, Like Brother

This is one of Emily's favorite things. Her Dad throws her in the air and she loves it. She always wants to do it again and go higher. She has quite the sense of adventure. I love that about her. Ben is usually our quiet reserved child. He's happy to sit on the sidelines and watch his sister be thrown in the air like a college cheerleader. I guess too much time watching has created a monster. He now asks David every night to "jump me Daddy". David will throw him in the air until he physically can't do it anymore (David that is, not Ben). Our little man does have an adventurous side to him after all it just takes a little time for him to come around. Now, I'm the one left on the sidelines watching them and hoping David doesn't miss. So far so good. Hey, maybe I'll be next!

It's a pumpkin!!!

The mystery plant has finally revealed it's identity. It is indeed a pumpkin. It doesn't look very big in the picture, but it's about the size of a basketball and it's starting to turn orange by the stem. I hope this process takes awhile or we will have a pumpkin in September. I don't think I will eat the pumpkin. I will have him fulfill his Halloween destiny and become a Jack-O-Lantern.

A Crazy Afternoon

It was supposed to be a fun filled Sunday. We were going to a luau at our church in the afternoon. We spent the morning relaxing around the house. We got everyone ready for the luau and went to load up in the van. Our garage door wouldn't open. It was completely stuck. We tripped the manual lever and it still wouldn't move. What? We worked on it for about 15 minutes and could not get the door open. David and I were getting frustrated, so he suggested the kids and I go with my Mom in her car and he would stay and try to get the door opened. I didn't want to go without David, but I realized we were in the way more than we were helping. So off we went. We get to the church and they have some inflatables. Emily and Ben see the big water slide and can't wait to go on it. The line took more than 20 minutes. We get to the front and the lady says Ben is too short. Are you kidding me? So, Emily goes down and from the video you can see that she had a good time. She wanted to go again, but I wasn't about to wait another 20 minutes. Ben was crying because he wanted to go down. I felt so bad for him. That was a bust. We were going to try another inflatable obstacle house, but the line was even longer. Forget it. We went to the area that had some horses and games and the kids had a good time there. We also got a balloon airplane and dog made for us from a clown that freaked out Ben. We left after an hour.

David finally did manage to get the door manually open. It still won't work properly, but at least we can get our cars out. Luckily, we have a 5 year warranty on it, so hopefully, this won't turn into a headache. Somehow, it always seems to. This video is great. I love how she does a flip at the end. You can hear Ben saying he wants to try it. My poor little man.

A Lesson Learned

My cousin, Denise, is in Aruba for a few days with her Mom for a wedding. Lucky girls. On Friday, I watched both of Denise's kids. Stella came over in the morning while Jude was in school. I realized that I haven't babysat in years. The kids quickly started playing and the house looked like a tornado hit in a matter of minutes. Ben was a little bummed about Jude not being there. The girls were playing with dolls and Ben came walking down the hallway sulking. I asked him what was wrong and he replied, "I miss Jude so much." It was adorable. He felt a little left out with all the dress up, dolls and barbie stuff going on.

The first lesson that I learned is that what I consider child proofed for my kids does not apply to other children. I walked in Emily's room and Stella was slathering Emily's lotion into her hair. I'm talking like 5 or 6 pumps of lotion. My kids know not to mess with it. Stella thought it was just something else to play with. Then, about 20 minutes later, the girls are in my bedroom and Stella found some more lotion. She's rubbing it on her belly and is a complete mess. She's too funny. The girl likes lotion. Okay, so next time I will go through the house and put away any potential disasters beforehand.

My Mom decided to come up and stay with us for a week or so. She said she'd be here in time for me to go get Jude from school. The original plan was that I would just take Ben and my Mom would watch the girls. Of course, they all wanted to come. So, we all pile in the mini-van. I didn't bother with shoes for the kids as I was just planning on hoping out to get Jude and leaving the kids and my Mom in the car. Lesson #2...always bring shoes! On our way home, we went to turn into our housing development. There is only one rode in and the same rode out. Well, there is an accident. There were probably a dozen police, ambulance and fire trucks that came. The road was closed. Now what? The kids have no shoes. We ended up going to K-mart and buying flip flops and walking around there for an hour. Luckily it opened up by the time we got back. It's been known to be closed for up to 4 hours when there is an accident.

Lessons learned...

A Photographer In The Making

I can't remember when I held a camera for the first time and took a photo. I imagine I was probably a teenager. Back in those days, my parents would never let me touch the camera in fear of wasting precious 35 MM film. I can imagine how mad my Dad and Mom would've been if they got a roll of film processed for $5 only to find that I used half the roll to take pictures of the TV and my bedroom. I probably would've gotten grounded if they had ordered doubles! Times have obviously changed. It is not unusual for Emily to find the camera weekly and start taking pictures. She knows how to turn it on and she goes to town. We don't want her to play with the camera in case she breaks it. Case in point when she took 8 photos of the toilet bowl. Imagine if she would've dropped it in. I sometimes don't even know she has it until I see what I think is lighting and I realize it's the flash. She will climb on chairs and the desk to find the camera. She simply loves to take pictures. She one time racked up 132 photos before I knew what she was doing. I had to delete them one by one as I had 3 pictures on there that I wanted to keep. I was angry that time. No matter how many times we take it away or how many times we tell her no, she seems to pursue her passion for photography. She actually takes decent ones sometimes. I imagine when our current camera is extremely outdated in a few years, we will give her that one and buy ourselves a new one. In the meantime, she will have to sneak the camera and take her pictures. Here are a few from her latest round.





She even let Ben in on the action after he started crying (see pic above).

A Fun Filled Day

Some great friends from Phoenix have property in Sedona. Sedona is one of the most beautiful spots in Arizona. It's best known for it's red rock mountains. Literally, everything is red even the dirt. It's murder getting it out of clothes. Every summer our friends go blackberry picking around their property. Our schedule finally permitted and we were able to join them this year. These are wild blackberries that grow all over. We loaded up the kids on Saturday and headed to Sedona for our day of adventure. The blackberry picking was fantastic. The kids had a really good time. The bushes are covered in thorns, so Emily helped by holding the bag and Ben couldn't stop eating every berry within reach. He'd often get the red ones which weren't very ripe but he didn't seem to care. I realized that I had never picked anything growing in the wild and eaten it right off the bush. The berries are delicious and taste better than anything I've ever bought in the store. David and I imagined the first people that came across blackberry bushes. They must have been in heaven!

After picking berries, we enjoyed our picnic lunch. We all drove over to our friends property. Ben wanted to drive and since we were on an all dirt back road, we let both kids sit on our laps. We parked our cars and walked down to the creek. Of course, we stopped and snacked on more berries on our way down. The water was perfect to cool off after a hot afternoon.

We made our way home after a while and the day would not have been complete without a stop at Dairy Queen. It was a wonderful day. It was so nice to catch up with friends that we don't see very often and do something different. This will be a yearly trip that we will clear our schedule for next year. Here are some videos of berry picking and the creek.