Texting

All of my children love the cell phone and love to text~hmmmm, I wonder why :)

Bird no Scare Me

Sammie has turned up the cute when she is talking. Here are a few things we like to quote that she says:

"Bird No 'care Me"~this is because she is "afriad" of the hornbill bird at the zoo.
"Tammie Brave, Flipper Brave too"~Tammie=Sammie and flipper is her dog

Your Welcome

When Dash says "your welcome" it sounds like "welbuck"

Painting the House

For about a month now Ryan has been trying to paint the trim and the windows of the house. The trim really needed to be painted since we finished the roof back in the spring and well the windows really needed it because they looked BAD. Last weekend Wednesday was the day to wrap up the project, just two windows to go! Sammie was sleeping, Dash was playing, I was holding Ali, and Ryan was painting the two windows in the driveway. I went to help him scrap some paint while he was inside. Dash went down the driveway and said he was going to help paint too! After a few moments of silence I thought I better go check QUICKLY. So I hopped down from the picnic table to see him painting the siding white! After getting that cleaned up I new I needed to do something. The kids love painting, but I hate the mess they make with the paint and the clean up.

So I brought the Easel outside. That way they could be painting outside just like Dad.

And I hung their pictures to dry on the house, so it is like they painted the house. They loved it and had a blast!

I also loved painting outside and think that this will become more of the norm for the summerish months.

These next several shots I tried to capture the amount of paint on Sammie. She is my messy girl and she gives my washer a workout. I am very thankful that most of her messes comeout. I also think that she is this way by God's design to help me not be so ainal about being messy. I am a person that likes to keep my things looking nice, esp. my clothes. Sammie is teaching me to let go a little bit. (I am a work in progress)

Eye Spy What God Made~

This really big bug. Not sure what it is. It was dead just sitting like this. Sammie found it.

A bird's nest.

The kids looking over the bridge at the Fox River. Which measures in at 2.8ft. I have never seen the river this low. As a matter of fact, just over a year ago the river at this same spot was 8.85ft.

Dash's REAAAAALLLLLLLLLYYYY Big one

This is what Dash found today.

This is what Sammie found today!

I have been trying to find things for the kids to do to keep them out of trouble. So today I spontaneously thought of going on a nature walk and coming back to color them onto paper. So we set out with our brown paper lunch bags and gathered whatever we could on the ground that shows what God has made. The kids had a blast. I think we will be going again as more leaves fall :)

Traps

It is well known that we have a mouse problem. With a house that is nearing 100 years old there are plenty of places for a tiny mouse can sneak his way in. We also know that the end of August begins our mouse season. So this year I insisted that we be ahead of the game and set the traps before we see evidence of them. So we set 3 three traps in our traditional mouse killing spots. We have had 2 traps go missing! Unfortunately, the second time he didnt get very far and ended up dying underneath our kitchen cabinets. The only way to get him out of there would be to rip apart our kitchen! So we had to deal with the smell for a week and now ocasionally when we run the hot water for awhile! So this is how I would enter the kitchen. By the way, I have this shirt doused in perfume and you can see the candle that is lit in the background.

Roll Over

Today Ali demonstrated that she can roll over from her back to her tummy! She is getting bigger and bigger every day

Pick Your Battles

Lately Sammie has been pushing things to the limits and giving us a battle to fight. For the last 3 Sundays we have had a two hour battle(at least) with her. The common phrase among parents of toddlers and preschoolers is to pick your battles. This is one(or more) battle we need to fight and win. Sammie is testing to see if she really needs to obey and trying to see how far she can push us.

The picture above is a battle that Sammie and I had two weeks ago. Ryan had asked her to come tell me she was sorry for disobeying. She ran into the kitchen and quickly said, "I'm sorry mom" and then ran away. I told her she had to apologize again but nicer. Well that started WWIII! I stuck to my ground and didnt let her get away with that behavior. I made her sit on the kitchen floor until she said she was sorry. Well, the apology never came because she passed out!

It is hard to hear her go through this point of frusteration and anger. The sounds that come out of her mouth are quite scarey, but I know that these battles are growing points for all of us. I am glad that they mostly happen when Ryan is home so that we can properly handle them while the other takes care of Dash and Ali since they go on for so long! I also know that it is hard for Dash to handle. So hopefully for everyone's sake she is done with this when she turns 3!(or sooner)

Bound and Rebound

We are total Pixar fans in this house! So much so we named Dash after a caracter in the movie The Incredibles (The Incrediboys as Dash calls it). So when they released Vol. 1 of their shorts films we purchased it. On the DVD is the short called Bound and Rebound. The basic idea of this is there a sheep that is all happy with it's fur and then one day the farmer comes and shaves him. He is then glum and sad and gets made fun of. Then a jack-a-lope comes bouncing and talks to the sheep and tells him all he needs to do is get a leg up and then slam it on down. Basically he ends up bouncing everywhere.

Well Sammie had watched this the other day and after the show comes to me and asks me to help her bound and rebound as she is lifting her leg up and slamming it to the ground. It was pretty funny. One of those moments that I wish I had a video camera hooked to my glasses and going all day!