Nature Center and Pool

Last Friday, Mitzi and I took the kids to the Nature Center. We had a good time, but I would rather have Jeff there to carry Macie on his back! Here are the pictures.

The boys looking at the snakes.

Macie on my back trying to get the the geese. (Sorry it did not focus on her. It is hard to take pictures of a kid on your back!)

Saturday, we went to the pool then over to my mom's for dinner.

Jeff throwing Carson

Carson at the bottom of the slide. I know you can not see him, but I love this picture!

Carson and Cole waiting in line for the slide. Cole looks so much bigger than Carson in this picture, but I don't think there is that big of a difference. (Mitz what do you think?)

Carson climbing a tree at my mom's house.

Macie checking out her painted toenails. (Yes she has her paci in her mouth in the middle of the day. She has been a bear lately!)

Random Pictures

The Saturday before Father's Day, we had a little get together at our house. This past year, two of our friends (well, I guess I should say 4) had babies. We have been friends since our single days, but with the addition of kids, it is harder to get together. So to celebrate Father's Day and the babies we had everyone over. Here are a few pictures:

The first two are the hydrangeas in my backyard. (We went out to take pictures) Both of these were planted when we first moved in 5 years ago. My mom and I transplanted these from a plant in the yard where I grew up. My dad was about to sell it, so we took a few clippings. I actually have 3, but the 3rd one did not bloom this year. I think they are beautiful so I thought I would include them.

The daddies and their kids. Jeff with Carson and Macie; Jeff with Coulter and Riley; Mike with Caroline; and Jeff with Abby and Eli. (Yes we really have 3 Jeff's!) Mandi and Stephen had left at this point.
This is Carson with Caroline. He absolutely loves this baby. He always says she is adorable. Her daddy Mike was Jeff's roommate in college and again before we got married. I think they always thought their kids would be friends, but maybe instead they will end up being in laws! Mike and Suzanna I promise we are working on training him to treat women respectfully. He already adores her!

Maybe I will get to another update soon. It has been a little crazy around here the last few weeks.

My little helper

We have been busy this week with Bible School. I will update later when I find some time! I thought Macie might need some video time!

Rock Star!

We have recently discovered a talent Carson learned in school this year!

He would love to hear if you like his singing! I promised him I would read your comments, so tell him what you think.

Ahhhh....

A rare sight in my house...

both of my kids sleeping at the same time in the middle of the afternoon! And, my house was cleaned today so I don't feel like I need to be cleaning! I think most mom's would call this a delightful treat!

What a great friend!

These pictures are not related to the post, but I thought you would enjoy seeing how Carson looks when he wakes up in the morning. I think the chlorine is doing a number on his hair!

So, it looks like 2 of Macie's friends have come down with hand foot and mouth. Poor Addie has had a high fever and was up many time last night. Nick started with a fever today. They really are not far enough along to know for sure (no blisters yet), but there is a darn good chance that what they have. We were all at the pool on Saturday and the kids (and adults) were sharing a bag of chips. So, I imagine that means she was contagious on Saturday. Which means she offered her germs to all of the kids at the gym Saturday morning and probably all the kids in the nursery on Sunday. Hopefully, she was past the contagious stage by Monday when we went back to the gym and to music class and the hang out with Bryce (who is having his 1st birthday party on Saturday) and Caroline.

It is a little frustrating to me because I have no idea when she was contagious. If she had a fever, it was so low, I never noticed. She was grumpy a few days, but she can be grumpy for no reason at all. She was a little tired, but she has been waking up before 6 am so no wonder she is tired! She had a little pimple like blister below her bottom lip that could have been related, but I figured it was just a bump. I guess she had blisters in the back of her throat, but I never saw anything. The doctor had to look way in the back to see any. She had a diaper rash that started on Tuesday, but again this does not usually put me on alert. I guess there is nothing I can do about it, but I still feel bad that her friends are coming down with it too. Who knows where she picked it up. Thankfully, in the grand scheme of childhood illness, it is not a big deal. Once the fever is gone they usually feel okay.

On an unrelated topic, Carson is sitting in here watching Super Why. It is his new favorite show. There is a pig in the show that carries a tool box and pounds it on the ground and sings the ABC's (a different tune then you would know). I don't watch it closely enough to know the point, but Carson loves this part. He always watches with his tool box and sings with him while pounding his toy hammer on the floor. He has also started spelling things on the ground with his hammer to make them appear. He really loves it and wants to watch it twice a day even though it is always the same episode at 8 and 2:30. If he knew it also came on around 10:30 I think he would watch it then too. It is super cute! Hopefully before we leave for the beach I will get around to taping a few shows so he can watch it in the car.

Pool, Some new and old

I thought you might enjoy seeing that some things are changing around our house. Macie has a new obsession! The potty. She does not actually do anything when she is sitting on it, but I figure it can't hurt to let her practice!


And, just to show that some things don't change, here she is trying to climb under the gate. There is laundry all over the floor. Our laundry room is right beside the stairs and I was working on the laundry. On Monday, we joined some friends at an aquatic center on their side of town. We were suppose to go in the late afternoon, but it closed when we got there! They were having family swim in the evening. So, we hung out a couple hours and the daddies ended up joining us. Here, Jeff is racing Micheal and Mike! Since Jeff (center) swam in high school and Mike (right) swims with his head out of the water, Jeff was the winner. Micheal is on the left!
Carson really enjoyed the place. It has a couple little slides he could do. If you look in the back left, you can see the big slides. He was too short for them, but I think he would have tried it.
Macie liked that is was a zero entry pool. But, since it was in the evening, she got cold! In the back of this picture you can see our buddy Bryce crawling away.
We had a fun day and got to spend Tuesday afternoon at our pool with our neighborhood friends. Unfortunately, this morning I found blisters on Macie's feet. After a trip to see Dr. Ani, she officially has hand foot and mouth disease. Maice has not had the typical case of fever and feeling rotten so I had not idea she was sick. Hopefully her friends will not get sick, but Addie already has a fever. I really have no idea when it started. (Sorry again if your kids get sick!)

Video and pictures

Our neighborhood had a pool party on Saturday. We spent 3 1/2 hours playing with our buddies at the pool.

Macie enjoying the baby pool.

Carson sporting his new goggles.

Carson swimming. I could not get him to really show off for me, but he is doing really great. I will try to get a video of him on the water slide and swimming to the side.

Our cute friend, Addison.

Carson and Carter playing tug of war with a noodle in the baby pool. It was adult swim.

The next two are just some cute pictures of the kids from this afternoon. I could not get them both looking at me and smiling. Macie was saying Cheese though.
This is the last one! Macie got a sand and water table for her birthday. But, I just put it together last Sunday. This week Carson has LOVED the box. He wants to play hide and seek all the time. But, he always hides in the box. This was taken when I found him in the box for the 20,000th time this week!

Quetion and Progress

Since so many of you who read this also take lots of pictures, I have a questions for you. How do you store your pictures/videos? Please leave me a comment. I am trying to decide the best way to store all my pictures without filling my computer memory. Plus, I want to make sure they are safe. So, even if you just put them on your computer comment and let me know!





Now on to an update! We are still working on the play set. The slide is up. Te video shows Carson on his first trip down. SueSue was here to see it. She could not make it back to the woods, but she stood on the deck and watched!

Mom waving from up on our deck.

I have been trying to take the kids to the pool in the morning. It wears Macie out and she naps really well. Yesterday we were pushing it with the time. I knew this, but I wanted her to sleep well. So we went for about an hour and a half. Poor Macie literally fell asleep in the pool. She had her head n my shoulder and her eyes rolling back in her head. I got her out to get ready to leave and she could not keep her eyes open to take her suit off. She was sound asleep in the car before Carson was buckled in his seat. But, it worked..yesterday she slept from 12:45-3:20 and today (with no pool time) she slept from 12:30-2. We will be spending lots of mornings there, but next time I will work on my timing.

Summer is here!

We are trying to keep ourselves busy and have some fun. We have gotten Carson into the summer reading program at the library. He loves to read so this is not a difficult thing to do with him. It is making him choose different books to read. He tends to get into his favorites and only read a couple over and over. He is also really into reading stories from his Bible.

We have been trying to go to the gym, but I must admit it does not always happen. I was scolded today for my lack of results! I am sure it has nothing to do with all the bites of kids food I take during the day. My kids would love to snack 24 hours a day and never eat a meal.

I am trying to keep Carson's TV time to a minimum this summer. While I believe he does learn things from most of the shows he watches, I don't think it is good for him to sit and watch hours of television. Honestly, I am the one having more trouble with the limits. It is much easier for me to stick him in front of the TV while I try to get things done. Especially if Macie is sleeping. When the TV is off, I have to entertain him. And, he has been getting up super early lately.

Of course we are spending some time at the pool. We go for a little while almost every day. The kids both love it and it burns energy. If we go in the morning, Macie takes great naps. I have not had a chance to take pictures yet. With two of them, I don't get to hang on the side of the pool and snap pictures. Carson is being brave and going down the water slide. His swimming is progressing, but he does not like to push his limits. Macie is of course a little crazy. She will sit in the baby float for a little while, but mostly she wants to splash around. She now has a backpack/bubble flotation thing. It doesn't keep her head out of the water, but it will keep her from sinking. And, it allows her to "swim".

Dad is still working on the play ground. He hopes to have the tower and slide ready before he leaves town. He is getting close. It is taking awhile because he is building it from scratch rather than a kit. He has to cut all the lumber and make all the plans.

Until I have time to organize pictures with a good update here are a few to entertain.

Carson and the neighborhood boys enjoying a treat! We were at a last minute party thrown by a neighbor!

A few pictures of my sleeping girl.

This is how she sleeps almost all the time. Her little feet at always sticking out of the bed. It doesn't matter if she is sleeping on her stomach or back!

After the zoo last Wednesday, this is her in the parking space. I turned around to back out and she was already asleep!

Building, dirt, and growing a tree

For Christmas, my parents got Jeff and I a play set for our kids. (Yes my parents are divorced, but they are still friends making things easy for us). With Mom's accident and other things going on, we have just started the process of getting it up. My dad is building it with the help of Jeff and Carson. Last weekend, we had to clear out some of the wooded area in our back yard to fit it. Since we had a huge storm, the garbage company was picking up yard waste so the timing was perfect. Dad, Jeff and I worked hard getting the area ready. Carson also got his saw and helped!

Meanwhile, Macie was busy eating dirt!This certainly is not the best photo of her, but you can see the dirt in her teeth and all over her face!

The guys worked again this weekend and got some of it built, I will show you the progress in another post. (The other pictures were last weekend)

Sunday, Carson decided he wanted to plant an apple tree. He was eating an apple and wanted to plat the seeds. So, to the backyard we went to "grow an apple tree."

Heading out to begin the work. I really included this picture so you can see Macie's cute pigtails!

Helping Daddy prepare the ground.

The "seeds"

Macie playing with the dirt (again) while Carson supervises.

Have a good Monday. Hopefully we will have some fun to share with you this week.

Congrats Suzanne and Todd

Saturday afternoon, I went to the wedding of my friend Suzanne. She moved in next door to me when we were both 2 years old. Our families both stayed put until after we both graduated from college. We don't see each other very much now, but it was wonderful to be at here wedding. I also got to see several of my old high school friends. It was a beautiful afternoon and Suzanne looked lovely! Congrats Suzie.

Exchanging vows

Walking up the aisle

Suzanne and Todd

SHS girls.. left to right

Me, Tara (in front), Freya, Holly, Suzanne, Julie and Leslie.

I have several other posts to get caught up on from this week. If Macie and Carson cooperate, I will work on getting caught up.