Cavalry

My mom and sister are coming to our house tomorrow to watch the kids while Meggan and I go out of town. This is a much, much, much needed grown up vacation for us.  We are so thankful they are willing to come up and wrestle Everett for the weekend while Amelia talks both of their ears off. I think everything will be fine as long as they can remember how to turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and keep a steady array of snacks coming. We'll miss the little ones for sure, but it will be nice to finally sleep in... until 7:30.

Row Row Row

If Everett ever wants to star in a horror movie, he's got the scream down...

Grateful

Tonight we were able to go to an open house for Amelia's TK class. Even though I didn't really learn many new things about her school, I was reminded how lucky we are to be able to put her in a great position for education.  She is exposed to music, foreign languages, computers, and gymnastics all through special instructors they bring to the classroom. That doesn't account for all the individual centers they have for playing or the new Smart Board they just installed. As a parent, you can't learn new things for your children. That said,  it is your responsibility to give them every opportunity for success that you can...and so far, I think we are on the right track.

Dismount

If only I could have video running at all times, I'd have a good crash and burn video of Ev tonight. But, since I don't have 24 hour surveillance cameras, I'll just have to describe it...

Everett, wearing one right sneaker on his right foot and one right croc on his left foot, sat atop the slide in the back yard. In his right hand was an after-dinner blueberry muffin he was destroying. He proudly looked over at us and began to slide. However, his two right feet got caught at the bottom of the slide. His breakneck pace coupled with these mismatched emergency brakes sent him immediately upright and then head over heels into the yard. He landed directly on the top of his head and proceeded to somersault into the grass. While we started flying off the deck to see just how badly he had broken his neck (as Amelia sat on the slide laughing), he laid outstretched flat on his back. A few steps into our rescue attempt, still lying on his back, he calmly lifted his muffin to his mouth and took a bite. As he sat up with a huge smile on his face, we all burst into laughter. You can plan all the vacations and holidays you want, but these are the little moments that leave the lasting memories. 

Shoes

While Meggan and I can't stand Amelia's new shoes (we let her pick them and since they light up when she walks, she wasn't leaving the store without them)...

 I'm guessing I know at least one person in the family who will love them... the little guy who wears all her other shoes....

Behavior

Well, after a day of being a good boy, Everett found himself in trouble at school for telling his teacher "no" and sticking his tongue out at her. Later that night, he kicked his sister in her coconut because she wouldn't give him the toy she was playing with. While his behavior is age appropriate and not really alarming at all, it sure will be nice when he returns to his sweet self.

So Close, But Yet So Far Away

Ev is becoming very, very independent. In fact, tonight he put on his own pajama pants and unmatched pajama shirt. The great news is he did wonderfully on the pants. The not so great news is that he stepped through the neck of the shirt and pulled it up the same way he put on his pants. The result was this lovely tube top look (and yes, that is his infant shoe he is trying to cram on his own foot)...

Garbage Persons

The older the kids get, the easier my chores around the house (such as taking out the garbage) become...man, I love child labor.

Newest Supermodelquin

Old Navy apparently has a new mannequin....uhhhh, I mean Supermodelquin...I just hope they are paying him...

Improvement?

Well, the good news is Everett didn't hit anyone at school today.

...the bad news is he apparently stripped off all his clothes and ran around the room.

Is that an improvement? I'll take lover over fighter any day.

Karate Kid

Three concerning things happened with Mr. Everett tonight...

1) I found out he got put in Time Out at school. To my knowledge, this is his first offense.
2) He has developed a lovely habit of saying "Hiiii Ya!" like some sort of blonde Karate Kid.
3) On multiple occasions, he displayed his new joy of hitting people - including repeatedly going Ike Turner on Amelia while they played in the tent and then later smacking me like I owed him money.

I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Summer Fun

I know everyone is itching for Fall to arrive, but the kids and I still love the summer. We took full advantage of the nice weather yesterday with a little water fun...which to me meant filling the water table and hooking up the mist sprayer.  Apparently, to Amelia this meant trying her best to spray water through any crack of the sliding glass door onto the hardwoods and to Everett it meant shooting anyone you can, including yourself, directly in the face with mist.

 

 

The Lost Files

I was looking at my camera tonight and realized I never really put any of the pics up from the wedding Amelia was in...here you go...

Growing Up

Believe all the cliches you hear, your kids grow up faster than you can imagine. You blink you eyes and the next thing you know...


...your daughter has friends that love her enough to rush over to the fence to check on her when she shows up after being out sick...

...and your son is old enough that he sits in a booster seat instead of a high chair while feeding himself...

Don't Be Fooled

Even when you are coughing so badly you have to stay home from school, a little ice cream with dad can cheer you up....

.... on a related note, ice cream apparently does not have any medicinal purposes that help with the treatment of asthmatic coughing. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

Bam Bam

Have you ever been so excited to get an ear of corn that you literally broke completely through the cob? Everett has...

Dinner Wear

I was told today that I need more pictures of Everett on the blog. So, here you go. This is a picture of a normal dinner night for him...

Smiling boy....check

Chicken....check

Green Beans....check

Watermelon.....check

Milk....check

Pink girls' shoes with large flowers....che...wait, what?!? Oh yeah, that's right. My son loves shoes and let's just say he isn't gender biased about which shoes he wears. 

Reminder

Considering I have about 10,000 pictures on my computer, I occasionally try to go through them and clean out some of the old ones. Inevitably, before I get through enough pictures to be even remotely productive, I get caught up reminiscing about the old days. Here are a couple of my favorites from tonight (which I've probably posted on this blog several times by now)...

Admission

I hate to admit it, but I miss Disney.  I wasn't crazy about taking the trip. I didn't want to spend the money. I didn't want to deal with the heat. I didn't want to make the drive. That said, that savvy little mouse beats you down with happiness. After all, how can you not want to go back to a place that serves sandwiches that look like this....

Drunk

Step 1 - Belly up to the bar with a girlfriend and have a heart to heart...

Step 2 - Drink "pink spicy" until your face looks like this...

Step 3 - Find a comfortable table to pass out on....

Trip

Here are some quick facts about our Florida trip...

Hours driving in the car - 22
Hours driving in the car with Everett - 11
Hours driving in the car with Everett crying - 10.99

Miles traveled on the trip - 1100
Miles traveled before Amelia asked "What's taking so long?" - 11

Number of meltdowns I expected Everett to have while at Grandma and Grandpa's - 10.5
Number of meltdowns Everett had - 0.0

Cost of Amelia's flower girl dress - $12
Compliments on Amelia's flower girl dress - 12,000

Number of Shirley Temples Amelia had tasted prior to our trip - 0
Number of Shirley Temples Amelia chugged during the wedding weekend - 3 (AKA 20 less than she wanted)

Number of people at the wedding - 100-200
Number of people I watched during the entire ceremony - 1

Total friends I saw that I hadn't seen in a year - 4
Total friends I saw that I hadn't seen in 4+ years - 10
Total friends I saw that I hadn't seen in over 10 years - 1
Total friends I miss more today than I did a week ago - 15

Time Amelia attended the wedding reception - 2.5 hours
Time Amelia spent on the dance floor giving it her all - 2.49 hours

Excitement level of Amelia at Disney - 10 out of 10
Excitement level of Amelia's parents at Disney - 20 out of 10

Temperature of fire - 1000 degrees
Temperature of Orlando, FL in August - Roughly 5 degrees cooler than Hell

Number of times I brought up Everett's name - 20
Number of times Meggan brought up Everett's name - 30
Number of times Amelia brought up Everett's name - 250

Total cost of trip to wedding and Disney - $13 million dollars
Total value of trip - worth every single penny

Total time spent away from home - 6 days
Total time I thoroughly enjoyed - 6 days - 10.99 hours of Everett crying in the car.

Big Day

We have finally returned from our tour of north central Florida. I, of course, have a few posts and pictures about our trip. That said, today we have more important happenings. Today is Amelia's first day of Transitional Kindergarten (TK). Time flies by. Just think, in just shortly over 20 quick years she'll be done getting her doctorate.

Rehearsal

After much practice, I think Amelia is ready for her big showing as the Flower Girl...


Practicing our walk....

Spending time with Dad...

Enjoying the scenery....

A Simple Equation

When the one who whines the most looks like this ....

and the one who talks at a non stop pace looks like this ....

the parents look like this.....