she bangs! she bangs!

this girl has never had bangs. now she does. could she be any cuter? i think not.

give blood

we donated blood last weekend. while my platelets and blood cells were converging into the little bag, my children looked on. the woman assisting me told them, "your mommy's blood is going to save 3 adults lives or 6 babies lives." they all just kind of blankly stared at her. but riley's eyes got huge. when i was all done, and hanging out in the "juice and cookies corner" my littlest girl came over to me all excited and asked, "when do we get our 6 babies?! do we get them now?! where are they?!" uuuuuummm.

look who's wearing big boy unders!!

we pulled out the "potty" thinking we would start training max sometime this summer.

but he just trained himself. we heard him yell "hey, riley! do you wanna see my poops?!"

the end.

the right to bear arms

it's not at all that i'm "against" plastic weapons, (my brothers and i used to turn tennis rackets around and use them as machine guns while we hid around the house on sunday afternoons.) it's just that i try not to encourage it, because it seems like everytime there is a lightsaber or nerf gun or ninja dagger thing in the house, some people go a little overboard with the fighting and defending and...it can get messy. so i always end up hiding them, knowing they will eventually be found. and there are peaceful days until that happens. but in the meantime, he's started something new. it looks like there could be an uprising.

i can't get that alice cooper song out of my head

"schoooooool's out fo' summah"! and here are some of the things we are most excited about:

we get to sleep in. (theoretically.) this little man sometimes lets us sleep until 6:45!

we've moved into our summer home. the "cushion house" is nice and breezy and aside from slanting walls and a constantly collapsing roof, it is quite enjoyable.

we eat, breathe and sleep in our swim suits. which makes for a nice "to do list" on laundry day.

1. wash swimsuits
2. line dry swim suits
3. put swim suits back on

it's too hot to cook (or that's my excuse, anyway) so we've been happily surviving off of yogurt, cold cereal, sandwiches and pop-ice. allowing more time for the swimming, the cushion houses and the sleeping in. nice.

netflix

so i followed the example of a couple of friends and we got rid of tv!! (you heard me right.) instead, we pay a measly $8.99 a month for netflix. and you have to know how much that makes my cheap little heart sing. we get as many dvds as we could want through the mail (one at a time) and we have "instant queue" via the wii. just a couple of clicks, and we can watch whatever we want, when we want. some of our favorite things about it are no commercials. not ever. and it's deliberate tv watching. no more random "just watching because it's on" business. and we don't have to pay for satelite or cable or even redbox. (the only thing we don't like is that the "fast forward" and "rewind" are a pain, but i'm willing to live with it.) and there is something for everyone. a couple of these are often playing sometime before swimming but after chores:

sometimes after 9:00, the hubby and i (+ daniel, if he's not working) watch something like this:

and although these are in my instant queue, i have a feeling i may never actually get to see any of them:

maybe someday a movie will be more appealing than sleep. but i doubt it.

interior design

riley told me, in not so many words, that she was tired of my boring decorating and that she was forced to take matters into her own hands. here's what she came up with: i think she has a promising future.

a special thanks to...

...aunt sara for never using your tent, therefore donating it to us.

...bugs for letting some of us chase you/catch you/squish you. (sorry about that last one.)

...cooper lake for only being a 20 minute drive.

...s'mores and hot dogs for tasting almost as delicious burnt and raw as you do when you are properly cooked.

...texas for being hot enough to go swimming in may.

...humidity for making my hair look stupid no matter what i do, so it didn't matter that i forgot the brush and didn't shower.

...maxwell for waking up at 5:30 screaming your head off. it made for a quick get away.

...camping for being so freaking awesome.

look who we got to babysit

(don't you just want to eat him up?)

look who didn't want to have anything to do with him at first.

and kept saying things like "no no, baby. that's mine!"

(he eventually came around, though.)

look who begged me to stay home from school so he could play with the cutest baby all morning.

(he was finally convinced that "picnic day" would be almost as fun. "only...it wasn't.")

look who pretended to be the mama all day and said things like "don't forget to eat you betchtables" in a hilariously high voice.

i love my life.

here's that chair i was telling you about

the one that i saw at target and thought, "oh. that's cute." but it was $159.99. so i was prepared to never think about it again. but then, jakob's backpack was destroyed (and i had already missed the exit for walmart and wasn't about to turn around) so we made a desperate turn into the last parking lot. which happened to be the greenville goodwill (and i love thrift stores). but not this one. this one i had been warned about. it was dirty and scary and "you do not want to go in there." so i didn't. until now. because jakob would be asking if i got him a new backpack and i didn't want to tell him i forgot. again. because he was "already tired of using a walmart bag." (twice.) so i ran in. and there it was. the chair. the exact chair. it was even in it's protective wrapping!! unscathed and perfect. i searched for a price tag. $40. ok. $40. but no. it was marked out. $12!! "excuse me. does this say $12?! i'll take it." so i ran out to the car all excited. the hubby asked through the open passenger window, "did you find jakob a bag?" "oh!! right!! a bag!! no. but i got a chair! i need you to carry it out to the car!" jakob is using my old north face purse. he need not ever know it was ever a purse.

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some people just have to ruin it for the rest of us.

jakob's teen angst (a decade early)

age 2-3: "i believe in Jesus, i just don't want to go to that boring church."

age 5: (after being told it was time to come in from riding his bike)"not this day, old man."

age 6: "maybe it would have just been better if i was never born."(because he couldn't have ice cream for breakfast.)

age 7: "you don't know my life."

poor tormented thing. oh how i wish we could sneak some prozac in your chocolate milk.

meet jonathon

the daddy found this little guy while mowing the front yard. most of us screamed upon hearing the word "snake". so the daddy gently picked him up with a stick and flung him far far away from all the nervous on lookers. he (we are basing our assumption that it was indeed a "he" on riley's observation that it had no visible eyelashes or a bow) ended up in the middle of the street. which brought sighs of relief. until some of us realized that put him in the immediate path of unknowing cars. (actually, trucks. we're in texas, here.) hearing the pleas of his children, the daddy begrudgingly stopped the mower, again, and pushed the slithery serpent to the sidewalk, where he was named (jonathon) and loved and adored for approximately 2 1/2 minutes, until he simultaneously wiggled and stuck out his tongue, causing, yet again, screams of terror.

9 is fine

(photo courtesy of riley grace. age 4.)

since this was an odd birthday for miss zoe lane, she got to choose one friend (rylie b.) to do something too fun for just anyone. so off to build-a-bear we went. (she even let her little sis tag along.) and then a "just the girls" lunch. then home for a sleep over where very little sleeping occurred. but a late night game of 4 square proved to be fun for all. so, are you ready for 9 things about zoe? here you go:

1. zoe is all about saving the earth. when i forgot to bring our reusable bags to old navy, she insisted we carry that little bundle of clearance out to our suv (that "uses way too much gas") in our bare arms. i love her for that.
2. she loves to help. when she wants to help.
3. she doesn't like to watch reruns. if she's seen it, it doesn't need to be seen again.
4. she's basically a genius. and i'm not being one of those overly proud mothers. she gets straight a's (and a pluses are relatively common.) when she saw her report card, she was bummed. "i thought i was smart at math." "yeah, that's a 96%. that is smart." "well, it's not as smart as my other grades." well, honey, we can't all be super nerds. (don't tell her i said that.)
5. she's a shoe lover.
6. that girl will talk your ear off. she has a lot to say. she doesn't always care if you respond or not. which is nice when i'm tired.
7. she used to want only 2 kids. twins. 1 boy. 1 girl. then a couple of months ago, decided she only wanted 1, "and it better be a girl". then a few weeks ago she confessed she didn't really want any kids. "it'll make more room in my giant house for cats."
8. she instinctively holds hands with whoever she is walking next to.
9. she laughs loud. like me.

happy birthday, zoe!! my favorite 9 year old in the whole wide world.