every morning i wake up with this song stuck in my head

girl's rock

riley has never appreciated our "gender neutral" approach to posessions. she refused to wear zoe's (then jakob's, now max's) blue and red coat because it was not "pink or puwple or spawkly". She doesn't love her "boy shoes" even though i tried to explain to her that white converse are NOT "boy shoes". when i buckled her into the red booster for the drive home from north carolina, she asked if we could paint it. hmm. probably not. as we started through those winding, curving roads, riley started to complain about her tummy. poor little riley grace-face gets car sick. (but only in north carolina.) her cries were getting worse, but there wasn't a place to pull over. not even a shoulder. so as zoe (not so) lovingly told her to "be quiet. you're fine." riley puked all over the backseat of the car. including her hand me down car seat. (riley kept crying, "you know my tummy doesn't do well in cars!!) luckily there was a target nearby. because i'm not ashamed to admit that i left that throw up covered car seat on the side of the road somewhere just over the tennessee border. (i'm not the best at handling vomit/vomit associated things.) we spotted a car seat on clearance and grabbed it. knowing full well that riley would be so excited because it was pink!!

(these were taken when we were well into the flat lands of texas. hence, the smile.)

meeting noah

one of our favorite things about the beach this year was baby noah, our newest nephew/cousin. aunt lauren let riley pick out his clothes. she loved that. zoe and jakob were so sweet taking turns holding him and playing with him and trying to make him smile. max, however, had a nervous breakdown. seriously. "don't hold him!!" "i don't want to take him with us!!" "give him back!!" sweet little noah. hopefully max will come around and you guys will be best buddies.

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.