Some days it's just best if everyone dresses monochromatically.

One more from the Langford's pool

Afton dancing with Grammy. Her favorite dance move is the deep-knee-bend.

Then they had a slow dance.

A very cold boy eats his rice crispy treat

Dear Langfords,
Thank you for inviting us to swim at your pool!
Thanks for providing dessert!
No thanks for the hypothermia.
Love, Josh

And what's more, we started it out with a beach trip!

The beach! We missed you last year! Thank you 100 times to the Sextons for inviting us along for a week of sandy, salty fun. What better way to begin the summer...

I love the summer

Love it. Looooove it. Right now nothing is better than summer.
No, not the heat, not the humidity, none of that. Low 70s would suit me fine 10 months out of the year.
It's the pace. I love the pace. Summer has the best pace ever, followed by Christmas break. Every day is so much better with the kids home from school. (Don't get me wrong, school is great. I love school too in a different way. Anxious back-to-school feelings come right along with anxious Halloween-fall-leaves-jacket-weather feelings. But summer is king.) I love starting our day at a leisurely pace, rather than a rush to get out the door. We can kick it in our pajamas for an hour or so. No sweat. Swim practice doesn't start till 9.
Elementary school gets out at 2:45pm. What an awkward time to divide the day around. The school-year mornings go by too quickly and by the time lunch is over with the little kids I feel that dinner time is approaching like a ticking time bomb and there's still so much to do and of course it all really needs to be done before 2:45 because that's when things need to stop so I can chat with the big kids while they eat their snack and then give them their marching orders for what things they need to get done around the house plus homework, plus piano, and by then it's time to start cooking and where did this day go?? Why did it seem so busy and yet there's so little to show for it? Summer. Aaaahhhh. A whole day! With everyone home the days seem somehow three times as long--in a good way. Like we have all the time in the world to get the house clean, even deep clean a room or two, and still have time to play a game or make something or play outside and dinner time isn't even close yet. The little girls are much (much) happier with the big kids around to play with. School days make them lonely, bored and cranky. Summer days make them think they're in heaven. Me too. Summer days are relaxing, yet productive. Best pace ever.

Newest family hobby

Super uncles Troy and Dan recently gifted all of their nieces and nephews with this book. It is awesome. We are hooked. Emma and Ben have been scrutinizing the pages (often together with their cousins), making notes and guesses and imploring me to look up interstate numbers and state mottos. We are filled with distress as more and more numbers are found and we may miss our chance at digging up real treasure. We're desperate for a clue pointing to east Tennessee.

So embarrassing

I am, that is.
To Josh.
In Target.
When halfway through our trip my flip flop breaks at the between-the-toe part and I am forced to alternate between trying to grip that part with my toes and kind of shuffle along but the whole thing keeps awkwardly coming off making progress very difficult and simply taking it off so I can walk quickly (being sure to hold it as visibly as I can so hopefully people will understand why I'm only wearing one flip flop...you'd get it, right?).
Josh let me know the whole time that I was really embarrassing him.
I was embarrassed too. I felt very conspicuous.
Lydia (riding in the big part of the cart) laughed and took her shoes off too, tossing them to the floor for Josh to retrieve.
What would you have done?

Our nation's capital -OR- we love business trips

Scott's business trip demands are very low. Usually just once or twice a year he needs to go out of town in the name of putting food on the table. I've been scheming to go along with him one of those times, but there always seemed to be something important going on with the kids' schedule, or a nursing baby, or some such preventing the perfect getaway. A couple of weeks ago he was required for a few days in our nation's capital to train the good folks at the Travel channel on some new computer applications. We seized our chance and gratefully accepted Grammy and Grandpa's willing offer to keep all five kids (thank you!) while we took in all our nation's capital has to offer.

Our nation's capital was chilly and cloudy and drizzly while we were there. We didn't mind, we were grateful it was not hot.

We were very impressed with the metro system. I don't know if it's just newer or what, but we found it much nicer than NYC's subways. I liked even the stations.

Our time in our nation's capital was short. We only had two actual days in town. The first day while Scott was engaged with his work stuff (you know, the reason we were able to do all this almost entirely for free, and stay in a nice hotel with made-to-order omelets as part of the included breakfast, instead of just muffins and juice) I spent the whole. entire. day. reading. Like this:

See? I was so pleased with my time I even set the camera timer to capture my hours of blissful relaxation. I brought four books with me (just in case!) but only made it through one. I wish there had been more days for just reading without having to stop. I don't know how many days it would take me to get tired of doing that, but I'm sure it is a very, very large number.

Scott was done by six or so the first night and by two in the afternoon the second day (on which day I did not read, but slept in then packed and went on ahead to meet him at the Washington Monument), which gave us plenty of time to tour all there is to tour along the national mall (except all of the museums, there are so many museums! we would have liked to spend half a day inside of each one, but time would not allow so we only stepped into about four). Neither one of us had been to our nation's capital since sometime in grade school, so it was much fun to see it all again. We are anxious to come back with the kids sometime. I loved showing them all of our photos and talking about what they were and having Emma and Ben frequently jump in with "Hey, we learned about that in school this year!"

A big, white house:

They drained the reflecting pool because apparently the water was causing some birds to get sick. Boo.

Scott made some demands.

We had fun.

It's been awhile since we indulged in some nonsense, hasn't it?

Bedtime wrestling match.
My first favorite part is when Scott pulls Lydia(who was minding her own business, for that moment at least) into the fray. My other favorite part is when Scott raises his arms, signaling that he declares himself the victor...and the incensed reaction of the kids.

Oh, and look who finished up their first year of preschool

I can't find the little notecard they gave me where her teachers had written up some qualities they had observed in her throughout the year, but I do remember that they mentioned how much she liked playing with Joey and predicted she would be a veterinarian.

A lucky mother, indeed

Scott got me the pair of dogwood trees I've been pining for. He even planted them firmly in the ground with miracle grow dirt and a mulchy top. I like the idea of a Mother's Day gift that draws such a nice parallel with motherhood...you know, planting and nurturing and growing something beautiful and all that. I wouldn't go so far as to call us a family of nine now, but I do look forward to watching these two little guys get bigger over the years. Thanks, Scott.

Lydia's pillow--finally

Featuring her favorite primary song.

I've decided I'm going to stick to cutting out letters if I make more of these. I like them better than the embroidered variety I tried out here and they are a bit less tedious for me. Oh well, live and learn. Just need to decide on what words to use for Afton...

Happy Baby, Laura

Track Meet

Once each spring the county puts on a track meet for our 3rd-5th graders. Emma was cool and skilled enough to get picked as one of her school's athletes. What event? Why, the sack race of course. (I heard they are going to add it to the 2012 olympics.) She sort of wished she'd been able to do a running event, but was glad to at least be counted among the sporty 4th graders and miss almost a whole day of school to boot. She didn't win--she was somewhere near the middle of the pack--but she didn't fall down or give up.

The days surrounding the meet were warm and sunny. The day of the meet was rainy and freezing. Freez-ing. I wore a jacket and I wished I'd worn full snow-gear and brought my own fireplace. I sent Emma in her team t-shirt and some shorts and oh-you-might-want-to-grab-your-fleece-too-I-think-it-may-be-a-little-chilly. Luckily Mom and Dad lent me their super huge umbrella so Emma and her friend and I stayed (relatively) dry during the first hour while it rained. Here are Emma and Caroline staying mostly dry:

Here is Emma at the starting line (short, center of shot, yellow bag):Texting Scott after the event to tell him all about it:

Happy Birthday, Anna

I'm just going to start calling this the birthday bag. (Because I've used it for many tweens' birthdays.)

Silence = Mischief

(Alternate title: Your store-bought pizza crusts are in danger!)

I was going to include a photo with this post, but I changed my mind

If kids' snot had even the smallest monetary value I'd be a ga-zill-ion-aire.
Twice over.
This week alone.

Happy birthday, Fern (who loves bugs)