Another Parade (or race, if you ask Edmond)

We went to the ward party and joined in the parade. Edmond and Charlie zipped around on their bikes as fast as they could so that they could "win". Everyone was impressed with their bike-riding skills.

And Scarlett was lovely in her lace romper from Aunt Andi.

Scarlett started crawling at 8 and 1/2 months old. She kind of curls her right leg under her body as she moves along. It's interesting to see...I'll have to post a video some time.

Charlie is very competitive. He and Edmond want to be first to do everything. They'll race up the stairs for bath time and rush to take off their clothes and get in the tub first, before I've even turned on the water. Then whoever is first will say, "I win!" They race to get in the car, they race to turn on the light, they race to get out of the tub, they race to fill up their cups with water. It goes on all day. B and I are starting to get a little worried and we're fearing the next 15 years of watching these two compete against each other.

At the ward party there was a little race where you balance an egg on a spoon and run around a tree and come back. As my boys joined a few of the older kids, one boy yelled to his mom, "Mom! Watch! I'm really good at this! Watch me win!" And then the race began and Edmond held his egg onto his spoon (totally cheating) and raced ahead of all the other kids with a huge grin on his face and beat them by a long shot. It was funny and none of the adults cared enough to point out the fact that Edmond didn't follow the rules. The poor little boy who thought he would win walked by me and I heard him mumble to himself, "Aarrgh! I hate that kid!"

Scabby

Scarlett always has an injury on her face. In the above photo I'm not sure what happened to her, but the other day Charlie was playing with Scarlett in her crib and he dropped a book on her face. She had a scab on the side of her nose. The next day he was playing with her in her crib and dropped a book on her face AGAIN. This gave her another scab under her nose. Poor pretty girl always looks so banged up.

 I walked into the playroom and found the kids were all wearing hats. The boys were putting the fireman hat on Scarlett and laughing about it. And Charlie was naked and wearing a cowboy hat. Awesome.

 Today was a really good day. We had fun together. Scarlett made me laugh with her funny crawling...she kept trying to keep her right leg in front of her while the rest of her body crawled like normal. A lady at church stopped me and told me that she thought Scarlett was "oozing intelligence". She said she could tell Scarlett was smart, just by the expression on her face and the way she looked at people. Sounds good to me!

When Scarlett wants something she tips her head to the side over and over while maintaining eye contact with me. It's a nifty little trick.

While Scarlett and Charlie were sleeping, Edmond and I snuggled on the couch and had a heart to heart. He held his face inches away from mine and I watched his eyelashed flutter as he looked around the room.

"What are you thinking about, Edmond?"

He held up his yellow lamborghini and said, "My car."

Are you happy, Edmond?"

"Yeah."

"I'm really glad you're in our family, Edmond. We prayed for a long time for you to come to us. Are you glad you're in our family?"

"Yeah," he nodded his head energetically and smiled at me.

"Why did you choose me for your Mamma?"

I don't know why I asked that. I don't know if he chose me or if he was unluckily assigned to me...but he gave the question some considerable thought before his big eyes met mine and he said simply, "Because I love you."

And then, he rubbed his eyes. They were teary. Mine were teary too. My little man with his big big heart...he is so good.

Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!

This black widow was found in the corner of our house by the trampoline. Oh. My. Gosh.

Disgusting!

It was lurking there, weaving it's liitle cocoon around its precious egg sack.

It was so huge!!! So huge. I wish I could have given you a better picture, but it was up near the roof of the house, so I could only zoom in this far. But its body was easily the size of a quarter, with it's legs extending far beyond that.

B busted out the bug spray and it slowly crawled away. Ewwww. I DESPISE black widows. Everything about them creeps me out. The way they slowly creep along gives me the heebie jeebies. Just looking at these pictures makes me start wiping at my skin to make sure no spiders are on me.

Later that night I came out to make sure the spider was dead. It was still perched up there on its web..it's legs look a little damaged from the spray. I don't know if it was dead...but the next morning it was gone. So it either died and disapeared, or its hiding...waiting for revenge....lurking...creeping.

The kids thought it was awesome to see me so freaked out. That night the bedtime story was about the black widow and how the kids found it and Mommy screamed and Daddy killed it dead.

Frisbee Golf

Janiel and David came to visit us. One morning they took my boys to play frisbee golf. I stayed on a blanket near the course to watch over the babies. Janiel's boy Patrick is four months old. While he slept, Scarlett and I hung out together.

I layed on my back and studied the blue sky. I haven't layed on the ground and stared at the sky forever. I remember doing it as a kid all the time. Isn't it weird to stare at an empty blue sky? It's like my eyes don't know what to focus on...they just keep looking up into the blue space.

When the boys came back they showed me their frisbee-throwing skills. They loved uncle David...he was so cute playing with them. About three days after they left, Edmond came up to me and asked, "Hey Mom, where's Janiel and David?"

It took him a while to figure out that they were gone.

The 4th

It's tradition to go to the ward breakfast on July Fourth, which includes a flag ceremony and bike parade. It was the perfect morning spent chatting with friends and feeling patriotic.

Edmond owned it on his little two wheeler. He sped around that track as fast as his little legs would pedal him. I love the above picture because it shows Edmond racing ahead of the rest. I don't think they knew he was racing them...it was supposed to be a parade. When he got home he announced to Daddy, "Dad! I won the race!"

And Charlie owned it on his kick bike. The both love riding their bikes.

After Church

After church is over I round up the kids and we wait for Daddy out on the grass. The boys show me what they made in class and we chat with people who are leaving the building. These pictures are from last Sunday

This necklace is funny on Scarlett, it's elastic and she is constantly pulling on it and then letting go and it whacks her in the face. Usually she just blinks and looks aroung like, "What happened?" but one time it hit her hard enough to make her cry.

It's 12:30am and I'm sitting in the dark in the family room. I just heard the boys' bedroom door open and little footsteps go walking across the floor to our bedroom. I knew it was Charlie,wandering into our bathroom to get a drink of water from the cup I leave in there. But, the cup is empty since I haven't gone to bed yet, so then I heard him scoot down the stairs on his bum. He gave me a brief glance and then helped himself to a cup, filled it with water using the refrigerator water dispenser by standing on his tippy toes, took a good long drink, left the cup on the counter and then walked back upstairs to bed. He didn't say a word to me. He's two, but sometimes he is such a little man.

Scarlett is barely eight months and she started crawling today. She's still nervous about it but she will do it if she wants something bad enough. Yesterday we were driving home from somewhere and the boys were chatting away and I was preoccupied with driving and my mental to-do list when I thought how Scarlett is so quiet...did I forget her? A quick glance behind me and I could see her little toes peeking out of her car seat. This happens to me a lot...where I wonder if I forgot Scarlett because she is just so low maintenance. Still, I could never forget her, she's like a part of me.

Edmond says the most hilarious stuff all the time. I need to start writing it down because when I go to blog about it, I've forgotten it all. The other day I told him that old story from elementary school where you push your cheeks close together to make yourself look fat and then say, "Hi, my name is Chubby. My Mom is chubby, my Dad is chubby, and my sister is chubby. One day my Daddy took me on a motorcycle ride. Faster Daddy, faster! Faster Daddy, faster! (then you push your cheeks back away from your mouth to look like they're blowing in the wind and say) Slow down, Daddy!" I told him the story to distract him from begging me to let him play my iphone, but when I was done he kind of looked at me for a minute, then he leaned over and started laughing. He laughed and laughed and when he could breathe he told me to tell him the story again. So I did and then he laughed and laughed. I probably told it to him seven times in a row.

B and I are very busy these days. Its exhausting taking care of our small children. It seems whenever we try to talk to each other our children are interrupting us with questions or stories or demands or whining and crying. Once I had a friend who got divorced and afterward her Dad told her that she and her husband were not equally yoked. Like cattle pulling a wagon, one was pulling hard while the other didn't, and it was impossible for them to stay together. B and I are equally yoked. We're both pulling as hard as we can and sometimes I think I see the end of this steep hill that we're on right now. But, like cattle, we don't talk much. We just eat and sleep and pull our wagon, side by side.   

Anyway, this cow is tired. Now that its 1AM I should probably go to bed.

Poolside

We use our pool nearly every day. It can accommodate a lot of Moms and kids, which is very handy when we want to have friends over.

But most of the time its just me and the kids. Sometimes I'll sit in the shade with Scarlett and watch the boys swim. This is the easiest method and requires the least amount of my energy.

I love sitting and watching my kids play.

And other days I'll get in with them and we'll do swim lessons. Edmond LOVES swim lessons. When I tell him we're going out to the pool he says, "Mom! I don't want to wear my floaties! I want you to swim with me and I want to reach for the wall! Let's do that! K? K Mom?"

Edmond is four and I wish he was swimming on his own. We are working on it, but I don't think he'll be a proficient until next summer. I'll be so glad when all my kids are swimmers and I won't have to worry about them drowning anymore.

Eight Months

Sister is 8 months old and as you can see she is still a thumb-sucker. She doesn't care which one she sucks, she'll switch from one side to the other, she just uses whichever thumb is handiest. She's very dainty about it, it's so cute to watch.

She's an easy baby. She goes with the flow and doesn't mak a fuss. She likes to eat cheerios and snacks with her thumb and pointer finger. I am her favorite person and it makes me feel really good. She doesn't have any teeth. Not one. She goes to bed at 7 and sleeps through the night. She likes to spin around in circles on her bum. She's getting ready to crawl...any day now...

Yesterday I got her laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes. I was just dropping her pajamas on her face and pulling them off and saying "boo", and she laughed and laughed. I never want to forget that sound.