State of the Family #14

When I started off these SOF's I figured they would be in between other random posts that I made up time in my head that I had to type. . . now it seems I struggle just to get these in here for the preservation of my memories. I am finding this will be a good thing to have in the future as I struggle to remember just what we did over a week!

Miss Thumbsucker's sleeping habits have once again declined. . . but that is enough whining about that. I am sure you all get tired of hearing about my lack of sleep. She is now determined to figure out this mobility stuff. She wants to crawl and stand up so badly. She will lean over on her hands from sitting up and get to her knees, but that is about it. When she tries to go anywhere it usually ends in a nose dive and belly flop. Which her belly is still her least favorite place to be. It is quite comical to watch her in the process of trying though. She also really wants to be able to stand up next to something. If she gets your fingers, she can pull herself up, but hasn't quite got the strength to grab onto other things and get on her feet yet. Plus, if she did, she is still very wobbly and would probably fall over or smack her chin/face on the side of whatever she grabbed onto. She thinks whenever she is standing she is in her jumperoo and can just bounce. I guess she'll have to learn not to do that the hard way.

Miss Firecracker is totally into pretend play the last few weeks. Whenever she and her brother (or any other child) are playing, the scenario always starts off "I the mommy and you the baby." Or some other type of role assignments. She is usually the mommy though so that she can boss whoever she is playing with around. Every once and a while she will decide to be the baby so that they will wait on her hand and foot. She is ornery, but she isn't dumb. I tell you, this girl will be the end of me. I can't quite decide if she is going to be a princess girl or a tomboy at this point though. I really don't think she'll pick either. She is whichever the moment calls for. Princess factor: When getting ready to go to the fair last week, she made me get her a new pony tail holder because the one I had didn't match the bow that was going over the pony. Tomboy factor: She rocked the hay bale jumping at G'ma and G'pa's this weekend along with riding the horse that she refused to get off!

Noisy Man had a blast this last week while cousins Caleb and Lane were in town for the Gage Co Fair. There were cows and pigs and horses and carnival rides and ice cream and swimming and hay bale jumping and horse riding and doing chores with G'pa and daddy and so much more his head is probably still swimming! Speaking of swimming, this kid is going to give me a heart attack. Three days in a row this kid has had 3 different lifeguards on the edge of the pool or lifeguard stand, ready to jump in and get him. Until they see how calm mom is about it and wait just a second more before they actually jump. OK, so I shouldn't be calm about it, but when it happens almost every time we are in a pool and it doesn't bother him at all. . . I don't have too much to worry about when I know I (or someone) can reach him fairly quickly. It really does him a little good to be scared by it just a touch. Now if only he WOULD be scared by it. Lets see, Monday he jumped off the tot dock in the YMCA pool when the swim teacher was out swimming with his sister. I had to yell at her to go grab him. Tuesday, he tried to jump into his swim ring while it was in the water rather than wearing it while jumping in, and missed the ring. I was about 10 ft away so it took me a few strides in 4 ft water with Miss Thumbsucker on my hip to get to him. And Wednesday, he flipped the tot dock over while the swim teacher was once again helping his sister. This is why we are in swim lessons. The kid HAS to learn how to swim before he kills one of us!

Daddy had flashbacks to his very hot fair days this last week when G'pa started talking about Noisy Man showing lead line horses next year. But he had a blast riding the rides with his kids on the midway. . . once again, still a kid at heart when it comes to carnival rides. He has also surprised the heck out of me waking up 2 nights in a row to Miss Thumbsucker's crying and actually going to settle her down for me. It was a very nice surprise!

I have been trying to catch up on housework and laundry all week from being gone so much for the fair and other family activities since everyone from the VW clan was around this weekend. I still have a ways to go. I also majorly slacked in the workout dept. so I am trying to catch up there as well. I am TOTALLY loving my new Nike + system for my ipod though. It rocks! I have successfully upped my running pace to a 10 min mile though! This is up to a 5 mile run, so we'll have to see if I can keep that pace up for a 10K I am thinking of doing next weekend. I haven't done a 10K since the beginning of June so I am excited to get into it again.

Here are some pics from the fair!

State of the Family #13

Another 11 day break from the blog. . . maybe I am not quite up to this blogging stuff. . . or maybe I have 3 small children and don't often have time to sit and type! Especially in the summer when we are outside most of the time. Catch me this winter when I am stuck indoors with screaming children all the time!

Miss Thumb Sucker continues to do decent on her sleeping. She is pretty consistently sleeping until 5 or 6 am! Except for last night when she was up at 115 and 445, but she must have known I was going to blog today and wanted to give me something to complain about! ;) She also has another tooth! #2 broke through this last weekend but didn't seem to give her quite as much trouble as that first one. She is determined to figure out how to get to things out of her reach lately. Watch out world, she will be crawling soon! For now, she tries to scoot around on her butt and reach for things. Most of the time she reaches too far and ends up falling flat on her face, then in true infant fashion, tries to 'crawl' to the item, but as she is just learning usually ends up pushing herself backwards with her arms instead of pushing forwards with her legs. Then she gets mad cuz she is even farther away from the item she wanted in the first place. Either that or she reaches with all her might and falls smack into a table, doorway or some other piece of furniture and has to be rescued. Poor thing has a few battle bruises on her little forehead. Maybe one of these days mommy will remember her tendency to do this and sit her down far enough away from these things so she doesn't hit them when she falls!

Miss Firecracker is cracking me up. Her vocabulary never ceases to amaze me. And so often it all comes in complete sentences. For example she just told me, while lion and bear hunting this morning with 'clubs' (aka plastic bowling pins) that, "Mommy! There are lions all over the place!" Not just all over, all over the place! I need to keep a piece of paper and a pen in my back pocket to write these things down because I can't ever remember what she said an hour after she says it. Yesterday, I do remember that when I first walked into my dad's house to pick her and her brother up, the first thing she said to me was "Mommy, I didn't do anything naughty!" To which grandpa replied, "Not very many things anyway." She also uses words like actually, probably and not quite! I could be in trouble with this one and stories to come!


Noisy Man needs some Ritalin lately! Holy buckets the kid has been wired the last week. It isn't like he has been eating much sugar either. His diet mainly consists of cucumbers and tomatoes with a side of corn on the cob, zucchini and squash. Is there some sort of natural caffeine in these foods that I don't know about. So, naturally he has been quite 'regular'!! (He'll love that I posted that statement 15 years from now!) And, of course, when he is hyper he needs his name changed to Super Noisy Man. I just about can't take it! While quite energetic lately, his behavior has improved due to the full incorporation of our quarter system. We were using one before, but the system just wasn't consistent or visible enough. So now we have decorated jars on our banister and they have to pay quarters for offenses to whomever the offense was given and get to receive quarters if they are helpful, good and remember their manners. It has really seemed to work smashingly with Noisy Man and is slowly catching on with Miss Firecracker. We'll see how it progresses!

Daddy doesn't really have much to update, except that he is itching to go fishing but the weather, working on our deck (that would be and update I guess) and other weekend activities have prohibited him from getting to go. As for the deck, the wonderful man has probably spent more that 50 hours working on refinishing it. A few years ago we put on a color-tinted water sealant. Within 6 months it started peeling off and looking worn. Now, if any of you know my husband, you know that these types of things do not fly with him. So, after a year of dealing with it, he had finally had enough and started the process of trying to fix it. First came the power washer. . . that didn't work so he tried a deck stripper and power washer combo, no luck. Then the poor guy ended up using a belt sander for the entire thing. He even took the entire railing off and sanded it completely off. This guy never does anything half way. I love and hate that about him! :) Then, thanks to our neighbors, we found a paint for the deck that has a lifetime warranty, so he will never have to spend any more time tearing apart his deck. (Hopefully!) It has a funny finish to it, almost like that stuff they put in for pick-up truck bed liners. We are almost done! It really looks great too, almost like composite decking.

I am in toy heaven! Been loving my new ipod touch and just picked up my Nike + system for it yesterday. I ran last night, but didn't have a little pocket thing to put the sensor in so I was too afraid to take it with me and lose it. I ordered a pocket today and will be checking the mail 4 times a day until it comes. I am contemplating running the Omaha 1/2 marathon with the same friend I ran 1/2 of the Lincoln 1/2 with, so the craziness might begin again. I am not sure if I will do the 5 am thing again or not, as the evening runs have been working pretty well for me. It is just a matter of getting my dog into good enough shape to get her up to the miles I really want to be running. My dear, sweet, protective hubby won't let me run by myself. The dog is a requirement.
Until the next time I can escape from my children. . .

State of the Family #12

A little behind. . . things have really not been that busy I have just been productive and other things and just haven't sat down to type! Now to try and remember 2 weeks worth of stuff, that could prove challenging!
Miss Thumb Sucker has been on a upward slide the last couple weeks which is fabulous for all involved. I decided to start letting her 'cry it out' at night and see how miserable it would be. To my surprise it was not bad at all. The first night she woke at 1230 and I let her cry. She didn't even really cry! It was more of an intermittent cry/whine type of thing. After 12 minutes she was back asleep. When she woke back up at 330 I decided not to push my luck and fed her. Then she slept for another 3 1/2 hours til 7 am! I gave her a week of not feeding her before 3 am then pushed it again and now I won't feed her until 5 am. The first night or two she would wake up 2 times before 5, but the last few nights she has only woken up once and both times she 'cried' for less than a minute! Hear the Hallelujah chorus in the background! Why didn't I do this sooner? She has also started this cheesy smile thing that cracks me up. She tips her head back, scrunches her nose and eyes and cheeses it up. I will have to try and get a picture of it, it is adorable! Her first 4th of July also surprised me. She wasn't phased at all by the noise and rather enjoyed watching all the lights.
Miss Firecracker got to experience her namesake for this 4th of July! She really enjoyed all of the fireworks and doing sparklers and all the sort. She claims she didn't like the noise, but for the most part it didn't seem to bother her much. She is proving to be quite the girly-girl/tomboy mix though. As she loves to keep up with her brother and is not afraid of getting the least bit dirty and playing with the boys, but she LOVED her festive pony tail holder I got for her for the 4th and wanted to wear it all weekend. She also insisted on having her toes painted after she realized her last 'pedi' job was wearing off. On a more concerning note, she has been to the dr. 2 times in the last 4 weeks for her ears, both to turn up with another ear infection. I pray we are not on the route back to another set of tubes. I am just hoping we can hold out long enough for her to outgrow it now that she is almost 2 1/2.
Noisy Man is a pyro at heart just like his father. He was all over the fireworks and firecrackers and would have totally been out there with a punk had we let him. He is going to be one of those boys that is going to have to be held with tight reigns over fireworks seasons in years to come or he will end up in the ER due to some experimental thing he tried with the explosive contraptions! I fear for my child, I tell you! Also to my sleep deprived amazement, after the late nights required by summer's hours, darkness and fireworks, my normally up by 645 am little boy has slept until almost 8 am (2 times even after 8) every day this week! (Again, insert Hallelujah chorus here). I just about don't know what to do with myself with all this sleep! Our garden has now started producing 'pickable' produce and Noisy Man is out there daily scoping out the hopefuls. He is not-so-patiently awaiting the 'reddening' of the tomatoes however, which I am afraid he might have another week or so to wait. He is loving the zucchini, squash and cucumbers. Get this! We went to a friend's birthday party the other night and the boy turned down ice cream cake to finish off the sauteed veggies we had brought from our garden! He is a gem I tell you!
Like I said, Noisy Man gets his pyro tendencies from his father. Daddy was like a 12-yr-old boy with the fireworks we had. Which really wasn't that many, but he was having a blast nonetheless. I was pretty much playing parent by myself while there were fireworks going on. Which is fine by me since fireworks really aren't my thing. Daddy has also been enjoying an evening out with friends every week for a while now to go shoot skeet at the gun club. Last week he didn't get home until after 11 pm (btw, if I had been out this late, I would have been in trouble!), but this week he was home by 915! I asked him if all the other guys got in trouble for the lateness of the week before and his reply was, "No, they forgot their beer this week, so they all went home." Too funny. No beer and guys won't stick around to chat and 'shoot' the breeze (sorry couldn't resist that one!). Thankfully, my man is not one for the stuff and would chat with you whenever! I am a lucky woman I tell you!
Like I said before. I don't know what to do with myself with all this sleep going on! I have only had to take a nap once this week. It is amazing how much you can get done during nap time when you don't have to sleep yourself to keep your sanity! I have steam cleaned my floors, caught up on laundry (yes, once again insert Hallelujah chorus), and kept the sink in my kitchen pretty much dish free all week! No small task for the mother of 3 small children and 2 other daycare kids 3 days a week! I have however caught myself up in a book and wasted a couple hours stuck in that. . . It is why I try not to pick them up in the first place. I am terrible at being able to put them down once I get into them. I LOVE to read and really miss the time to do it, but motherly duties call and I don't have enough self discipline to pick washing dishes and folding laundry over reading a great book. I also have that problem with my computer, but that is a subject for a therapy session I haven't been brave enough to schedule yet! ;) My other accomplishment this last week was the 5K I ran in West Point with a friend up there. I ran it in 27 minutes and 26 seconds!! That is just over a 9 minute mile if you didn't stop to do the math! I was thrilled! And that was in the rain to boot!
Here's to hoping next time I don't have to make up for 2 weeks and make this so long that no one has the time to read it!!

State of the Family #11

Returning from vacay at Mahoney St. Park! So much to write about. . . fun, fun, fun!

Miss Thumb Sucker was not a huge fan of vacation for 3 main reasons. 1) She was stuck in the stroller the majority of the time, being rolled around from one activity she really couldn't participate in to the next, 2) She FINALLY cut that tooth, so she ran a fever and was not feeling great the whole time and 3) She couldn't get a comfortable, long nap in because we were always on the move. She was in decent spirits throughout the 3 days despite these things going against her. She totally hated the pool. She is not a fan of the cold water and clings to my chest and whimpers every time I try to put her in it. I don't think I got any pictures of her doing this though. I'll have to try next time we go to the pool. It will be a great scrapbook page! I did get a picture of her crying by the ball pit though. She wasn't a fan of that either!

Miss Firecracker did awesome! She was so entertained that she barely had time to throw a fit at all. The only problem we had with her was getting her to go to sleep at night! She had so much fun trying to keep up with her brother that you would have thought she would just crash at night. But she was so wired from the excitement that she had a hard time calming down. She tried so hard to keep up with him at the indoor playground and was right on his tail with everything he did at Cablea's (yes, we spent 3 hours in Cabela's on our vacation. . . daddy's choice). She isn't quite as fearless as him in the pool, however, but she was all over that froggy slide. She came home with a blotchy sunburn though since we evidently missed a few spots just around her swim suit. Thankfully it doesn't seem to be slowing her down. She was all over the zoo as well, always trying to keep up with her brother. I always think of a t-shirt I saw a while back: "Monkey see, Monkey do, Monkey get in trouble too!" Makes me laugh at how true it is!

Noisy Man had a blast. Everything we did was right up his alley. He loved running around Cabela's checking out the taxidermy and playing in the tents and hunting blinds. A nice employee even gave us some free tokens to play the hunting games they have there. We had a hard time keeping track of him in the indoor playground as he was going haywire up and down the entire structure. We spent some time fishing, but didn't really catch anything so he bored of that quickly. The pool was his domain though. This is where it is hardest trying to find him. He has NO FEAR in the water and is everywhere. Up and down the slides, over to the wave pool, floating around the water, shooting the guns. Geeesh! He is hard to keep up with and hard to catch. Being the terrible parents we are, we kind of forgot about him and his more olive skin and didn't re-apply sunscreen to him when we did his fair-skinned sisters. So, he came home with a pretty decent sunburn and I am about in tears every time I think about how preventable it is and how awful I was not to put more on him. On a brighter note, he totally loved watching Toy Story 3 in 3D and tried grabbing a few things as they "came out" of the screen at us. And we finished the vacay off at the zoo, another one of his faves!

Daddy was a little disappointed with the 3 hour Cabela's visit. Really? What did he expect when dragging 3 small children? He says he didn't really get to "look" at anything. I told him he'd have to go back with out us sometime. He wasn't too opposed to this idea. Seriously, what woman and 3 small children want to stand around fishing lures for 45 minutes? He had a hard time in the indoor playground being over 6 ft tall and all, but still had fun chasing the kids around. He bored quickly with the fishing as well and complained the whole time about his legs burning during the paddle boats and climbing the observation tower - he complains just to make sure I'm paying attention - he had a ball at both activities! He is always right at home in the pool like his son and fried even worse than he did too. His stomach is as bright as a tomato. I think his skin isn't as indestructible as it once was and he needs to up his SPF requirements. There might have been a tear spotted in the corner of his eye during Toy Story as well, but it is hard to tell with the 3D glasses (shhhh. . . don't tell him I said that). And he loves the zoo as much as the kids since he doesn't get to go with us most of the time. Mr. Schedule he is, though, had a hard time with "vacation time" and getting the kids to bed late most nights.

I am just trying to recover! I had a blast at everything and came home a little fried as well. My skin is probably about the same as Daddy's and needs a higher SPF than I used to require. I bawled at the end of Toy Story and loved watching everyone have so much fun. Now I just need some sleep since Miss Thumb Sucker hasn't slept more than 2 hrs at a time in 3 nights and was up every hour last night. My favorite is probably the indoor playground and I was able to get around significantly easier this time that last time we were there! Last time I was 7 months pregnant and had a hard time squeezing up some of the tubes! This time I could almost keep up with the kids! I totally recommend this place - so much fun!

I'll add pics later!

State of the Family #10

Into the double digits of SOF's! (yeah I think I am cool enough to use just the initials for the title of my (try to be) weekly blog entry). I missed last week again due to the craziness of a garage sale. . . more on that to come in the mommy section.

Miss Thumbsucker continuously has me at the edge of my bed, yep, bed, not seat. I never know how she is going to sleep for me in the past two weeks and it is quite gruelling. Sometimes she'll sleep great, I only have to get up once to feed her or she even slept from 11-6 the other night! Other nights (which are, sadly, more frequent) she'll be up as many as 5 times. So, I realize that most of Miss Thumbsucker's posts are about her sleeping habits lately. . . it is the main thing in her life currently. On another note, she made her first trip to the Omaha Zoo yesterday and seemed to enjoy it. She loved the train ride, but wasn't so thrilled about being stuck in the stroller all day. She also loved the aquarium and watching the fish and penguins.

Miss Firecracker has been surprisingly good the last couple of weeks. God knows I can only handle so much at a time. She has been quite the jabberbox lately though. We were in Target the other day and, of course, had to make a potty run. Mostly because she thinks checking out various bathrooms wherever we are is fun, but also cuz she really had to go. So, we are in the stall and she is just chatting away. "Whose potty is this Mommy?" "Who put that up there?" "Did you put that up there?" "Did Daddy put that up there?" "I'm all done. You wipe me now ." "I flush mommy." and on and on and on. Yes, there were snickers coming from occupants of the other stalls and then when we emerge from ours, they get a glimpse of the question box and her hair and just melt. Mostly cuz she IS adorable and jabbers a mile a minute, but also because they don't know the ornery, fit throwing side and think she is just a cute innocent 2-yr-old! One lady at the sink even thanked her for the entertainment! She drives me nuts sometimes but she can also always make me laugh.

Noisy Man had a hard time with the garage sale and his pack-rat tendencies. We were finding things we just HAD to keep left and right and throwing fits equal to Miss Firecracker's. Finally, daddy had a brilliant idea and let him pick ONE thing he wanted to keep. That item then, went on the banister (which is where daddy puts everything!) just in sight of Noisy Man for a reminder. The deal was that he could keep this item as long as he didn't complain or throw a fit about anything else that was getting sold. Thus, the fits and grabbing things off the tables ended quite quickly. It also ended many other problems for the next two days, as all we had to do was remind him of the toy on the banister and how quickly it could be gone if he decided not to behave. It was great! Perhaps a little cruel, but wonderful nonetheless.

The gift dilemma with daddy continues. . . We got him his fishing pole and reel and he is thrilled with them, even got them early for his fishing day last Sunday. They must work great cuz he caught a Master Angler large mouth bass on it the 2nd fish he caught that day and caught 2 more fish just 2 inches short of Master Angler status as well. Perhaps the fishing pole is enough and the specialness will come with the memories? Still, I would like him to have something from his kids ON Father's Day and his b-day. . . Maybe it is just his fault he couldn't wait to use his fishing pole.

The garage sale is done! (I can hear the Hallelujah Chorus all around me, surely you can too!?!) It was a lot of work and I will seriously have to think twice about doing it again. Of course the money we made makes it a little bit more worth wile and we are probably only $300 short of completely paying for the skiing trip we want to take next winter. So, ask me after the ski trip and I would probably do it again in a heart beat. But for now, my house is still a disaster from being neglected for a week while preparing for the garage sale, and I am still a little sun burned from sitting out in the heat all day Friday. I do, however, have 9 empty totes in my storage room and only 3 returned with items in them. We took 3 full totes to Once Upon a Child to try and sell the remaining children's clothes and came home with 1 full tote from there. We also took 5 big garbage bags of my and Jeff's old clothes and a few baby items to Good Will. It feels good to have things cleaned up and a little cash in my pocket waiting to be used on a kid-free vacation!!

Pleading

Sleep. . . must get sleep. . . Really. I'm not even in the least bit joking. I sit here at my computer while my youngest one (the main reason for the sleeplessness) cries in her crib and my older two play with their TAG readers. She cries in her crib because I can't deal with her right now and I only sit here at my computer because I am sick of tagging garage sale stuff and I don't have enough energy to do anything else. I have not gotten more than 3 hours of sleep at a time in over 6 weeks. . . do I have a newborn or a 7-month-old? I don't think she even slept this bad when she was a newborn. And what makes it even worse is the fact that I know she CAN sleep through the night because she did it for 2 weeks. Is there a way to get her to go back? Can I teach her how to sleep?
I also sit here at my computer because I am a bit sore. I started my 2nd session of Boot Camp yesterday at the Y. I must say, day 1 of session 2 was not near as bad as day 1 of session 1, but I am still sore nontheless. Why do we do this to ourselves? Is it really that important?
Anyway, I have ranted enough and let my baby girl cry long enough that I must go get her and try and convince her that sleep really is a good thing and she needs to try it out.

State of the Family #9

Let the summer really begin!!

Miss Thumb Sucker has the sniffles. She seems to be dealing with it pretty well but it is harder for her to breathe. Which of course equals even less sleep for mommy. I am still waiting for those teeth to come through too. She has been getting up about an average of 3 times a night lately. This is 2 times regularly and then she has about 2-3 bad nights a week where she is up anywhere from 4 to 6 times. Last night was a 5 timer. If it weren't for her bad sleeping habits, she would be a perfect baby. I don't know how many people told me this weekend at the wedding what a good baby she was, and she is. She is also now sitting up on her own! This is great for me cuz it makes it easier to sit her down places not having to worry about a soft place for her to lay.

Miss Firecracker had another potty incident the other day, and I must take partial blame (I hate it when I have to admit that). The kids had just gotten up when I was getting in the shower. So I hurried and got them their morning milk and jumped in. Well, about 2 min. later Miss Firecracker runs in screaming she has to go potty. So, I tell her to get on the potty and when she is done I'd step out and help her clean up. :) Well, she decided that she couldn't get on the potty by herself that morning, so the fit began. Screaming and flailing and running around, she refused to get on the potty and I refused to get out of the shower and chase her down. So I let it happen. When I got out about 3 min after the fit began there was potty all over my carpet and bathroom floor and she was finally sitting on the potty. There was not a good ending to this story as I lost my cool and got beyond upset with her, ending in me making her climb up and down off of the potty 5 times by herself to prove to her that she could do it by herself. Then she spent the next 15 min. in her room because I needed to calm down, clean up, get dressed and not see her for about that long. This girl is going to send me to my grave rather early. I must take partial blame, however, cuz I should have known to take her to the bathroom before I got in the shower since she had just gotten up from a full nights sleep. But of course this rational didn't hit me until I was done yelling at her for peeing all over my floor and throwing a royal fit.

Noisy Man had his first Bible School this week. He really enjoyed it and I loved watching him (when he didn't know I was watching) interact with his teachers, friends and singing the songs. He is so inquisitive about the Bible stories, I just love it. The theme for Bible School was obedience (I so totally just sang the obedience song in my head to spell that right!). So they did the story of Jonah and the big fish (non-obedience) and Daniel and the lion's den (obedience). However, he is very confused about why Daniel would be put in the lion's den if he was being obedient. He can't quite separate the King's rules from God's rules and it really confuses him. It is cute to see him try to rationalize it in his little head. I was so proud of him though, he was a champ with his Bible verses. They gave these guys 6 verses to work on in 2 days. (OK, so they didn't really expect the Pre-K kids to get them all, but just be comfortable enough with them to repeat them back. But all be darned if he didn't completely memorize 2 of them himself. One (John 3:16) was a bit of a review as we had worked on this one with him when we first started teaching him Bible verses, but he hadn't done it in quite a while.

Daddy's birthday is coming up (actually the same day as father's day) and I am struggling with what to do for him. I totally stinks that he has to have these holiday's on the same day so he doesn't get to celebrate them separately and have 2 fun daddy days so I want to make it super fun. I know what he wants for gifts (he makes it easy with his year-long running Christmas list. Yes, he keeps a list at the back of one of his steno pads,and whenever he thinks of something he might want, but doesn't want to spend the money to go get it or it is just something that he wants but doesn't need, he writes it on the gift list.) So, now I just need to think of something fun or thoughtful to go with the off-the-list gift. Any ideas?

I am ready for some down time. We survived May, which was absolutely, crazy busy and included no weekends with nothing to do. So, now I am ready for June, which really doesn't have too much on the calendar but a 10K this Saturday morning, my garage sale, Father's Day/Daddy's b-day and our vacation to Mahoney St. Park. OK, so that sounds like a lot, but it is so much less than May it really sounds relaxing. The garage sale with be the only stressful thing since I am still not near ready and it is only a week away. My sister's wedding last weekend marked the last in our crazy busy schedule list. It was a fabulous weekend and everything went smashingly. My sis was absolutely gorgeous, us bridesmaids came in a distant 2nd, and my kids and nieces and nephew did wonderful at their assigned tasks. It was a lot of fun and I am kinda sad it is over. But now I am ready for some down time. I run at 730 am on Saturday and have NOTHING else planned for the whole weekend. It will be FABULOUS!!!

Here are a few pics from the wedding: