Seeing Spots

It is a polka dot kind of day....

She dressed herself this morning.  Can you tell?  She said she matched because they all had dots!

I am in the process of painting these dots on the girls' new room wall.  I can't decide if I really like them....
They match the back of the quilts they have on their beds.  What do you think?

Only 3 Weeks Left?!?!

Wait!  I haven't had enough time.  How can there only be 3 weeks left?  This is so unfair. (side note:  I started this post when there were still 5 weeks left but never finished it... I was too busy cramming things in and spending time with my kiddos!)

Don't get me wrong we have had lots of fun so far, but man, has it flown by.  I can't believe in 3 short weeks the summer will be over and I will go back to having only the evenings and weekends with my little boy.  Guess I don't plan on wasting it sitting here at the computer.  :) 

Here is another photo blast of summer activities since the last one:

Noisy Man shot a rabbit out at G'ma and G'pa V's all by himself.  He was one proud little guy, but he wouldn't hold it for the picture.  He has since built a rabbit trap so that he can trap them (so he can find them) and then shoot them.  Poor bunnies.

Our great friends from Alaska were back in Lincoln, so we got to go with them to the Lincoln Children's Zoo
This is Noisy Man and Miss Firecracker's first camel ride!

We enjoyed a hot day at Prairieland Dairy Day!  I highly recommend it.  A super fun and free day,
including lunch and ice cream!

We have spent LOTS of time at the water park!  The only place to be when it is so stinkin' hot!

We got a new basketball hoop (a late birthday gift for Noisy Man).  When it was still cool enough we spent a lot of time playing with it.  It has now been put in the ground with cement instead of that big base thing, but hasn't been played with much due to the 100 degree weather.

Miss Firecracker took a session of gymnastics at our Y.  She L.O.V.E. loved it and will be signing up for the next session as well.  I can't wait for the Olympics for her to see what the gymnasts do there!  Her teacher was very impressed with how strong and advanced she was as the youngest person in the class.



Noisy Man played some coach pitch baseball.  He did great and only had to use the tee a couple of times.  His biggest struggle was remembering to drop the bat and run after he hit the ball! :)

Miss Thumb Sucker with our Alaskan friends' new baby.  She has the best hair ever!

Noisy Man and his Alaskan buddy.  He has really missed him since they moved back and was so glad to get to spend a couple of days paling around with him again.

We attended 3 or 4 different 4th of July parties and had a blast.  Miss Firecracker and Noisy Man loved it.  Miss Thumb Sucker, not so much.  She did not like the noise and cried through almost all the shows we saw.

Mommy did another crazy run called Color Me Rad.  It was super fun and I got super dirty.  I don't know if I would call it a run though as 80% or more of the people in it just walked.  You go along the course and they have different "color stations" where they either throw colored starch at you or spray it on you.  Then just before the finish line you get your own color bag to throw at everyone.  It was a blast!  I am just bummed my shirt didn't stay looking that cool.  It is just kind of a dirty pink now.

In addition to the fun in these photos we have dealt with a few illnesses this last week.  Miss Thumb Sucker lost her name for 5 whole days when she caught some weird virus (somewhat like hand-foot-mouth disease only hers was just in her mouth and she never ran a fever which is very unusual) so her mouth was in severe pain.  The only thing the poor thing would eat were the squeeze packets of applesauce.  It was hard to even get her to drink anything.  The pain also kept her from sucking her thumb.  I was a little bit hopeful that the good thing to come out of this torturous virus would be for her to kick the habit, but she is on the mend and back to her old ways.

Daddy and I have started doing some workout videos in the evenings.  I needed a change up in the running routine (it is too hot to be running outside) and I wanted to coax him into working out with me, so I really gave him no choice.  I told him he has to get into shape because he can't die before I do.  :)  I'm not sure he appreciates this, but he is going along with it for the time being.  See, I told you I have a keeper!  He'll even do Jillian Michaels workouts with me!

Mommy also got to go see my favorite author again for a fun little girls trip.  Jen Hatmaker was speaking down in Olathe, KS (a suburb of Kansas City) and it was super cheap to attend the event, so some girlfriends and I made an overnighter out of it.  We had a great time shopping and eating and being challenged by this amazing author and speaker.  If you want to know more about what I learned/thought about the event check it out.

Lots more to do before the end of the summer.  The fair is this week and we are doing a small vacation as well as getting to take Noisy Man to a day camp.  Hopefully, I'll post before another full month next time! :)

Mud Under My Nails

We go from pretty little girls to some muddy mamas!

I got to do the Warrior Dash a few weekends ago with some great friends!  I highly recommend it!  It was a blast! 

The worst part of the entire 5K course was the first mile.  You just kept running!  Go figure.  We were forver wondering where the first obstacle was and when it was going to show up, but the only thing that showed up was more hills!  It was a very hilly first mile.  In hind sight I am guessing the mile was to spread all of us out so that there weren't huge waiting lines at all of the obstacles. 

It was a ton of fun and I can't wait to do it again next year.  One of my friends that I ran with wasn't feeling the greatest so we didn't push ourselves very hard and just enjoyed it.  We crawled under barbed wire in the dust, balanced on inclined balance beams, scaled walls, slid down fire poles, sludged through water, pulled ourselves up and down cargo nets, jumped over fire and slopped through mud with barbed wire on top.  Not to mention running the first mile and then some in between each obstacle and through a small timber of trees.

A BLAST!!!

Tutus clean

I highly recommend bright pink tutus for a race like this. 
Makes you easy to spot and we got lots of compliments! :)

Tutus muddy

After we were hosed off

We plan to do it again next year if it comes our way again!  I really didn't even get all that muddy!  I highly recommend going as early in the schedule as possible.  The course is cleaner this way and easier to manuver.  After thousands of people go through it it can get pretty nasty!  We were the 3rd heat to go through and it was all still good. 

But the hardest part was getting the mud out from underneath my finger nails and toe nails!  It took days.  I also got a nice little slice out of my finger as I caught it on a nail at the end of the 2nd obstacle.  It took over 2 weeks to heal up. 

Every Little Girls' Dream

I don't know many girls who don't like to get all dolled up in frilly pink clothes, lipgloss and dance.

Miss Firecracker had her dance recital at the beginning of June and it was a lot of fun (well, until we got to the 2 1/2 hour recital that Miss Firecracker was only in for 3 minutes....)

I have video, but am not able to figure out how to load it on here, so you'll have to enjoy the pictures of my adorable little girl all dolled up!

They did dances to the Itsy Bitsy Spider and Lollipop.  I liked the dance studio we attended for the purposes that it was very laid back and not super psycho dance, but at the same time it was almost a little bit too laid back.  I need to find something a little more inbetween if she decides to pursue this dance stuff. 

However, the perfect thing of this dance studio is that they do a combination of dance and gymnastics and Miss Firecracker discovered that she is rather talented at and really enjoys the gymnastics a little bit more.  So, thankfully we might be able to just do gymnastics!  (I will get to live out a childhood dream through my daughter.  Mary Lou Retton, here we come!!)

Summer So Far

Holy Buckets!  It is almost the end of June already?  Wait!!  I haven't don't 1/2 of the stuff I wanted to do this summer yet.  How does it go so fast?

Here is a photo blast of a few of the things we have enjoyed so far:


We went fishing! (didn't catch anything)

Miss Thumb Sucker decided rocks were more fun than fishing

A friend had a birthday party and we got to tour the fire station!



My sis and nephew came for a visit!

The Shed is Finished

I got to spoil my neice!

A fun day with all the cousins - here are my youngest neice and nephew

A fun BBQ with friends

Here are more of the kiddos at the BBQ

VBS!!  (sorry for the bad pic this is the only one I got)

Hide-And-Go-Sleep

Oh I am a bit behind on my blogging again.  Things have been a bit crazy around here.  One post at a time and I will catch up!

Many of you have probably heard my scary story from a couple of weeks ago, but I need to have it down so I can tease her with it when she is 18. 

Anyway, we had just gotten home from a fun morning of playing and picnicking with some friends at the park.  I was trying to get everything put away and picked up and move on with the afternoon.  I had already laid Miss Thumb Sucker down for her nap and told Miss Firecracker that her turn was soon coming.  I sat down on the couch to prepare my Bible study materials since my mentor was going to be at my house in a few minutes.

I sent Miss Firecracker to the bathroom and told her to head to bed when she was done, then I would come tuck her in and give her kisses.  So, she headed back to the bathroom as I finished getting my things ready.  I got distracted in my things and didn't realize that the 5 minutes I had passed very quickly and my mentor was knocking on my front door.  I went and answered it and told her I needed to jet back and tuck in Miss Firecracker, but would be right back out.

So, I headed back to her bedroom and found it empty.  Curious.  So I figured she had decided to hang out in the bathroom a bit longer to prolong laying down for a nap.  Nope.  Bathroom was empty.  I came out to the living room to see if Noisy Man had seen her go anywhere, and he had not.  So, I checked my bathroom to see if for some reason she decided to use that one instead.  Wrong again.

I sent Noisy Man downstairs to see if she decided to avoid nap all together and just play out of mommy's line of vision.  He headed down there and asked my mentor to go along with him while I went out and checked the back yard.  Still no luck. 

We searched all the bedrooms (which had a sleeping child in 2 of them, so quietness was important at first), I went downstairs to check the back rooms and bathroom, we checked the garage, the van, the swing set, everywhere around our house.  So, then I got to thinking maybe she went outside and the neighbor kids were out.  So I was about to text a neighbor mom to see if she had seen her, when I stepped outside and she was out there with all of her kids.  She hadn't seen her either so her whole gang joined in the search party. 

We split up down the block checking with other neighbors and I ran back to the pond that is just 100 yards behind our house.  Still nothing.  A half an hour had passed.  I was hitting panic mode by now.  Quietness had gone out the window and I was just screaming for her. 

This whole time in my mind I am just praying that God would open my eyes to see her and wondering if I had ever had that conversation with her that goes over never to get in the car with a stranger.  If any of you know Miss Firecracker, you know what a softy she is.  She just loves everyone.  If you will give her a hug, you are her instant best friend.  This is a great attribute to have until it comes to strangers.  I couldn't remember for the life of me ever talking to her about strangers before and was sure I had just failed as a mother.

I had this relentless feeling that I needed to check the basement.  Noisy Man and my mentor had checked it three times, but the time I went down there I only looked in the back 2 rooms and the bathroom.  I hadn't really looked anywhere else.  So, even though my mentor had just come up from looking down there for the 3rd time 3 minutes before, I decided to follow the Holy Spirit leading that little piece of mother's intuition in me and check for myself.  As I search and yelled her name, I was dialing Daddy to finally let him in on the search. 

I was walking out of our store room when I looked down into the box of our indoor slide (you know, the kind with the square climbing part on the back with a platform in the middle and the slide goes out the front) and saw the cutest little foot ever.  She had climbed inside the box and underneath the platform and fell asleep.  I must have made some kind of noise because it startled her awake.  I grabbed her and hugged her and asked her what in the heck she was doing underneath the slide!  She must have thought she was in trouble because she started crying and said she just wanted to sleep down there. 

I rushed upstairs to relieve the search party, in such a tizzy that I left Miss Firecracker downstairs.  Nice one, mommy.  She came up and I grabbed her once again.

It took us over a half hour to find her.  What a terrifying experience.  I hope it never happens again.  We have now had the 'stranger danger' talk (which she said they had already talked about at school) and also went over a talk I didn't know was all that necessary, but evidently is, the fact that you don't sleep anywhere but your own bed unless you tell mommy where you are going.  :)

Bring on Summer

My favorite time of year!  I love summer.  Even more so now that it means all day, everyday with my Noisy Man.  (I think that most of the time, except when he is picking on his sister's nonstop or wanting entertained 24/7).

Miss Firecracker's last day

Right before summer started was Miss Firecracker's last day of preschool.  I don't think it has hit her yet that means she doesn't get to see her friends all the time.  I am sure we will go through Miss S withdrawal before too long! 

I was spoiled on Mother's Day with a fabulous, relaxing chair and putting my feet up all day.

I can't get this pic to move..... These were the teacher gifts for the end of the year. 
It is Strawberry-Rhubarb Freezer Jam.  The tag says "Thanks for "jammin" me full of a great education
this year.  I hope your summer is sweet!"

Then we got to attend Noisy Man's Track and Field Day - one of my favorite things!! I absolutely loved track in high school and meets were the best.  This is the closest thing I'll get for a while, and it was so much fun!  Only set back was that it was in the middle of a football Field (of course) on a very warm and sunny day, so Noisy Man's red-headed sister's didn't fair so well.  They got to spend most of their time under an umbrella.  

Here is the picture blast for you.




relay

the girls hiding under the umbrella

This boy takes his running seriously!  Check out that face!

Tug-o-war

Then came the final last day of school for Noisy Man.  I guess I now officially have a 1st grader.  He had a friend's birthday party to go to after school that day (which bummed me out a bit) and he was a little sad that I wouldn't be able to pick him up from school on his last day.  He actually said he didn't want to go because of this.  So, I went to give him hugs and take pictures and then helped out the parent's with transporting kids to the party, so it was a win-win!

Noisy Man with his amazing teacher and para

When he got home from the birthday party we were ready to celebrate here.  My awesome neighbor made a cool sign for her garage door for her son on his last day, so I semi-copied her with a smaller version in our house (I wanted to do the big one outside, but it was crazy windy that day and I just didn't think it would stay).  He thought this was pretty cool.  We ended the nice, warm day with a water fight!

This is a face of a loving, compassionate mother....totally bombing her children with water!