August Fun

August was packed full of summer fun for us, starting with a week at the lake house with Seth's family that Seth's parents got us all for a Xmas gift. Immediately after the week at the cabin, we were treated once again to unlimited ride wrist bands at the County Fair by my parents. I tried putting these pictures in chronological order, but Blogger had different ideas so here are some pictures in no particular order.

First is Charlie, Frank (and Gabby in the background) playing in the beloved corn pit at the fair.

Frankie spent a large part of his time fishing. This year we were lucky to find a life-jacket that he liked and kept on. It was a much more relaxing year for Mom and Dad....which doesn't say too much since last year was one big perpetual tag-team effort. 

Here he is catching a fish with his cousin, Austin:

All the cousins - and no one is crying this year!

Seth and John - playing Hawaii 5-0 in their matching Hawaiian shirts

At the fair again!

Bella and Frankie helping Seth play the guitar

Thanks, Jimmy Fallon

This is what happens when your 5-year-old sees a Point Pleasant Police skit from the Tonight Show with "Jimmy Tim Falton" (as Charlie refers to Jimmy Fallon) and then the doorbell rings during supper and you go to answer it and chat for 5 minutes....leaving the two little boys alone with 2 plates full of spaghetti.

It's worse than it looks. My circa-2010-style cell phone doesn't take great pictures so you can't see much of the sauce that goes with those noodles. At least Charlie had the sense to take him out into the back yard to do this....which is why I didn't hear it going on. And at least Frankie seems to have appreciated the humor.

For those of you wondering what the Point Pleasant Police are, here you go:

You might be Catholic if....

At breakfast this morning Frankie finished his cereal, then held the bowl up with great significance in front of himself and said, "Amen," before drinking it. When he was done, he said, "There, now I drank Jesus all up."

Proved me wrong

"I don't think she's going to like that, Frankie!" I said.
"Yes, she will," he said.
Looks like he was right.

Redefinitions

Challenge /ˈCHalənj/ noun   the act of giving an exceptionally stubborn 2-year-old a haircut while he spends the entire time trying desperately to run away from the scissors/clippers despite the fact that countless promises have been made for rewards and his favorite show is playing on the TV in an attempt to distract him

It turned out basically OK. He's clearly still traumatized by the whole experience.

Cute kyo͞ot/ adjective  this:

Notice something different?

Elena finally got her ears pierced! She's been wanting pierced ears for 5 years, but hasn't been able to bring herself to actually get it done. The first time we tried she was 6, and when the lady wiped her ear with the alcohol swab to prepare her lobe, she jumped off the seat and ran away.

After I told her that we would not consent to her wishes of carrying her into the store in the middle of the night while she slept so they could pierce her ears without her knowing (that was an actual and totally serious request she made at one point), she finally resigned herself to the fact that she might not ever get up the nerve to pierce them.

When we were in the store the other day and passed by the jewelry counter, I noticed someone else was getting their ears pierced and brought it up. She immediately shot the idea down, but using a heavy dose of reverse psychology combined with a little bribery, I was able to get her to do it. She looked like she was going to pass out leading up to the piercing, but once it was done she didn't even flinch. "How was it?" I asked. "Fine."

And she smiled the rest of the day.

And now I have the opposite battle to fight with Sam, who now wants to get his ear pierced. I'm not sure how I feel about that. We live in a remote enough area that there's probably still a pretty good stigma around young boys with their ear(s) pierced so we'll just stick to the status quo and hold off on that one.

Giant Lincoln Logs

One of Seth's favorite toys as a kid was his Lincoln Log set. So I guess it's not surprising that he found a way to make a huge version of them for a pergola out on our patio. It's not quite finished, but we're looking forward to growing grapevines on it and having a little outdoor dining area. 

The kids and Coco all like climbing on it. The height combined with the occasional nail sticking out provides the kids with some quality risky play, which kids today apparently lack on a huge scale. So far Charlie has been very cautious about going up and Frankie is well aware that it is too high for him (Seth lifted him up, and Frank immediately wanted to come back down - a first for him!) so for the time being I don't think I need to worry about the smaller ones climbing up and falling off. 

Anyway, here's the project so far (can you spot Coco?):

A hodgepodge of quotes

Over the past few weeks, I've just been writing down cute or interesting things the kids say (mostly Charlie) so I won't forget them. These might be more interesting for me than the readers of the blog, but at any rate, here they are.

Charlie, looking in the mirror after I cut his hair shorter than he expected: "Why did you cut it so short?? I'm not Charlie anymore!"

------------------------------------------------------

Frankie, jumping up and down with excitement after I unlocked the garage door: "Yay!!! You did it, Mom! You did it!! High Five!" He's like my own personal cheerleader following me around to congratulate every tiny accomplishment.

-----------------------------------------------------

As we were getting ready for bed Charlie jumped down from the top bunk to the bottom, and his ear must have made a strange sound. He was trying to describe it to me (doctors, feel free to chime in on what the heck he might have been talking about): "When I jumped down from bunk, my ear made a noise like 'Ho-lo-lo-lo-lo' except bumpier. No, not like that, it was like 'Mo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo' except, no, it was like 'ho-lo-lo' but a lot bumpier...(this when on for awhile)...it was like the bumpiest thing in the world."
Shortly after that, as he was supposed to be falling asleep: "What if someone yelled in my ear so loud that my eardrum fell out....I hope that never happens. Cuz then I would keep saying 'What did you say? What did you say?' but I wouldn't hear anyone......I really hope that never happens to me...... And what would it feel like if you just stuck your eardrum back in after it fell out?" He seemed pretty dubious when I told him that eardrums don't fall out, they just become damaged or burst.

-------------------------------------------------------

Charlie must have heard someone use the "Good News, Bad News" delivery of information recently because lately he has been using this method of talking to people.
"Mom, I'll give you the good news first....The good news is Reed is home! The bad news is sometimes robbers break through windows and steal stuff."
 And this one: "Frankie, the good news is this breakfast is yummy. The bad news is (here he dramatically broke into song) We're going down for real!!!"

----------------------------------------------------

As we were eating I noticed Charlie was spending quite a long time focusing on his belly button. When I asked what he was doing he said, "I'm trying to get some quinoa through my belly button into my stomach.....Uh...now it's stuck."

---------------------------------------------------

Frankie gulped the last of my coffee the other morning, then looked at me with is cheeks puffed out as he held the coffee in his mouth. He must have decided he shouldn't have taken the last of it from me because he suddenly leaned over the cup and spit it all back in. Then he handed the cup to me and said, "Here you go! Drink it!" (I did not.)

And just for fun, here's Frankie singing The Wheels on the Bus:

Make-up Artist

Frankie was a bit too quiet today while I was putting away laundry upstairs. Ignoring my motherly intuition, I finished the job at hand before going to check on him. I had to say goodbye to an entire tube of lipstick (the color looks better on him than it did on me anyway) and then spent quite awhile washing his face, hands, feet, legs, shirt and inside his left ear. 

This is what I found:

It's about time

After 11 years of parenthood, we (and by we, I mean Seth) have finally made them a sandbox, and they are loving it. We had friends with a large amount of very fine, beach-like sand out in their pasture, and they were generous enough to let us take a truckload of it for free.

It's beautiful sand for playing in, perfect for making sand-castles and burying people. And it took us about 5 minutes to realize that we have created for ourselves a new battle. In addition to being as fun as beach sand, it's as sticky as beach sand. So every time the kids play in it, they are covered in a clinging sand that doesn't easily rub off. We've filled a little pool as a washing station for the kids and have the back porch fully stocked with old towels in hopes of keeping the sand from getting all over our house. Time will tell whether this endeavor was worth it or not. So far so good....