Weekend highlights:

Shopping highlights: I found a pair of sneakers for alex at Target for $2.50. Sweet. Better yet: he can put them on without assistance. It doesn’t get much better than that… I also dropped in at Goodwill to see if they would take some donations (they weren’t) but I went inside to see what they had. I came out with an armload full of goodies for less than $5. Nice. I found a huge old wooden crate – the kind I’d probably pay at least $15 for at Hobby Lobby – for $2. Jory was impressed.
In other news, I got an email from one of the kids I babysat for in college who I haven’t heard from in about 4 years. Turns out she has a new baby brother (that makes 7 kids in her family now). Of course I had to write back and send her a link to our blog. So if you read this HI JORDYN!!!
Jory and I went and bought some stones for a landscaping project we’ve been meaning to do for about 2 years now. The only problem now is that we have to put them in. The past few days have been HOT and muggy, and the mosquitoes are out of control. If I get these stones in by September I’ll be happy.
In the words of a happy 4 year old: That’s all I had to tell ya, bye!

Exhale.

Well, we survived. Bible school has ended, and we’re still alive. Just barely. The girls have been asleep by 7 pm the last few nights. Nice. Tonight we are going to the family night at the church - so the parents can meet the teachers, and see all the cool stuff the kids have done this week. I’ve skipped out the last few years, because I’m too lazy to pack it back into town, but Jory insists on going this year, so we’re going. Even though the kids will all be tired and cranky.
We had some more rain last night. I don’t know what the deal with the rain is this summer, but we’ve just gotten one torrential down poor after another. And you know what that means. More standing water. My ditch was only dry for about 12 hours (I’m not exaggerating) from the last down poor 2 weeks ago, when the new storm came through. Blech.
Ok, a few kid funnies that I’ve been meaning to write down:
Annie playing peekabo: “where’s me?”
Louisa playing chase: “here comes me!”
Alex telling Jory about Bibleschool: you give the operating (offering) to the lady so that Jesus can play with his mashed potatoes. (??)

Catching up

Well, it was an interesting weekend in my house. On Friday I was trying to get the kids out the door when I hear thud, ouchie! Ouchie!! I ran into Alex’s room and saw his curtain cord swinging and a slash of rope burn across his neck. Lovely. Mother of the year. That’s me. That one was close. But he’s fine.
Friday evening I went with my mom and two of my uncles to a baseball game at Comerica park (in Detroit) to watch the Detroit Tigers play. Totally cool and out of the ordinary event for me. The best part: Jory stayed home with the kids – so I got the night off. Ahhhhhh
Fortunately for all of us, the rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful.
Which brings me up to this week – Vacation Bible School. Alex is in the Pre-k class I’m teaching Kindergarten. I should have learned my lesson last year when we had 25 kids, but no. This year started with 28 wiggly kiddos (our #’s will most likely increase before the week is over) fortunately we have a great leadership group for our class (2 adults, 4 teens), which takes some of the strain off. But that’s still a lot of kids who haven’t had much schooling, and are not all that familiar with a structured classroom environment. Can you say chaos?
I was so drained by the end of the day all I could think about was throwing my kids and bed and hitting the sack myself. Sadly none of my kids wanted to go along with my plan. I’m so glad I’m not a working mother, there’s no way I could do this every day.

Too pooped to pout.

After a long, tiring day of giving Mommy a hard time, Louisa is too pooped to throw a fit over her dinner.

Misc. ramblings

The girls are all about the pretend play this week. Annie’s a baby, Louisa’s a cat. They like to swim (actually laying down moving their arms) down the hall. Annie’s stuck in the mud (??) These are reoccurring themes in our house.
Alex is with Grandma at the lake for a few days. He was supposed to be home last night, but Mom called me at 9:45 last night to let me know he was still at the lake. Sweet. Keep him for a week or two. Oh come on, don’t tell me you’ve never been overjoyed that one of your kids was far away for a few days. The screaming when he doesn’t get his way-dumping out toy boxes to find a single matchbox car-asks way to many questions-four year old.
I transformed the girls’ cribs into toddler beds last night. The railings were doing nothing to hinder their ability to escape, so off they came. I don’t know how many times they got yelled at last night for escaping, but it was a bunch.

On a lighter note

The pool is open! There are a few more in flickr, but they're not that good. This is Louisa

History

So yesterday I told you all about the lovely new bug zapper we had. Notice I say we HAD. It is no longer in residence. Gone. Disappeared. History. Either the local bug population organized and hired someone to take it away, or some local punk was just as tired of being eaten alive as we were. Either way, it’s back to hiding from the skeeters again. It wasn’t even around long enough to have it’s pic taken.

Birthday weekend

It was a crazy weekend around here. It kicked off on Friday afternoon when Jory, Alex Grandma and Papa Peterson took Alex to his first movie in a theatre. They went to see Cars, which everyone enjoyed. Saturday was a flurry of wrapping and unwrapping, dinner hosted by Bob Evans, an ice cream cake, and more presents.
Sunday my in-laws headed back to New Mexico. I spent most of my day attempting to maintain my perfectly clean house (which I failed miserably). I truly enjoyed having another me around to split the burden with. Between Ginger and I, we managed to keep the house clean, a pitcher of juice in the fridge, and the children tidy for an entire week. That’s definitely a record. I’ll miss having clean kids.
For Alex’s birthday my parents gave me a bug zapper (like the one featured in A Bug’s Life – “no! don’t go to the light!” “I can’t help it! It’s so beautiful…) I had mixed feelings about it, but when I went and looked at it the next morning, it had successfully murdered at least a thousand skeeters, ticks and other creepy crawlies. Yuck.
So after church yesterday I dragged out the baby pool, thinking (mistakenly) that my yard was skeeter free. I did notice there were fewer blood suckers buzzing around my ears, but when I brought the girls in, they each had at least half a dozen bites each. Lovely.

Skeeter food.

So last summer was all about the raspberries. Raspberry pancakes, cakes, Popsicles, etc. etc. Seems like all my entries were about the raspberries. So this summer is all about the mosquitoes. One of the joys of living in a heavily wooded area. Don’t go outside without bug spray on. Better yet. Just stay inside. This is me, hiding from the mosquitoes. My dad sprayed, the city sprayed. My house is still surrounded by a cloud of them.
Let’s go to the park today. Fat chance
The zoo? I don’t think so.
Welcome to Ohio, Grandma and Papa – sorry we can’t go outside and enjoy the lovely day. I don’t feel like being skeeter food today.
We got a few more inches of rain yesterday. My yard is flooded again. (like ¼ an acre is completely submerged) I have no idea how many inches we’ve gotten this year, but my ditch hasn’t been dry since May.
Grandma P says lets go out and drive our trucks through the mud puddles. (more commonly known as New Mexico “lakes”) Nah.

Visiting

Over the weekend we went out to the lake to visit with some of my aunts/uncles/cousins/grandmother who were up visiting for the weekend. 12 people crammed into the lake house. It rocked. We played in the water, cleaned out the Amish bakery, played cards, caught up on some reading, and just chilled. I gave the kids some swimming lessons in the lake. The girls had their shoulders in the water, which is huge since they wouldn’t go in past their ankles in NC.
But now we’re home and Jory’s parents are here. I’m getting way spoiled with all these other people around taking care of my kids, cooking and cleaning up after us. Reality is going to be harsh when they go.

Itchy itchy scratchy scratchy

Have I mentioned the mosquitoes are bad around here? I think I counted about 20 bites on my arms and legs yesterday. 13 of them are on my left hand. Ouch! My mom told me about a benedryl lotion I should use, and I’m about break down and find some. Of course the skeeters are all parked over my raspberry bush. Ugh.
I have some family up from West Virginia this week, we don’t have anything specific planned yet, but I imagine our visit will include eating, playing in the water, and card games of some kind.

Family outing

Yesterday, after 3 days of being cooped up at home, Jory and I decided to take the kids on an outing. We took the kids out to the Marblehead Lighthouse on lake Eerie. We had great weather, and the kids had a ball scrambling around on the rocks. Sure, the place was packed because it was a holiday, but that didn’t stop us.

Other than that, our weekend wasn’t all that exciting. Jory discovered (through trial and error) how to make some terrific bread and I picked raspberries. The kids were cooped up inside because the mosquito population around here is out of control. (Did I mention that our community still has standing water from that flood 2 weeks ago? Lovely)