Super Girls!

My mother likes to go to garage sales. It is possible I have mentioned this before. Today she found a Super Girl costume for Nora! Nora was too busy heading to the pool to worry about a new costume, but boy does she love it! After they tubbed, she asked if she could sleep in it, and then she slipped it over head, adjusted the cape, and picked out a book.

After we were done reading, she asked me to go get the camera because she had some good ideas for poses.

If you click on this photo to enlarge it, it will look like Nora has a black eye. She does not. The red eye removal made her look like she had been out fighting crime when really she has been in reading bedtime stories.

Look how mighty they are! And I am lucky enough to live with them!

I find them in this pose a lot lately. It makes me so happy to watch their friendship develop.

Nora is growing up so quickly! At the end of last summer, we went school shopping and picked out everything pink, and she only wanted dresses. As the year progressed, she changed her favorite color to turquoise and would only wear jeans. Like e-v-e-r-y s-i-n-g-l-e d-a-y. We used to snuggle up on the bed and read books for half an hour every night. Lately, more often than not, Nora stays on her bed and reads chapter books to herself while Dana and I read picture books together. It is bittersweet, this growing up. I love that she is learning and becoming independent, but I do miss that little girl. So when Nora put on this costume and asked to sleep in it, all I could think was, "You sleep in it as many nights as you want. Just be my baby girl forever!"

I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles...Pretty Bubbles in the Air!

Yesterday was another hot one. We spent about 5 hours next door in the pool. There was, of course, some in and out, and the girls spent some time blowing bubbles in the shade of the big umbrella on the picnic table.

Dana kept herself busy for about half an hour, which made for some fun photo ops. I like how her swimsuit coverup and the peony buds in the background are virtually the same hue.

I love this action shot, with the bubbles forming and floating, and her cheeks all puffed out.

Nora got in on the fun, too! I love this shot, how the bubbles look like they are on Dana's head.

By the way, Kevin is a "football" fan, hence the "Bubbles" song. United!

Dam It!

On Father's Day, we moved up Sunday dinner to Sunday brunch. This worked well as it was pretty durn hot out and the children were able to spend the day running between the pool and the beach. We call it the beach, but really it's a dump truck load of sand surrounded by a frame of large boulders, and it isn't on the shore of any water. But we call it the beach anyway because we like to.

The children collaborated on an ongoing project that has kept them busy for days now. See the green garden hose on the left? The kids were initially using it to dampen the sand so they could build things. Eventually, it sparked the "Dam It!" Project.

Here you see the kids working on their dam. It's in the back. See how they are building up a burm?

It's really hard to get a photo of, but I will try to explain. So they built up their dam in an attempt to make a lake. Their dam was made of sand. When they turned on the hose, it, of course, went right through the sand walls of the dam. And the children all shouted at one another: "Dam it! Dam it!" This is not to be confused with the inappropriate "Dammit!" They were shouting it as a command, with "dam" as a verb. Get it? Anyhoo, they turned off the hose and rebuilt the dam, this time higher. And, of course, the results were the same. The tall sand burm was washed into Grandma's garden. The adults finally offered some advice: build the dam out of something stronger than sand. Grandpa also had some advice: return all of the sand to the beach before turning on the hose again. This was less advice and more an order. They lost a LOT of sand when the dam broke.

With all of the shouts of "dam it!", some grown up thought it would be funny to name it Dam it Dam. Sadly, the name has stuck, and the children have spent the week saying things like, "When we're done practicing our cannonballs, do you want to go work on Dam it Dam?" Yep. I can't wait for them to tell their teachers how they spent their summer...

Hula Hoop Queen

I am completely in awe of my firstborn child. Watch this girl in action!

The crazy thing is that this clip is almost two minutes long! I had to edit it down because it was too big for Blogger to accept. Who the heck can hula hoop for two minutes, without a care in the world?

After I finished filming her, I asked Nora to teach me how to hula hoop because I have never been able to figure it out. She didn't have any luck with me, but I tell ya-I am so impressed with her skills. She says she just watched some kids at school and figured out how to hula hoop. And I think that is incredible! Because I watched her and I just cannot figure it out. I love this girl so much!

And, FYI, Blondie was her idea, not mine. I swear!

Snuggle Time at BBQ

Here are just a few photos from last week's Sunday dinner. The first two are of the baby whisperer in action.

We played Trivia after dinner while the kids played. Brooke took a little break to sit on Zak's lap.

And Dana needed some Zak time, too.

Dana's pretty happy here, hanging out with Uncle Sam and Diogi. The trick here is that if you gently blow on Diogi's nose, he will lick you. Dana enjoys that very much. Yeah, he's such a vicious pit bull.

School's Out for the Summer!

Thursday was Nora's last day of school, so we decided to have some friends over for dinner.

After eating pizza, the children enjoyed ice cream cones, courtesy of Jodi and Miles. I love Nora and Ayla snuggled up together on the bench in their costumes.

Later, we got out the play dough ice cream set and they all got busy. There was a lot of play outside, too. It was a really fun night, and a great start to summer vacation!

We spend almost all of our time in Grandma and Grandpa's pool in the summer. This year, the kids decided they wanted to help Grandpa clean it out. It wasn't very warm out, but they all threw on their rubber boots, selected appropriate tools and climbed in!

It is currently 42 degrees and windy, so I am not sure when they will enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they were pretty proud of their hard work.

Starting June off with DRAMA!

Can you believe this sad mug?

What crime did this mama commit? I cut the sandwich into triangles instead of squares.

I know it's typical for a preschooler to get bent out of shape about something like this, but I still can't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. She's so mad at me!

We're on the countdown to the end of school: only four days left!