Lyla's jeep

Just a couple cute pictures of Lyla in her jeep. She loves this thing.

Poor Lyla...maybe she'll wear shoes now

Last Friday Lyla stubbed her toe on my neighbor's wooden deck and put a splinter under her toenail! You couldn't even see the end of the splinter it went in so far. She never complained about it though. My neighbor said she doesn't even know when she did it. She never cried or anything. She just happen to look down and see her toe and asked Lyla what she did. You know that had to have hurt! She's a tough little thing! So, I had to take her to a podiatrist today. They had to remove part of her toenail to get the splinter out. He said it could get infected if we left it. They numbed her toe with freezing spray and then gave her shots in her toe to numb it all the way. She sat in my lap the whole time and I had to restrain her. It was not fun! She didn't just cry, she did the screaming cry the entire time. The shots hurt I know but after that she was just scared. The doctor kept telling me what he was doing so I would realize she was crying from fear and not pain. Her scream/cry continued whether he was touching her or not. She even continued the scream/cry into the bathroom after we were done, into the waiting room while I paid my co-pay, and into the car. She finally calmed down in the van when I promised cotton candy and an icee for lunch! I asked her what she wanted and that's what she said, so that's what we got. She was fine after that, even walking normally. The doctor told me to soak it in warm water and vinegar 2x a day and put a new band aid on. When we got to Joni's (Grace was with Joni) Grace and Reesi wanted to soak their feet. After seeing them do it Lyla agreed to soak her toe too. It wasn't hurting but as soon as the band aid came off and she saw the blood on the band aid and the red toe, she lost it. Once a new band aid was on she was fine again. She's been running around and riding her bike this afternoon like nothing is wrong. She was even going to kick her soccer ball but I convinced her that might make her toe hurt. She's a tough little cookie! Sorry for the graphic pictures below but I wanted to record this splinter, it's one for the record books. The doc said it went past her nail bed!
This was in the van after she calmed down. That poor little face was so sad.

This was at Joni's when she decided to soak her toe and get a new band aid.
Gross! I can't stand to look at it. I try to tell her it's not bad I want to gag every time I look at it. I'll keep the close-up shot to myself.

Maybe now this little stinker will wear her shoes. This isn't the first splinter she's had in her feet, just the worse. She refuses to keep shoes on. If anyone knows of a type of shoes that a non-shoe kid will actually wear I'll pay any amount of money for them. I've already tried crocs and that didn't even work.

Fireworks!

We saw fireworks for the first time this season on Sunday night. Every year our church has an ice cream social with patriotic music and a fireworks show. These were the only pictures I got. Last year neither one of them liked the fireworks and we had to leave early but this year they really enjoyed it!

Gutman

Lyla and Grace like to drink from these juice bottles that have different characters on the top. I bought a couple new ones for our drive to the beach last week. I bought the Superman for Lyla because I knew she would like this, she's very "into" boy stuff right now. She loved it, of course. Later in the day she kept asking for her gutman and I had no idea what she was saying. I finally figured it out that she was calling Superman, Gutman. I tried to tell her he was called Superman but she would not believe me. She insisted that it was Gutman because Joni told her so! We had this debate 3 or 4 times during our trip. When we got back home I asked Joni about this and she said she had no idea what Lyla was talking about! She is still calling him Gutman and will not accept any correction from us. How funny! That's Lyla, extremely determined and sure she is right! I wonder where she got those traits?

The Zoo

The girls looking at the Zebra. Two guys standing behind them were cracking up because Reesi kept laughing and saying, "I can see their bottoms!" (referring to the animals, of course)The petting zoo...the girls enjoyed grooming the goats.


The picture is an attempt to show all three of them together with their souvenirs, a stuffed animal on a walking leash. Reesi got an alligator, which she named Brenda, Grace got a monkey that she named Fallie and Lyla got a giraffe that she kept calling a zebra. We kept trying to tell Lyla is was a giraffe but she didn't care. It was a zebra to here. Joni and I agreed that we bought these for the girls because we both remember wanting this type of toy when visiting theme parks when we were kids but were never allowed such a special treat. The attempt at a group picture didn't go so well....This is a picture of bamboo growing at the zoo. I took this picture because Joni has this "alien weed" growing in her backyard and it is impossible to kill! We noticed as we walked through the zoo that most of the shade along the path was actually really big bamboo. I told her she should just let it grow and then harvest it for new bamboo floors for her house.Weird looking lemur...Reesi and Grace walking their new pets while in serious conversation about them.

Cool tiger... Weird ostrich....we saw one of the ostrich do something that we both agreed must have been poop and were TOTALLY grossed out! I'll keep the details to myself.
Reesi and Lyla debating something about the zebra we were looking at.

Movie Night

The day after we got back from the beach Joni said, "How about I keep your girls this afternoon and you keep Reesi tonight?" So, she took Grace and Lyla for some playtime and I took Reesi for movie night. The girls really missed Reesi on our trip. On the way home they kept asking to see her immediately when we got back. We didn't get to do that but they did eagerly go to Reesi's to play the next day. They seem to get along better after they've been apart for a little while. It was a good day for the cousins. They had popcorn and a movie while Joni and Larry had a night out. They kept laughing hysterically at the Garfield movie they were watching and I tried to catch the laughs but I don't think my pictures do it justice.

The Beach

We're back from our much anticipated beach trip! The girls had a blast and so did we. Julie's mother-in-law graciously rented her condo to us and then some friends from church got condos in the same complex and we made it a group vacation! It was great. We even brought 2 babysitters with us. We felt so grown up. They kept the kids at night so the adults could go to dinner kid-free. It was the best money we spent on the vacation! It was so nice to be able to enjoy dinner and get to know our friends better without chasing kids and talking over tired, crying children.

This condo had three pools and the girls loved that. We spent the first couple of days at the beach and then a day at the pool. Matt, one of our friends, brought a jet ski with him and gave rides to whoever wanted one. The girls were all over that. Grace went first. The waves were a little rough and I thought they should ride with Matt since he was more experienced but they wanted to ride with Eric. Grace loved it until a wave pushed her and Eric over and that was the end of her excitement. Eric did get her back on but then it tipped again while he was trying to climb on. She panicked and Matt had to swim out to them to get the jet ski back to shore. Grace wouldn't get back on. Thankfully, they had life jackets on but it wasn't deep anyway. Eric could stand up and touch the bottom. Grace wanted to go again but was too scared to go with Eric and too shy to ride with Matt. Lyla, on the other hand, is afraid of nothing. She rode with Eric and Matt. Matt said she had her eyes squinted shut the whole time because the water was spraying in her face but she didn't care. He said he would ask her if she was having fun and she would just shake her head yes. Then he'd ask if she was ready to go back and she would just shake her head no, all the time having her eyes shut tight. She's our little daredevil. Grace will do most anything too but with a little coaxing.

On the last day we took the girls to Shipwreck Island, a water park. It was really fun. They had a kiddie area that they loved but they also had some "big people" water slides. The best part was that the girls were able to ride a couple of the big people rides with us. The first one we went on was a water slide that you get in a big inner tube with several people. The four of us could ride together. Grace was nervous at first. I had to drag her into the inner tube. Lyla was the first one in! Then, by chance, Grace ended up facing backward all the way down. She cried the whole way down and Lyla screamed and laughed the whole way. It was funny to watch the difference in their faces during the exact same experience. When we got to the bottom though Grace was ready to try again. She loved it after that. I think we rode that ride about 8 times that day. There was another ride that you sat on a mat to go down. You could put two people on each mat. They both loved that one too. We only rode that one twice because the line was longer and we didn't like the wait. We stayed at the park from about 11am to 5:15pm. They had so much fun. We had to force them to leave because the park closed at 5:30pm.

One little story I want to record happened the third night we were there. After we got back from dinner we got the kids ready for bed and then I decided I wanted to go to bed too. So, I went to bed and Eric finished the bedtime routine. The girls had some trouble falling asleep though. I stayed in bed and listened to the yelling match unfold and just let Eric handle it. The girls were exhausted but had taken a small nap that afternoon and I guess that messed us up at bedtime. So after he got them in bed and went downstairs Grace started yelling for him. He kept telling her to go to sleep. She kept saying she wanted me to come lay with her. He kept telling her I was asleep. Finally, he came back upstairs and all was quiet for about 5 minutes while he was talking to her. When he went back downstairs she started yelling and crying again. This time she was yelling this:

"I have to say something. It's not nice but I just have to say it. (pause) (in a dramatic cry) I hate Adam and Eve! I know it's not nice but I do. I just hate them. It's all their fault. (more pause, more dramatic crying) It's all their fault. I just hate them."

This went on for a while. Finally Eric got her quiet and asleep some how. The next day I asked Eric what that was all about and he said that when he went up there the first time he explained to her that she was being selfish by wanting to wake me up just to tell me goodnight. He told her that it was selfish to do something to make someone else uncomfortable just to help yourself. That's when she decided that it was all Adam and Eve's fault that she was selfish. She thinks that she is selfish because Adam and Eve sinned. If they hadn't disobeyed God and sinned, then we wouldn't do bad things and therefore, she wouldn't be selfish. I wish I could remember exactly everything she yelled that night. It wasn't very funny in the moment but the next morning we had a good laugh.

Overall our trip was a great vacation. We were so happy to have our friends, Anne and Greg and Matt and Liz there with us. It was so much fun to hang out and get to know each other better. Who knows? Maybe this will become an annual trip for all of us.

Thank you Lynn and Ed Corlew for sharing your great condo with us. It was the best place we could have stayed!

The Beach-The 1st Day

The Beach-The 2nd Day

The Beach-Good Friends

The Beach-Photo Shoot

Bubblemania

Last week the girls spent the night at my sister Julie's house. They had a blast. Julie and my mom took them to a sprinkler park which was a hit until a stick jumped up and scratched Graces' foot. Someone always has to get hurt. Then they had a major bubble bath in Julie enormous jacuzzi bath tub. I think someone went a little crazy pouring in the bubbles. Joni took the pictures and says they made bubble mohawks, bubble boobies, bubble pregnant bellies, bubble beards and more. They had to get in the shower to get all of the bubbles off! How fun!

Bubblemania!

The Wedding Weekend

This past weekend we went to Rockport again for a family wedding. Eric's cousin, Melissa, was getting married. She had also asked our girls to be flower girls in the wedding. They were very excited about this opportunity! They gave Grace and Lyla beautiful pink dresses that even came with cute little matching dresses for their dolls. The girls looked beautiful. The entire wedding party did too. The hardest part was keeping the girls under control before the wedding began, during the wedding and afterwards while pictures were being taken. By the time the reception came we were all ready to let them run free! In fact, this picture is how I would describe our evening! Chasing Lyla (and Grace).

When we were walking to the reception, just across the parking lot, Lyla spotted a playground and asked to go there. I told her we were going to a party now and she squealed with excitement. We walked in and she looked around and asked, "but where are the jumpy things?" The girls had a blast running in circles and dancing together and with Eric's family members. It was a late night but they had fun! I think everyone enjoyed seeing family that we don't see on a regular basis too.

Before the Wedding

The Wedding and Reception

A quiet playdate

Grace and Reesi are the best of friends, but Lyla is a different story. Lyla knows exactly which buttons to push to drive Reesi crazy and Reesi falls for it every time. However, we have figured out that it is not so much that they don't get along as it is the number three. Joni said she remembered one of her grad professors always said never put students in groups of three to work because two will work together and the third will be left out. I think that is exactly what happens with Grace, Reesi, and Lyla. Grace and Reesi always buddy up and poor Lyla is left out. To get attention she pushes buttons.

The other day Joni took only Lyla home to play with Reesi. Reesi and Lyla played all afternoon together with not one problem. Joni said she got a ton of laundry done because they did so well. It was sweet to see them bond like that when they normally don't get the chance. They just needed some alone time together.

The picture is of them taking a break from playing because they were "tired". They said they were taking a nap. Yeah, right! That lasted for about 2 minutes!

Time at Mimi and Papoo's

We've been to Rockport (Indiana) for the past two weekends. Here are a couple of pictures of the girls having fun at my parent's house. Art at the dining room table.
Watching cartoons
Riding the Gator. This is a favorite activity of the girls. I love Lyla's Scooby hat!
Running from Sophie. Mom and Dad have a new golden retriever, Sophie. The girls like her but she jumps and so they run and scream.
More time on the Gator!