Need Yard Art?

Friday I watched Max again and we also had Reesi for a few hours that morning. I needed something new for them to do. I searched a few websites for activities or crafts but I couldn't find anything that seemed right or I had all of the supplies for. So, this is what I came up with. My idea was to make pet rocks. I remember doing this as a kid with smaller pebble-type rocks. I actually glued tiny rocks on it for the legs and googly eyes for a face. We don't have little pebbles in our yard so we used big rocks. I think they turned out pretty cute. The kids enjoyed it. It made a big mess but that's ok. I'd rather have an artistic mess to cleanup than a floor covered in random toys that weren't really played with. We had paint, glitter and glitter glue to use. I even found some googly eyes, pompoms and beads to use as well. I took lots of pictures, of course. Here they are...

Grace's artistic hand...

Lyla's artistic hand...
Max...proud of his work
Reesi...concentrating
Reesi's artistic hand...
Grace's creation

Reesi's creation

Max's creation

Lyla's creation

Silly Lyla, she loves to play with her tool bench.

Just a silly picture

Silly Grace

Super Heros, Soccer and Wrestling

This week I babysat my friend, Stephanie's little boy, Max. The girls have had a blast having a playmate at the house. Here are a few pictures of Wednesday with Max. They "watched" the movie Underdog (mainly while jumping from the furniture and pretending to fly) which inspired them to become their own super heros. After flying around the bonus room for a while they took their powers outside. They needed something to launch from so I turned some big flowerpots upside down. That is what Grace and Max are doing in the picture of them standing on something outside. That was their superhero pose. Notice Grace's crazy outfit for her superhero duties. After that they played soccer for a while, swam in the pools off and on all day long, had a few rounds of popsicles and Max taught Lyla how to wrestle. She had to take her shirt off just like Max because she was hot too, is what she said. This was right up her alley. Grace tried to wrestle some too but that didn't work out so well. She got hurt too easily so she was out after a couple rolls on the living room floor.

Our Long and Busy Weekend

Last week the girls and I began our weekend on Wednesday. I spent the morning helping Joni get her new classroom ready while Larry babysat all 3 girls. This was not Larry's idea of fun! Anyway, that afternoon Joni and I drove to our parents' house. Thursday the girls just played all day. Their favorite thing to do right now is the water slide. They also had fun on the gator, Papoo's "buggy" (a dune buggy) and all of the toys Mimi pulls out for them when they visit. Joni and I relaxed! I stayed in my pj's all day and Joni read an entire book I think. It was nice.

That night Eric drove down and then we went to Holiday World on Friday morning. It was the next to last weekend before school starts and you could tell. The park was packed! The intense heat caused us, along with 99% of the rest of the patrons, to go to the water park first! It was nice but very crowded. The girls love the big slides but the waits were long. We rode 2 big slides together and Eric took Grace down another. Eric's sister, Angela, met us there and we enjoyed seeing her and riding some rides together. That afternoon we went to the regular park. The girls loved those rides too! I don't think there was one that they didn't like. Poor Reesi was another story though. She only liked a couple rides that I know of. The Raging Rapids got her quite upset when she came out dripping wet. Grace kept calling it the Raging Rabbits.

Overall, it was a fun day. It was long and hot but the girls had fun. I'm glad amusement parks are a once a year thing though!

The next morning we helped Mimi and Papoo shuck 11 dozen ears of corn to cook and freeze for eating on this coming winter. My parents have done this for years. It's so good that way that you'll never buy another can of corn after you've frozen it fresh.

That afternoon Eric, me and the girls went to the annual Gardner Family Reunion. It was hot but not too bad. The girls enjoyed the egg toss and a couple of games of bingo. After that we headed to Eric's parents' house for swimming. I think Grace would swim 12 hours a day if she could! We went to dinner that night with Eric's extended family and then drove back to Nashville that night. Eric started complaining of a headache that evening. We got home at 11:30pm and went straight to bed. Eric didn't get up the entire next day! He was throwing up and had a massive headache the entire day! A bad ending to a very long weekend. Luckily, the girls and I haven't shown any signs of the illness yet! Let's keep our fingers crossed. :)

Shucking Corn and More Holiday World

A Very Busy Weekend!