The New Swing at Papoo's Farm

When we were at Grace's ballet recital the girls found a tree swing and rope swing on the church property and really enjoyed playing on them. So Papoo went back to his farm and recreated the swings for the girls. He made a swing on one of the big trees in his backyard that overlook a large valley. The ropes are really long so the swing can go really high! I swung on it first and had to tell him to stop pushing because it was high enough! Then he also put a single rope with a knot on the end for them to hang on and swing out over the valley. They really like them. They are pretty fun to swing on, I have to admit. My pictures don't really convey how high they are swinging. The valley is full of poison ivy so I couldn't really get under them to get a good picture of how high they were going.

Father's Day

Here are the pictures of Grace and Lyla making Eric, Papaw Gardner and Papoo Wade's Father's Day gifts. I forgot to put them with the earlier post about Father's Day.

Lyla Camp

Last week Grace went to Writer's Camp with her preK buddy, Addie. Addie's mom is a kindergarten teacher and does this camp each summer for kindergarten and first grade kids. I told her I'd take Ford each day (Addie and Ford are brother and sister) for Lyla to play with while she took Grace for camp each day. She told Ford he was going to Lyla Camp for the week. They had a great time playing together. On one of the days I took them to the Nature Center. I tried to snap a couple of pictures. They're so cute together. I wish they would go to the same elementary schools. That's the difference in a small town and a big city!

Bike Wreck!

Last weekend I took Lyla to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Eric said he was going to take Grace for a bike ride while we were gone. When I pulled in the driveway after the party Eric's truck wasn't there, which I thought was odd. Then just a couple of seconds later, he pulled in the driveway. I looked over and saw that his chin looked bloody. Then he held up his hand through the window and I saw a dark place on the palm of his hand. I thought he had an accident and was coming home from getting stitches! He had actually driven to the Rec. Center with their bikes in the back of his truck. Then they went riding on the trails around the Rec. Center and into downtown Franklin. At some point on the ride, Grace was in front of Eric and she hit her brakes rather quickly. Eric gripped his handlebar brakes out of reflex and it made his back tire come up off the ground. He popped a wheely in reverse! He flew over the handle bars of his bike and landed face first on the asphalt bike trail. He scraped his chin and shoulder and put several scrapes and cuts on his hands. He also hurt his chest on the handle bars of the bike. He ended up going to the doctor later in the week because his chest was hurting so much. They said they thought he might have cracked a rib or two but it didn't seem like anything was out of place. He had me help clean up his scrapes though. It was really gross. I don't handle blood very well at all. I got sick at stomach and had to sit down and eat a granola bar so I wouldn't feel like I was going to throw up. I definitley couldn't be a nurse!

My Dad Rocks

Grace and I found a cute craft idea for Father's Day in my Family Fun magazine. The idea was to put three rocks in a row and paint them to look like a dad. The top rock would be the head with yarn glued on for the hair and googly eyes. The middle rock would be painted to look like a shirt and then we would write with a Sharpie "My Dad Rocks". Get it? Rocks? Anyway, the bottom rock would be painted to look like a pair of pants. This was going to be their Father's Day (or as Lyla calls it, Dad's Day) present for Eric. We even went on an adventure to the river to gather rocks. We came back with an entire bucket full of rocks. I tried to explain that in order to actually make this craft it would require a few different steps. We would have to paint some, then let it dry before glueing things to it or writing on it or painting more things on it. They said OK but when they finished painting their 3 rocks each in less than 10 minutes they didn't want to stop. This meant that the craft idea went out the window. I suspected that this might happen though. They're not too good at multiple step projects yet. They ended up just painting all over most of the rocks in one sitting. Oh well, it was a cute idea.

Summertime!

Joni bought a pool for her backyard this summer. She asked me if I thought she should. I told her that I thought the girls would love it but that would mean we would be at her house every single day. I didn't know if she would want that! She bought it anyway and the girls love it!!! It is only a few feet deep but a perfect size for them. Reesi is very calm in the pool and wants to "relax" with her floaties most of the time. But Grace and Lyla are wild, as usual. They want to jump and splash and be crazy. This doesn't go over well with Reesi, the pool diva. I wish Grace and Lyla had a little of the relaxing mentality most days. Reesi is putting up with them and I appreciate that. I really haven't taken very many pictures of them in the pool yet. Here is what I have so far...

Better late than never...

So I just figured out that I totally forgot to post these pictures. They are from Lyla's "Moment's with Mom" party at preschool in May. Every year at preschool we have a party to celebrate the moms. The moms get special handmade gifts from the kids and a special photo and picture matte. Lyla's teachers gave each child a little end of the year gift as well. The white sunglasses were in her gift.

Lyla liked her teachers this year. Ms. Sherry and Ms. Mallory. It was funny that the class of kids didn't really call them by their names though. They just referred to both of them as "Teacher". When Lyla would talk to me about them she would say, "you know, the short one".....or....."you know, the tall one." I thought that was pretty funny.

I think I look funny in this picture (and most other pictures). But I was saying something in this picture which always messes up a picture.

This is Lyla's best buddy, Ford. We love our Fordie!

Next year will be Lyla's last year of preschool! Can you believe it? I can't. She just doesn't seem big enough to be in pre-k.