A Girl's Night

Last Friday night Eric went to play cards with some friends and Grace decided we were going to have a girls night. They decided exactly what we were going to do. First, they wanted to take a bath, then we made pancakes for dinner, then they wanted their fingernails and toenails painted, then it was movie time, or as they call it, a "special night". So, there are the pictures of the crazy girls. They had chocolate chips to put in their pancakes. They ate too many chocolate chips before the pancakes were done! They had fun and enjoyed our girls only night. They wanted their nails painted like a zebra. I did the best I could with the polish I had. They were fine with it, thank goodness. They ended up turning the radio on in the bathroom and having their own little dance party. They're funny. After that, it was movie time. It was a good night with just the girls!

A Flashback

When I was a kid with Julie and Joni we used to dress up in Mom and Dad's clothes. I remember wearing one of Mom's long slips as a dress with something underneath that was supposed to make me look pregnant. I know Mom has the pictures somewhere. Anyway, that is what I thought of when Grace and Lyla came downstairs dressed in our clothes.

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.