Father's Day

Let's face it. Are you surprised that I am late writing this? Nope. Not so much. I could be all sappy and sweet and go into detail about how wonderful various fathers are, and how much I love and appreciate them, but... that's just not my style. I tend to be more sarcastic and (I'd like to think) witty. However, I would like to wish all those special father's a Happy Belated Day (or weekend if you lived at my house). I do love and appreciate you! What is completely more my style is to tell you what I did, and show you a cute picture of my children.

Done and Done!

This is what we did for Daddy.

(Its pink because I needed the ink to show up. However, hubby can totally pull it off,

so don't judge).

And this is the after effects of said craft project. I love that I am trying to hold Dylan's hand out and open, and that is his other hand is playing with Kaitlyn's :)

Happy Father's Day to some wonderful people out there!

Nakie Baby

I guess I am not very good at letting the Dyl man go around without clothes on. The couple of time I have done it, his skin seems to be a new phenomenal thing to him. It's fun to watch him rub his hands over his tummy and legs :) Well, the other day (I'm not brave enough to go completely nakie) I left him in his diaper. The resulting cuteness is as follows :)

Love the tongue of concentration.

The kid doesn't even need a box. Just a coupla spoons. Can't resist that cute smile :)

Look mom!
This is pre second hair cut. Excuse the mullet please.

Just a silly short video. I especially love when he bangs on the chair, then cranes his cute little nakie neck over to investigate the noise.

One of THOSE days

Maybe its cuz I didn't sleep super well last night. Maybe its cuz they didn't sleep super well last night. Either way it is one of those days.

Yep. It's noon. Kari is quietly drawing in the corner. In her pajamas.

Kaitlyn gave up waiting for me to dress her and is wearing a leotard.

And doing ballet.

Dylan is dressed, but only because he wet through over night. He goes from this:

To this: To this. In a matter of seconds.Joy.

Pantie Raid

I had Dylan sitting on the bed while I was folding laundry. Sometimes it seems like it never ends. Wait. Maybe cuz it never does. Even when the baskets are empty, there is always something on your body. Enough grumping... Lets start again.

I had Dylan on my bed while I folded the laundry. As most children do (at least that is what I keep telling myself in order to stay sane) he was promptly unfolding whatever I folded as soon as I put it down. In an effort to A) stay sane, 2) keep my laundry folded, d) keep from flinging the child off the bed, I handed him something to play with. Something close to hand. Something that doesn't really need to be folded after all. It turns out, it was a pair of Kaitlyn's panties. He played with them a bit, throwing them around and stretching them (they are so little. The poor girl has no bum at all). And somehow they ended up on his head. In my current state, I thought this would be super fun and actually stretched them around his head. Amazingly, he didn't take them off. In fact, he kinda liked it. When they did, in fact, come off a bit later, he held them out to me in his pudgy little fingers, and "eh"ed at me until I got the hint and put them back on.

And bless my soul, I just couldn't NOT take a picture.

Oh sure, he looks sad in this picture, but that is only because Daddy put him down, because he didn't really want to be in the picture with his head pantie wearing son.

Hold me.
Close up!

Looks like some kind of fancy, blue and pink doo rag.

Cinderella. How I adore thee.

Again, I just could not NOT take a picture of the holes. Just could not NOT take a picture :)

Sign Language

Dylan doesn't have many words yet. He can say Daddy (and does whenever daddy walks in the door), Momma (on a much, much less constant basis), No, Dog, Stop, and Nana (for banana, but it really just translates to eat). We have tried some sign language with him. He can do more (which also translates to: I want that), and sometimes he will do eat and please.

However, I like to think children have a language of their own. For instance, when he squeals when his sister is "playing" with him, I like to think that translates to: "Sister dear, I don't appreciate you taking that toy away from me. Please return it so that I may continue to play in a quiet and docile fashion. Thank you." I also think that he is developing his own sign language. For instance:

When he looks like this:

I translate that to mean: "I'm hungry."

What do you think?

*Yes, I am holding a spoonful of spaghetti in one hand and the camera in the other.*

2/3 too many

I mentioned we get 2 games every day, right? Unfortunately that seems to be just a tad too many. One game isn't enough. Oh no. One game would leave us dragging our children to the car kicking and screaming in an embarrassing demonstration of how 1 game of bowling is simply not enough. However, 2 games. Yeah, somewhere before the second game is halfway over, you can tell they are bored. They no longer care about lobbing a 6 lb ball down a slippery piece of wood to see how many oblong other pieces of wood they can knock down. And, to be honest, somewhere during the second game (probably about 3.7 seconds after it becomes clear the children are no longer focused and interested) I start getting antsy about taking my currently well behaved miscreants home as well.

However, hubby and I actually do enjoy bowling (as evidenced by my fabulous game last night... 133. I know, right?!?!) And, it is also against my mildly OCD nature to leave something unfinished. Incomplete. In the middle. Uh, I shudder just thinking about it. (For the record, yes, I can turn off a song on the radio I don't like, but I have to fade it down. Apparently I can fool my brain into thinking that is where the song ends, and I don't go into OCD fits :)

Thankfully, my children are generally capable of entertaining themselves. Regardless of location, time or space. Also thankfully, they are generally well behaved, and while it always does take at least a few "No," "Get Down," "Be Quiet," and "Come back here" 's from me, I won't really complain.

Dylan doesn't bowl. But, also generally, he does pretty well.

He gets passed back and forth between mommy and daddy usually for the entire first game before he is confident enough to venture out onto the floor and explore.
See? Daddy looks so overjoyed to be a human jungle gym, right Honey? Uh, honey?

And the girls. At this point they have taken to semi wrestling, semi hugging.

But at least they are smiling.

How else do I keep Dylan happy? I seem to like sequence pictures, so see if you can follow along with the next 3 :)

Also, towards the end of the night they found this place. I have no idea what it was in their heads. I remember them being where the trash cans were, but apparently are no longer in our current establishment. They, however, did stay there for almost 20 minutes!

They even allowed little brother to play.

And, just a coupla cute boredom videos :) Enjoy!

Free Bowling

My fabulous friend Melissa turned me onto this. At first I thought it was a scam. That it had to be too good to be true. But, it turns out that it is really and truly fun! If you go to this website, depending on where you live, there may be a bowling alley near you that offers free bowling. You get 2 games every day of the summer (from the end of May to the beginning of Sept). Shoes aren't included. I looked into buying some, but I felt foolish spending $40 for shoes they would only wear for 3 months. So, I made some. I bought some of the cheapo canvas shoes at wallyworld, glued felt on the front half, and voila! Bowling shoes for $7. BTW, I didn't ask if this was ok. I just assumed it was. But, now it really is bowling for free!

For a nominal fee (less than $30) you can purchase 2 games for 2 adults every day also. Since hubby and I enjoy bowling (and also own our own bowling shoes from prior military days when hubby couldn't leave base so we would play $1 bowling games for our hour together) it is a good deal. Granted we are not going every day. But, at $5/game/person, we only needed to bowl 3 games each to pay it off, and we have done that already.

Anyway, so.... Tuesday night is bowling night at our house. The girls think it is pretty fun.

Loving the form here. Check out the calf muscles.

Daddy missed "helping" Kaitlyn push this one down the alley. Good thing we can be patient.
He got better at stepping in :)

Miss Independent. However, she is still doing a decent job.

But, it got tiring, so we tried a different way.

Different day (ironically same pants for Kari). And yes, Kaitlyn dressed herself. However, note the bowling shoes. And, Kaitlyn decided Kari would help her. Again, its a good thing we are in no hurry.

Such good helpers.

Here's the wind up. And the swing! Sometimes I wonder if they have shock absorption under them... For all the people who literally throw the ball (like Kari).

Then we found one of these things.

And it all went down hill from there.

Down hill.... Get it? I crack myself up :)

Howdy Howdy Howdy

Have I mentioned before that my husband is/wants to be a cowboy? No? Well, my husband wants to be a cowboy. He wants to live out in the middle of no where, ride horses and work cattle all day, come home encrusted with sweat and manure, and enjoy life. Yikes.... My skin crawls at just the thought of the laundry. As a result, my children seem to want the same things. Its strange, because he doesn't talk about it very often. Especially not around the kids. So, I have to think it is inherited somehow, rather than his influence, but... what do I know? Anyway, that is how we ended up with this cowboy hat.

And, amazingly, he kept it on.
It doesn't matter that he is playing with the tea set. Cowboys gotta drink somethin'!

This was on a different day (obviously) but still just as cute. Its almost like he is tipping his hat and saying "Howdy Ma'am" (instead of trying to take it off).

Dylan's Room

Remember, before my parents came, I talked about having a deadline. And how it made me finish some things. One of the things I mentioned was Dylan's room. And, although the 'rents didn't really see it like this, because it was re-arranged to fit them, this is what it looked like before they came :)

This is Dylan's dresser and clock (which he got for his birthday). I don't know if you can see, but it has animals all around it. You will see why in a minute. And, at the far right side of the frame, is the door out to the hallway.

His bedding. Again, kinda hard to tell from the picture, but, here is a link for those interested. The bed we also got from Wallyworld. And were surprised to find how happy we were with the quality. The rail even goes up and down, which we don't use anymore, but was very helpful before he could pull up on things. The little rocking chair was hubby's when he was a child. Seems to match, and fit right in. And yes, he has his own fan. He is hot blooded.

And here is the fabulous, fantastic, wonderful, gorgeous cabinet. Dylan has 2 piggy banks, but, since I had put them up there, Kaitlyn went and got her toy piggy bank to add to the collection. She made me turn it just right, "so you can see his face."

Didja recognize the cabinet? I'll betcha didn't. It came with the house, and was sitting down in the laundry room, see? I had hubby fix it up for me a bit. As you can see, there was a little piece missing from the bottom. But, I think it turned out great :)

The is the quilt from Dylan's bedding. We hung it up on the wall, as a piece of art. I need to finish his cross stitch birth announcement, and do his name to put on the wall like the girls.

This is the corner, with his toys on the floor and the cabinet and quilt.

And that's pretty much it.... For now.