Slightly Modest

It's hot here. Very hot. Waaay to hot to live in a hundred year old house without Air Conditioning. So to get through these next two days of heat wave I bought a little plastic pool for the kids to splash around in. As soon as breakfast was over this morning the girls were in their suits and out the door.

Obie wanted to go too and brought me his swim trunks, but he must be feeling a little bit self conscious around his mama because when I stripped off his diaper he shouted, "No Nake!!" and grabbed the closest thing to him to cover up with.

Who would have guessed that a little pink Polly Pocket princess dress would fit right over a toddler winky??

Friday Foto

Monday Movies!

Here's a little movie I took at Maggie's soccer game this past Saturday. I used our regular camera, but it came out alright. Maggie is number 1. She did a lot of falling down during the game. Mostly she stopped the ball by sliding into it. This week at home we're going to work on running and stopping before she falls down. The kid has hustle, though, that's for sure!

Hailey is number 6, and Avery is number 4. The other kids on her team are Mackenzie, number 2 and Maggie's friend as well as the coach's daughter, Sam is number 5, and Caleb is number 3. The team we played this week was pretty equal in skills to our team. Last week Maggie made a break away goal! (The team they were playing wasn't very good.) The week before that the team they played was very good - with a couple of very big boys who seemed to have been born playing soccer. So this last game was fun because neither team was being beaten to a pulp. Maggie has two more games and I'll bring the video camera next week to try and get a better movie.

Enjoy!

Friday Foto

MN Children's Museum

We took a trip up to the Twin Cities last Sunday to celebrate Mother's Day and Rob's Birthday. In between what Rob wanted to do and what I wanted to do, we squeezed in something for the kids: The Minnesota Children's Museum.

Look! A Mouse!!

Excavating!!

Maggie Turtle

Beatrice Turtle

We bought a season pass and I'm certain we'll be going back often!

Go Ask Your Dad

Maggie (from the bathroom): "Mom... yesterday, there was something that I ate... and after I ate it, today my poop's very sloppy. What was it??"

Why is it that this is the sort of conversation starter that my days are filled with? There was a time not so long ago that I had real conversations... about literature, art, theology, even current events. Now I discuss poop with my children. The texture of poop. The color of poop. What kind of poop comes from birds and bugs and reptiles. Why poop stinks. Why food turns into poop. Why does an apple help you poop but a banana stop you from pooping. Poop Poop Poop. I'm evidently the answer man when it comes to poop because the questions keep coming.

And while I sit here pondering the lack of intelligent conversation going on around here, Obie toddles in with a half chewed tortilla that he just stuck too far in his mouth and then gagged back out. He hands it to me and, well, what's a mom to do? I take it. So I have poop on the brain and masticated mush in my hand. This is not quite the job I signed up for, is it???

But he did say, "Jee Ju", which means thank you. See... being a Stay At Home Mom isn't a thankless job after all.

Friday Foto

I've gotten behind on the blog again lately. I'm still trying to get on here to do an update about Obie being 18 months old. Pretty soon it'll be 19 months!

Here's the Friday Foto from last Friday. The kids were watching some YouTube videos, possibly of the Swedish Chef.

And here's today's Foto. I wanted to get all three kids into Obie's crib now that it's set up as a Big Boy Bed. Unfortunately Obie won't get anywhere near his bed unless I'm tossing him in and running like he's a bomb about to explode.

Which actually works really well as a process for getting him to sleep through the night in his big boy bed. I turn out the lights and set him in bed. He screams for a moment while hoping to gain my sympathy, but then tiredness takes over and he goes to sleep. Sometimes he gets out of bed to bang on the door, but that also only lasts for a minute before he gives up and climbs back into his comfy bed to sleep. He's been sleeping from bedtime until at least 5 a.m. That's pretty remarkable considering two weeks ago he was still waking up several times a night to scream and maul me.

Oh, how's the weaning going, you ask. Let's just focus on the new bed for now...

Our Polyphemus Moth!

Do you remember last August when I found an incredibly fat green caterpillar in our yard and brought it inside for the girls to see and it immediately made its cocoon?? We kept it in a big jar on the front porch all winter long and Rob and I were both convinced that it had frozen to death. But low and behold:

It Hatched!!!

The girls really enjoyed petting it's furry head and thorax. We got online and learned that this one is a girl because it has small antennae, not the feathery ones that the males have. We also learned that these moths have no mouth parts. Once they hatch they have only the energy stored up from their larval stage to get them through the last few days of their lives. Kinda sad...

The girls were incredibly enamored with her but soon wanted to play games with the moth. It was a truly blustery windy day and I had hoped to keep her on the back porch for one night until the wind died down, but she was too much temptation and after a little damage to her wing I decided she was safer in the wind than in the house with two girls! I took her to the bushes in front of our house and she stayed there for a while, but once we took our eyes off of her, she was off! I hope she laid her eggs nearby and that we can find another fat green caterpillar this summer!

BTW: Maggie named her Polly.

And here's the address for the first post about our adventures with this moth:

The Newest Member of the Family, 2