Funny Follow-Up

In light of the post I made the other day referring to lying to your children, I thought this incident was rather funny:

Ron and the kids were in the crawl space in the basement this afternoon. Ron was working on installing a fan in the ductwork to increase the air flow to Tyler's room. The kids were "helping". I overheard Ron say, "Don't throw the rocks or the house is going to fall down." (The crawl space is filled with rocks, which are covered by plastic...in most places.) The kids must have stopped because it got quiet for a minute. Then Tyler said, "Will the house really fall down, Dad?" Ron replied, "Would I lie to you?" There was another pause. Then both kids burst into laughter and said "Yes!" at the same time.

Another Caterpillar Update

Danielle's birthday caterpillars are getting HUGE! They're also kind of gross. Their little cup-home is getting rather messy. The commercials on tv don't show you that part. It really is a pretty neat experience, though. All 5 seem to be thriving.

Today the kids decided the caterpillars needed names. Danielle named 4 of them and let Tyler name one. They decided on Carl, Johnny, Rose, Rosebud, & Emily. Tyler's pretty sure he can tell which one is Carl. :)

Speaking of birthdays, Danielle is a Barbie nut and has already asked for more for her birthday. I'm embarrassed to say how many she has, so I'll just say we're not buying her any more. But, if any of you were considering buying her a Barbie, I'd like to discourage you from getting her this one:

Here is the article about it. I don't know why but I found this pretty funny. (It's actually rather pathetic.) I don't think she's exactly Danielle's taste, though.

Caterpillar Update & Untruths

I'm happy to report that so far all of Danielle's caterpillars are still alive and are growing very quickly. It's almost as amazing as the tv commercial promised. This picture is from yesterday. They're even bigger today.

I saw this article on MSNBC today about lying to your children. I had a hard time around Christmas dealing with the whole Santa thing because I was afraid our kids would feel like they couldn't trust us if they found out we lied about something so important to them at this stage of their lives. But, the day after Christmas I put that out of my mind for another 11 months. I didn't think the article really said much, but it reminded me of Santa about 4 months too early. Fortunately Tyler hasn't asked about the Tooth Fairy yet.

In general I think we're pretty honest with our kids. I know we try to be. After I read the article I tried to think of times we tell our kids something that's untrue (it's hard to admit to lying). I thought of two examples, but I'm sure there are others. When Ron picks up dinner for us on the way home from work sometimes, he will occasionally get the order wrong or forget something. In order to cover for him and avoid a complete meltdown, we usually just tell the kids the restaurant was out of it that day. It defers their frustration to the non-present restaurant and we are able to move on with the rest of our dinner. I guess it comes down to trying to make our lives a little easier, just for a moment. (I simply do not have the energy to handle the whining and fit throwing all the time.) The other example is when Danielle does her own hair. She will brush just the front (because she can't reach all of the back) and then stick a headband on. Most of the time her hair is all over the place and, quite honestly, it looks pretty bad. Then she proudly asks me if her hair looks nice. How could I say anything but yes?

I feel kind of bad admiting to these things and putting them in writing. Lying (or not lying) seems so black and white, but it's not always. I'm sure my mom wasn't always truthful with me. How could you really be totally, completely honest with your kids every day all day long?? It would have been helpful to me if Jesus had been a married father to a four and six year old. I wonder how He would have dealt with dinner time meltdowns and hideous hairdos after spending a hard day healing leppers and multiplying loaves of bread.

A Fun Filled Summer Day

We had a busy but fun day today. We started by meeting Mamaw, Aunt Nikki, Beth, & Sebby at a chocolate factory for a tour this morning. The tour was actually very interesting - more so than the ice cream factory tour we took last month. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the working part of the factory, but it was very interesting because we could actually see them making the chocolates. (We did not see any Oompa Loompas, though.) The tour started with an explanation of how we get chocolate from the cacao tree and the process the cocoa bean goes through to become the chocolate we eat, and ended with free chocolate buckeyes for everyone.

Of course, Mamaw insisted on buying more candy for everyone afterward. She didn't have enough change with her to buy this 235 lb buckeye for $3500, though.

It really was a good experience.

After the factory tour we went to a park for a picnic and to let the kids ride bikes for awhile. It was hot and the kids got bored, though, so we went to the spray park instead.

The kids had a lot of fun playing in the water. It was a fun afternoon and I expect everyone will sleep very well tonight, including me.

Danielle doesn't have to worry so much about Wormy & Willa for now. She's having her first non-family birthday party this year and has decided she wants a butterfly party. Because of the party and because she has asked for this many times, we bought one of those butterfly kits from the internet. When we got home this afternoon, the box containing the caterpillars was sitting on our front porch, roasting in the sun. So far no one has suffered heat stroke, but the container did get a little condensation on it from being in the heat and then in the air conditioning. The instructions said to avoid condensation because it could kill the caterpillars, so we'll see what happens. If all goes as planned, the caterpillars will emerge as butterflies a couple days before her party and we will release them that day. If you click on the picture, you can see a couple of the tiny caterpillars near the top of the container.

The County Fair

Today the kids and I went to the county fair. We had a really good time! The kids really enjoyed all the animals. This was the closest they'd ever been to a turkey (me, too, actually). They also liked the ducks in the swimming pool, the floppy eared rabbits (which we got to pet), and the cows (but not so much the cow-pies). We also saw horses, donkeys, goats, sheep, chickens, and guinea pigs. I had no idea you could show guinea pigs at a fair.

They each rode a spinny, make-you-puke ride and then jumped in the bounce house. They also got to play 2 games. A cameraman from a local news channel taped Tyler playing the balloon dart game. Apparently he caught Danielle at the fish pond, too. She appeared for a split second on the 6pm news tonight. Maybe Tyler will be on at 11. They also rode the ponies, but the guy was grumpy and wouldn't let me take their pictures. Before leaving we indulged in bags of cotton candy, which the kids enjoyed on the way home. We had a great day!

Tonight Danielle decided she wanted to keep some worms for pets, so she convinced Tyler to help her look for some. She found two very, very small worms, which she named Wormy and Willa.

July 4th Fun

We had a very nice time celebrating the holiday with Ron's parents! Here are some pictures from the past couple days.

Glow stick fun while waiting for fireworks (on the 3rd)

The star shirts

Sequence of illegal activity

Fun with bubbles

Check out Danielle's nose (lucky shot!)

Sparkler fun (Danielle was afraid of them this year)

A Bouncy Day

Today we went to a place that has giant inflatables to climb on. (I thought of Caleb.) They typically host birthday parties, but a couple days a week they have an open gym and anyone (who pays) can come play. We took our friends' girls with us. It was our first time visiting and we had a really good time.

They had a giant slide, a long obstacle course, a big bounce house, a football pass thingy, and some little push cars and hula hoops. It was difficult to get decent pictures because the lighting was bad and the kids were quick, but here are a few from our day. (Those are giant boxing gloves on Tyler's hands. He couldn't really hold them up well enough to use them, which was probably a good thing!)

After we were done playing, we went to the park for a picnic. After we ate the kids had enough energy to play again for a little while. They were pretty wiped out by the time we got home. It was a lot of fun.

Unrelated but noteworthy (to me):

I can't believe how much progress Tyler is making in his reading - even though school is out. Tonight he read a level 3 book (longer paragraphs, chapters), Fluffy Meets the Dinosaurs. The Fluffy books are pretty funny. When we read them, I typically read the book to him and he will read the spots where Fluffy is thinking. Tonight he read the entire first 2 chapters and I read Fluffy's thoughts, then we switched for the last chapter because Fluffy did most of the talking in chapter 3. And it was the first time he'd picked up the book! I did have to help him with words like "ancestor" and "extinct" but he was able to figure out most of the words himself. He also entertained the girls in the car today by reading The Foot Book and There's a Wocket in my Pocket. I think the latter is pretty impressive considering all the made up words!

A Little More This & That

First, here are the finished star shirts. I think they turned out great! The kids are super excited about them. When I first explained the project to Tyler, he told me it was "stupid", but he thinks it looks really "cool" now.

Danielle felt left out when Tyler painted a flower pot for his teacher a few weeks ago, so I bought some extras for her to decorate for some of my plants. She finally got started on one last week and finished it up today. She makes beautiful pictures with lots of colors when she's unprompted, yet when given the chance to decorate a flower pot for me to display, this is what she came up with:

She called it "a box of darkness". Apparently it was night time for the flower. I had to beg & plead to get her to add some color to the guys above the "box of darkness". When she finished the pot up today, I hid the black paint pen.

After working on "homework" this afternoon, we made a special treat for dessert. We dipped bananas in chocolate and then stuck them in the freezer until after dinner. They were very good!

A Lot of This & That

First, I guess I was a little too prophetic in my rainbow posting about the calm between the storms the other day. Later that night after I had already put the kids to bed, we had a tornado warning and spent some time camping out in the basement. This tornado warning wasn’t as scary for the kids as the one we had a couple weeks ago probably because they were so groggy. In fact, Danielle didn’t remember it at all the next morning and she even walked down to the basement on her own. Obviously a tornado didn’t touch down and we lived. Phew.

We had a busy last half of the week. The kids attended Vacation Bible School this week. One of the common VBS programs this year is The Power Lab, which is what our kids attended. It was a nice change, I thought. It had a science theme, and all the crafts, games, and snacks were experiment related. Tyler loves that kind of thing, so it really was a lot of fun for him. Danielle really enjoyed it, too. Our friends had their 3rd baby last week, so we transported their girls every day, too. I think that was part of the fun for Danielle.

The VBS program was immediately after Tyler’s tball game on Thursday. (That’s why he looks a little tired and sweaty.) Last year he goofed off the entire time the kids were singing. This year he actually tried to sing the words. What I thought was funny, though, was that he stood perfectly still during the song (rather than doing the motions) but started wiggling around and moving all over the place as soon as the song was finished. The younger kids are at a disadvantage because they can’t read the words on the screen, but that didn’t stop Danielle from trying to keep up with the motions. I thought the difference between Tyler & Danielle in this video was funny.


Also on Thursday we kept our friends’ kids and all attended a program at the library. As we were walking in, Danielle commented on all the pretty flowers someone had planted around the building. Tyler said, “Someone must have used Roll ‘N Grow!” I thought that was pretty funny.

The Wildlife Center did a presentation for the kids. The lady who did the presentation was probably very good at her job, but she was not so good at entertaining children. She used big words and had little expression in her voice. Although the kids were a little restless at times, they did have fun. They got to touch a couple different species of cockroaches and see some crawfish, a flying squirrel, and a screech owl. Screech owls don’t get very big and are actually very cute in a bird-like way. The owl coughed up a pellet in the middle of the presentation, which interested the kids more than anything else the lady had planned to discuss. When Ron called to talk to the kids that night (he was gone part of the week), Danielle excitedly told him about the screech owl. She talked nonstop and told him that it even made “little whos because it was a little owl”. Actually the lady said the owl was making “quiet vocalizations”, but Danielle’s description was much cuter.

Yesterday afternoon we delivered the flowers the kids grew to the cemetery and spent the afternoon with Grandma & Grandpa C.

Today was Tyler’s last tball game. He had a lot of fun this season. Ron took a red-eye flight back from L.A. and arrived home at 6am this morning because he didn’t want to miss Tyler’s last game. I know Tyler doesn’t understand all Ron had to go through to do that, but he was glad his dad was there to cheer him on. I was a little insensitive (not on purpose) and reminded Tyler that this was his last tball game ever because next year he’ll play coach pitch baseball if he plays. He said, “That makes me so sad I think I’m going to cry.” And when I looked back at him, he had a tear rolling down each cheek. Boy did I feel like a heel. He recovered nicely, though, and had a great last game. He hit a pitch each time he was up to bat and had a lot of fun joking around with the coaches.

This afternoon he registered to play flag football, which starts in August. Maybe we'll have a month without any Saturday sports.



Finally, the kids are working on special shirts to wear on July 4th. Once again I’d like to appear creative, but this idea is from the latest Family Fun magazine. Danielle started hers yesterday, so she’s a day ahead of Tyler. He will splatter paint his stars tomorrow. Once the paint is dry, we’ll take the stencils off. I think the shirts are going to look really cool. I’ll be sure to post pictures of our finished products.

Calm Between the Storms

It has been raining on and off since mid afternoon today. In fact, I hear thunder rumbling even now. Although the rain stopped for a couple hours this evening and it was actually pretty decent out, Tyler's tball game was cancelled because the field was flooded. He only has 2 games left. We were fortunate enough to see a double rainbow this evening, though. The top one is kind of hard to see in the pictures. They were pretty and the kids enjoyed getting to go out in the rain to see them.