Who needs bathing suits?

Not anybody in this house.

While outside playing this week, Cameron started getting hot. He took the water hose and partially filled a bucket and dumped it on his head. When I inquired as to what he was doing, he said he was hot. Following suit, Makayla then started dumping water on herself. Until they were both drenched and wanted to take off their wet clothes. So they did. **we live in the county and our back yard is completely shielded from sight**

Next, they decided it would be fun to swim now, so they took off to BLUE. Both diving in. They swam happily like that for over an hour until it was time to come in for supper.

They have continued this every day since, playing hard outside, getting hot, stripping down and going swimming. My father would be horrified if he drove up!

I so wish I could be that free..to strip to my skivies and jump in the pool!

Of course, anybody who might see me would call the police and turn us in for keeping an albino balooga whale in our pool...oh well.

Thursday is cooking day!

In an attempt to make our summer vacation more than Sponge Bob and swimming pools, we have a loosely made schedule. This loose schedule, however, includes a cooking day every Thursday. The Thursday cooking day is never forgotten. My little piggies always remember this day. Today, we made "scratch brownies" or we made brownies not from the box. Lets take a look at this in pictures shall we?

waiting impatiently to get started, while I take pictures


pour in the sugar!


every body gets a turn to add something



the kids didn't think it looked like brownies yet...what do you think?

stir stir stir! (yes she is wearing a diaper, but her Buddha belly is covering it, but those red shoes will always be on, she adores them!)

EVERYbody must stir too...

and I do mean everybody....

**at this point there was a lot of..."she is stirring longer than I did!" "no I'm not!" "yes you are!" you get the idea........

ready for the oven!

the finished product..look we got fancy and "dusted" it with powdered sugar

mmmmmm...first bite!

I think this tells you all you need to know!

This is one of the most fun days of the week, not only do we get to eat yummy things that we made with our own hands, and nothing ever from a box, no we do it all from scratch. But we get to learn about measurements, tempratures, why certain recipes need eggs, why some don't need flour and what each of these ingredients do. How to read recipes and follow the directions. It is a great time!

I'm sure this belongs there.

See the thing is, tonight when I opened my refrigerator to get out water, I was met with this sitting on the bottom shelf. The thing is...I was not at all shocked. Never did I wonder why that was there, or even hardly give it a thought other than a chuckle and to snap a quick picture. I in fact retrieved my water and shut the door, leaving them there in that place, because I knew that they would soon be needed again by the little person who left them there.

When you have a young boy in the house, it is not uncommon to find binoculars in the refrigerator or bubble bath in the commode (true story, happened Sunday). Never would I try to analyze why when he ran out of socks, the first place I searched...and found them was under his mattress. Or why when we ran out of sipper cups that I first searched under his bed. (nothing smells better than two week old apple juice...blah)

I do not question him when he comes out of his room, supposedly ready for bed, wearing sweat pants (it is 90+ degrees) three..1.2.3 shirts, flip flops from two different pairs, on the wrong feet and his Spiderman life jacket. I have come to understand that this is, in fact sleepwear for an almost 5 year old boy.

No...I no longer question these things, I do not fight the inevitable...I know that some day I will surely wash a frog or be able to refill the sand box with the contents of my washing machine. These are the trials, idiosyncrasies and absolute joys of little boys, that will all-to-soon outgrow his Spiderman life jacket, and his little plastic binoculars will be long forgotten...but for now, I look forward to my soapy commode and fishing a helpless frog from my washing machine. These are the joys of boys.

A PSA to you all

Because I love all 6 of my readers...hey Misty..Dana..Ashley..mom...(maybe there are two more??) I want to pass along a piece of wisdom I gained today.

When the big brown truck pulls up in your driveway....take inventory of the things that you have recently ordered.

If those things that you have recently ordered include birthday gifts for your children, whose birthdays are still over a month away...you will want to make sure that you open them OUT of their line of sight.

The reason?

Because if you open the box with said children in the room, and then close the box quickly and run to stuff it under your bed, the children will fuss, whine, jump up and down, cry..more specifically the boy will do this...and you will have to deal with this for the next two hours.

This child will say things like..."PLEEEEEAAAAASE let me see" or "I DON'T want my birthday to be in August!!" Then he will fuss, and beg until you threaten to call the big brown truck to come back and get the box.

Of course it is at this point that we all can smile a little internally as we know that the days of these types of threats being productive will soon be gone.

The English Language according to Olivia

There is a popular comedian who has his own "Redneck" dictionary, and its funny but I think it's time we learn the English Language according to my adorable Olivia Rose.

As she continues with this language explosion, and starts to put words and sentences together, she continually amazes us at what she can say. So sit back and enjoy this little glimpse into our personal favorite dictionary.



Pickle: as in "this little pickle went to market, this little pickle stayed home, this little pickle had roast beef, this little pickle had none and this little pickle went wee wee wee all the way home"



Beet: as in what a horn on a car says or what you say when you pinch your nose. beet beet!!



One we all know and love; Bippo those big animals that like to lounge in water, of which Olivia has a stuffed replica that she sleeps with that guards her at night.



Zeus: the liquid that comes from apples, grapes etc...that she drinks gallons of a week.



Sissy bet: as in, "I want to sleep in sissy bet"



Pity: as in "OOOOOOOOH Pity!!



and my personal favorite;

Rubber: "mama! I rubber you!" finished with a big baby hug.

what is not to "rubber" about that??!!


Olivia and her big "bubby"...is your heart melting??

Vacation; at the pool

We spent the last full day of our vacation relaxing and splashing in the pool. This was the whole reason Makayla went on vacation, she wanted to swim the WHOLE time, I swear she is part guppy.


This is the first summer that Makayla has been a "swimmer". She has grown leaps and bounds this year in her ability and strength.


Here she is showing off her "doggy paddle" as she glides from the shallow to the deep end.

jumping in, isn't this the coolest shot?!

swimming around, being cute

Cameron as he tentatively slides down the pool steps. Notice his mis-matched swimmies...um..mommy didn't pay attention to which two she stuffed into the pool bag before we left on vacation, just that I had two. He survived, I'm not sure he noticed, but my fashion concious daughter surely did, and it still is bugging her today as she looks back over these pictures that his floaties didn't match.

still getting in the pool........

and still on the steps.....

and we have landed in the pool...finally in and playing after he found something he could throw at somebody.

and of course we can not leave out lil' Miss Olivia, she thinks she is as big as every body else, and can not understand why mommy won't let her down.

here I am with Olivia..shield your eyes!

not too happy that she is out and drying off, trying to escape and jump back in





Isn't this a great picture?!


There you have it, our vacation, the good the bad and the mommy. We had a blast but are definately glad to be home.

Mario Andretti and his sisters

Today we will take a look at another day of our vacation.


On this day we went to one of the MANY go-cart tracks in Pigeon Forge, TN. MA and I took Makayla and Cameron riding on the two seat go-carts. The kids were loving riding with mom and dad. Going fast down hills and racing each other. However...nothing could compare to the thrill of running in their very own Indianapolis 500. You could see in their sweet little faces the absolute thrill of flying around the track at what must have been 90mph! Well to them anyway, it was actually more like 7mph, but man..to a 6 and 4 year old, they were MOVING! Couple that kind of speed, with it being at your very own fingertips. They were in control of these cars, they determined when and how it turned. How fast they would take the curves and who they could pass...what a rush!


Here we have MA and Cameron, don't let this fool you, Makayla and I were firmly in the lead.






Next myself and Makayla, the girls had this race in the bag.


good grief, I look like the Great Grape Ape....blah.

Ok, on to the fun for the afternoon...Mario Andretti and his sisters.

Look at the determination on these faces, that man in the blue shirt that says "STAFF" don't let it fool you, he was actually the personal pit crew for Mario aka Cameron.

Here we have Makayla, as determined to be perfect as ever. Perfection is all that she accepts. As you can see, she has her hands positioned appropriately, and she is keeping it "between the lines". She passes at will, anyone that gets in her way.

And here she is taking way too much pleasure in just passing some poor child that got in her way.




Now we move on to Cameron, as you can see, he is so comfortable driving that he doesn't even need to hardly see over the steering wheel.



Look at this determination

Uh Oh, Makayla passed him

OOOOOHHH...It's on like Donkey Kong

Olivia taking this in, getting some pointers, because in a few years, she will be on the track.

Shield your eyes, this may get ugly.

Oh Oh...we have a car into the wall! That's right, the mighty Mario Andretti is in need of his pit crew.

again, his pit crew is assisting to prevent a pile-up in the pit area...Mr.Andretti has forgotten which is the brake and which is the gas...oops.

aaah..Making his exit...the pit crew gives a hi-5 and the day is a success!

The rest of the afternoon was filled with fun rides that daddy and grandpa enjoyed with all 3 kids, here are some hi-lights.

Puff the Magic Dragon

Lived by the Sea

And frolicked in the Autumn leaves....


and rode in a hot air balloon??...how does that song end??

Drive Through Parking

Our vacation is over. It is bittersweet. I'm sad that it's over, they never last long enough but it is always nice to be home. We had an absolute blast. This was the first year that the kids were old enough to actually enjoy vacation, and partake in activities beyond watching and splashing in the pool. I won't subject you to the whole scenario tonight. I will start and see how far I get before I fall over asleep....or you fall over asleep, which ever comes first.



The first night we ate at a new restaurant in Pigeon Forge called The Flying Horse Grill. It had great food and a great atmosphere. Inside there was a carousel;



This was the beginning of our week long ride-fest. Everyone rode but me, because just the act of watching a carousel gives me motion sickness.

Doesn't Olivia look excited about her carriage ride with daddy?

AND.....there OFF!

(somebody sing the Gun Smoke theme song)

Are you still singing?

You can stop now.

So as we finished our first night, complete with a little bit of shopping and a dinosaur boat ride, we were heading to our hotel, and saw THE light. you know which one..THE light.

The HOT Krispy Kreme light, and it was next door to our hotel. Who can pass up the HOT light? Well we certainly can not.

And we certainly did enjoy them.

Note to self; don't feed three small children HOT (or cold) Krispy Kremes at 11 O'Clock at night. Sleep will be far away.

Oh and this sign just made me giggle, we had to drive past it to get the donuts.

That is our first fun filled vacation day

Still to come, Mario Andretti and a day at the pool