This Morning

Ben was in the bathroom with Tom this morning and Tom called me and said I needed to come see Ben. This is what I saw. (just so you know, there is a plastic cover on the razor. It still makes me a little nervous, but he's done this with Elizabeth for 2 years so I guess it's alright.) I've never seen a kid so covered in shaving cream. It was down to his shorts. He was enjoying himself though!
Last night while I was making dinner, the kids and Tom had some quality "daddy" time. They pounded golf tees into foam.

Ben mostly used his fingers to pry little white balls off the foam - he kept throwing it in the air and yelling, "it's snowing!"

There he is - pulling pieces off - not pounding.

My glasses girl - I'm still trying to get used to them. I love it when Tom gets home - it's time for me to get things done! :)

Last Day with Cooper

On Sunday we had our last day babysitting Cooper. We went to the park at 8:15 am - I don't know if you can tell but the kids were bright red, it was so hot out, that early in the morning. We came back and had popsicles at 9am!

At Elizabeth's zoo school the kids brought home lima beans in a baggie. We planted it and we noticed that actual pods grew! I think there were 3 pods - we broke them open to find lima beans. I tried to get Elizabeth to eat it - no such luck. I think she thought it was pretty cool that she grew something though. In our next house I want a vegetable garden. My thought was if the kids grew the veggies they would eat them, but after this I am thinking that might not be true!

We had a busy morning and no one would nap, so here they are relaxing, watching a show.

We had a fun last day with our cousin. Now that we don't babysit him the kids really miss him, so it was fun to have him for a couple of days.

Babysitting Cooper

We have had a busy weekend, but I basically don't have any pictures. We're usually swimming or something so it's too hard to get my camera. I did get a couple from this evening though. Jessica and Ryan went out of town for the day and night to Austin for their anniversary. We started our day at my mom and dad's for swimming and lunch. The kids fell asleep on their way home, so that was our naps for the day. Then Victoria, Tom's sister, called to see if we wanted to come over to play and have dinner. The kids had a great time playing with her son, Zach, and eating Subway, their favorite. Last we came home to watch a movie. This is the way the kids watched the movie after eating their popcorn. My goal was for them to lay down and quietly fall asleep while watching the movie (yeah right). Elizabeth was too scared of the movie (Finding Nemo) so she was in my room watching Dora. What's with this standing while watching the movie?
I was a little nervous about bedtime. On the last post I wrote how well nap time went with the boys sleeping together (not well!) so the plan was for Elizabeth and Cooper to try sleeping together. Once bedtime came E didn't want Cooper in her room, and Cooper wanted to be with Ben. So I gave in and had the boys sleep together. To make it easier on me I decided to just lay down with them until they fell asleep. It worked! They fell asleep after 20 min. We'll see how late they sleep in the morning!

Playing at the Spray Park

Today was Jessica's day to get stuff done, so we were babysitting Cooper. We decided to go to the spray park, I knew the kids would have fun. Drew, Josh and Zach met us there and there were a ton of other kids there from a day care, so it was pretty busy! Here's most of our kids, right when we got there.
Unfortunately most of the pictures are of the kid's backs. I would run around in front of them, and they would already be busy, moving around, filling things up, etc... So no great pictures here!

Finally, someone turned around!

Ben was really loving the water - actually all the kids did.

It was so hot outside so I was feeling pretty disgusting after this whole thing - so we came home and took baths. I tried to let the 2 boys nap in the same room and needless to say they are now in separate rooms, and both are still awake after an hour and a half. Not too successful I would say :)!

Notice Anything??

Elizabeth's glasses finally came in! I, of course, think she looks adorable, but I will admit that it makes me a little sad. She doesn't quite look like my little girl anymore. I know it will take me a while to get used to seeing her like this. I just hope the glasses don't bother her too much. I know how much I disliked my glasses, but I'm hoping because she is so young she really won't know any different. Only time will tell I guess! She was very excited to get her glasses, I must say. She was literally jumping around in the store when she found out that her glasses were in. Right after getting glasses she was already taking them off, messing with them, so I told her how proud I was of her that she could take such great care of her glasses and that I knew she could do a good job keeping them on her face, so she was allowed to pick out a toy or something that she wanted. She chose a snow cone maker. (sorry mom :) It doesn't work that great anyway.) She was very proud of herself that she was big enough to get glasses (I think she thinks it's a privilege or something. Now Ben is begging for some too!) I'm hoping that the present will be a reminder to keep those glasses on (ha ha).

I decided that I needed to start doing some "learning" activities with the kids this summer. This week we are doing the 5 senses. Today we did touch so here are some balloons that I filled with a variety of items (rice, sand, flour, and beans - I filled 8 balloons with the 4 items) and the kids had to find the match. (if you can think of anything good that's 5 senses related all you teachers out there - let me know!)

Here she is, squeezing all the balloons. Ben basically squeezed some balloons and then threw them around the room. Elizabeth found all the matches.

Here is a puzzle that Elizabeth and I completed yesterday (with a little help from Ben). She was very proud of herself and asked me to take her picture. Don't you love all the clean laundry laying over my couches. I really was about to put them away! :)

Dallas World Aquarium

We live so close to Dallas, but we haven't really taken advantage of all the fun things to do there. So, today we went to the Dallas World Aquarium with the kids. Elizabeth is checking out the map, trying to figure out where she wants to go first. This was our favorite thing to watch. The shark/stingray tank went up and over our heads so they were swimming right over the top of us. We got there at feeding time so it was really fun watching them eat. I didn't realize how many of the fish have mouths on the bottom - so we could see everything! (See the fish in the swordfish's mouth?) The kids thought it was so cool!
Ben was hugging on his daddy. He is a big mommy's boy, so it was fun watching him hang on Tom.

The sting rays and turtles up close and personal.

The kids had never seen an octopus before. After seeing all the colorful animals I decided I was going to make a color book for Ben with all the different fish/animals/birds that we saw today. He will love it!

About half the aquarium was a rainforest! (so I wasn't sure why it is only called an aquarium) There were tons of birds that we had never seen before. Ben was so brave and would actually touch the bird. Elizabeth wanted nothing to do with it! He also fed a different one. We had a really great time - I'm so glad we went.

Afterwards we went to our favorite lunch place - Jason's Deli (free ice cream!) Then Tom took the kids to the pool after naps so we had a busy, fun day!

Jessica's Surprise "Sprinkle"

As you all know, Jessica is due to have her baby at the end of August, and her friend Dana (above with Jessica) and I decided to give her a little "sprinkle". Not quite a shower, since it's her second baby, but we still wanted to honor her so we threw her a diaper shower. We made it a surprise and it was a success - as you can see from her reaction she was very surprised! She thought that she and Cooper were just coming over to play in the backyard.

I unfortunately did not get many pictures (too busy playing and getting food ready, etc..) but here is Jessica with her friend Kristi -who is also pregnant! Jessica - 7 months pregnant - so cute!
Here's Jessica with a quilt that our friend Joanne and her mom made for her. It says Jackson's name across the front.
This is what the kids were doing as we were all chatting. They just played, played, played. Everyone had a great time and I think really enjoyed themselves!

Turtle, Elizabeth's "Dive", and Breakfast Chex

Drew and Josh found a turtle in our neighborhood over the weekend, and decided to let it go at a park that we like to go to - there are lots of turtles there so we they were hoping he would find a family! They invited us to go with them to let him go. Can you see the turtle on the stick right in the middle of the picture?Here's our group waiting to free the turtle.Here they're checking him out - watching his reaction to his new home. He seemed to like it :)

One last photo before we left. We don't get many pictures of all the cousins who live in TX together, so it was fun to get a few today.

Here's a video of Elizabeth this morning in my parent's pool. This was about the 5th time she went in. The first few times she actually did a dive! (a belly flop to be more precise) By this point she thought she was diving, but really was just kind of jumping with her hands over her head.

Breakfast Chex Mix

Jessica wants this recipe and told me I should put it on the blog in case anyone else needs some new ideas for breakfast! This is great (I think) if you are in a hurry in the morning since it's all ready to just eat and go.

(I found this on another blog...and I can't find it now...so sorry I can't properly acknowledge them)

2 c wheat chex

2 c rice chex

2 c bran chex ( I used corn chex)

2 c cheerios

1 c slivered almonds

4 T butter

1/3 c honey

1 c dried fruit

Put the oven at 300 degrees. Put the butter in a 9x13 pan and melt it in the oven. Add honey and whisk. Pour cereal and almonds into pan and mix. Bake uncovered for 30 min - stir every 10min. Let cool. Add dry berries.

Have a good week :)!

Diving Board

On Sunday my parents invited us and Tom's parents over for dinner. I didn't get a picture of anyone besides my kids, for some reasons adults don't like to get their pictures taken like the kids do! For those of you who didn't know, my parents and Tom's parents were friends before Tom and I really knew each other. Tom and I lived one house apart when we were in high school, so my parents and his would hang outside with all the other neighbors, chatting away. So I think it was fun for them to catch up, and the kids thought it was very fun to have both of their grandparents together at the same time. Ben kept looking at everyone saying "two grandmas", "two grandpas".
Both of my kids are getting very confident in their swimming. Elizabeth now goes off the diving board with no life vest,

and swims to edges of the pool without help all the time. Ben also paddles away in his life vest all by himself. They are a little hard to take to the pool when I am by myself. They both think they can go all over the pool without any help!

Last year she would only go off with her life vest and a tube, and usually someone had to hold her hand to help her jump. What a difference a year makes!

Chance to win $100

Want a chance to win $100 for Father's Day? Just go to this website

http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/2009/06/tv-martyr-western-union-fathers-day.html

and post a comment by FRIDAY! I hope you win :)

Clowns at the Library

Our library has a weekly story time for children and in the summer they sometimes will have special guests. This week they had a clown from the circus! The kids loved it! (most of them anyway) I had Cooper that day (jessica and I are trading off once a week watching each others children so the other person can go home and do work or whatever they want) so the 4 of us were sitting on the floor watching the clown. Elizabeth and Ben looked pretty happy and excited, but Cooper was just looking a little confused and not happy. All of the sudden he burst out bawling, he was so scared of the clown! It took him a little while to settle down and be ok with looking at the clown. I guess Jessica won't be taking him to the circus this year!

Balancing a plate on his chin.

Juggling of course. Now both of my kids want to go see the circus when it comes later this summer.

The next day we went to our neighborhood pool and park with Drew and Josh.

This is a different park then we usually go to so the kids were loving the tire swing. You can't tell by the picture but they were getting the swing to go so fast! We've had a fun couple of days!

Eventful Night

So we had an eventful night last night (as I'm sure everyone that lives around us did as well!) We had tons of storms, lightening, wind, hard rain, etc.... The kids, unfortunately, woke up many times in the night and ended up in our bed. (The lights are out in the picture below - the flash just works really well I guess!) Our kids have never really slept with us before, except on our trip to San Antonio, and they aren't very good at it :) They play too much with each other and every time I would shift around Ben would ask me what I was doing, where was I going. I felt like I couldn't even breathe heavily or he would ask what was going on! So needless to say we did not get much sleep last night and I do not understand how anyone could co-sleep with their kids! It's so much work! :) Maybe they quit when the kids start asking questions! Let's hope for an uneventful night tonight!