non-stop day of play

Whew! I'm exhausted!!! But these kids are so much fun. We've had another non-stop day of play and I was able to stop and capture a few moments of it:

(this was actually yesterday) They were playing whale rescuers in the pool. Kaiden and Connor were the rescuers and Randy, of course, was the whale!

Wild wolves were running about the house this morning. We also had a zoo built out of blocks for the wolves that got captured complete with a swimming hole for the babies.

Kaiden had the cool idea to make paper airplanes and have a flying contest. They folded, taped, cut, and colored until their planes were perfect and then: Ready. Set. FLY!!!! They flew down from the tree house.

We won't be watching Connor and Brian tomorrow so we have a tiny break. But we do have lots of family coming into town this weekend for Melissa's baby shower. We had a few cousins fly in this afternoon and they stopped by for a quick visit. Tomorrow we'll head to the Venice Beach with them, search for sharks teeth, and do some more skim boarding.

It seems like we have been on the go for the last month. I think after September things should slow down a bit. Maybe that's just wishful thinking!

Kaiden wanted me to share his bad dream with everyone,
"Daddy was swimming with me at day and he didn't know that there were blood drinking beetles in the pool. The blood drinking beetles stabbed Daddy when he got out of the water and that's how he died."

The poor guy came into our room last night terrified, shaking, and hyperventilating. He latched onto Randy, laid down on his chest, and rubbed his arms until he fell asleep again. He doesn't have nightmares often but when one does hit him he gets pretty shaken up! That's a pretty scary image: blood sucking beetles in the pool??? Yuck!

August 21

On Monday we started watching Connor (4yrs) and Brian (2yrs) during the day. We're really excited to have them here and they are so much fun! We get Brain at 8:30am, play play play, pick Connor up from preschool at noon, come home for lunch, then play play play some more! It's amazing how much energy these little fellas have.

We're bouncing around from thing to thing non-stop!
cars, planes, and trains
knights, pirates, and firefighters
grocery store, toy store, and art store
play dough, gluing, coloring
cheese balls, cheese balls, and more cheese balls
blocks, Lego's, Mr. Potatoe Head
Oh, the list could go on and on!!!

We're having a bit of down time right now, watching The Land Before Time and eating lunch. Just thought I would drop in so no one would think we abandoned the blog. Things are just really hectic over here! We'll be back as soon as we can come up for air :) We will only have Connor and Brian for the next 2 weeks.

an ice skating lesson

I met an awesome new friend at work, his name Glenn. He's a very good hockey player and is now off to school. But anyways, before he left he took Kaiden and I ice skating! It was so cute seeing Kaiden watch Glenn skate. He had such determination in his eyes to skate just as good as him. We started off REALLY wobbly and he was falling and hanging onto the wall for the first hour and a half.

But then all of a sudden he GOT IT! He was skating!!! He just kept trying to copy Glenn (all the while Glenn is telling Kaiden what a good hockey player Kaiden is going to be so it's boosting his ego). I was so proud of him. He is such a determined little guy with absolutely no fear. And he probably wouldn't have done so well had Glenn not been there to show him because I certainly can't skate!

Thank you Glenn for taking us. You should definitely become a coach for little kids one day!!!

homey K vs Angry K

I overheard Kaiden having this conversation with himself this morning:

Homey K: It's cool yo.

Angry K: Stop saying that!!!!!!!!

Homey K: It's cool yo.

Angry K: Why do you keep saying that?!?!?!!!!

Homey K: Because it's cool...yo.

Angry K: STOP IT!!!!!

Homey K: C'mon baby, you know you like it.

"Karla will you please stop shopping?"

I had an amazingly fun afternoon with my best bud Karla today! My mom and sister were so sweet to take Kaiden for a bit so we could have a peaceful grown-up lunch at one of our favorite joints. Thanks guys!

After lunch we picked up Kaiden and headed to the stores. Since Karla is from the sticks, and is deprived of such wonderful stores as Target and Old Navy, we had to hit them up. And did I mention that Karla LOVES to shop for a deal? This girl will search EVERY rack for a bargain. No Joke. We also went to Payless and Ross. Poor Kaiden was begging Karla to stop shopping by the end of the day! But as always, we had a blast with our friend.

While at Payless I picked Kaiden up a pair of Airwalk sneakers. I told him that when I was a kid all of the kids who skateboarded wore Airwalks so of course the second we got home he had to pull out his skateboard!

He was trying to get me to go to the store to buy supplies to make a skate ramp so I told him that it takes lots of practice before you can go on a ramp and that as soon as he's a pro at skating we can build one. He responds with: "OK Mom, I'll practice all day tomorrow, then the next day we can build a ramp!". Oh jeez.

in good company

We met up with the McManus clan at Siesta Key today for some fun in the sun - 8 kids in total.

sand toys, buried feet
sand castles, big deep holes, and sand in the crotch
papparazzi mamma's
sun burns, skim boarding
jumping the waves, sea weed
sandy sandwiches, juicy watermelon, and twinkies
...all in the company of good friends and family!

Luckily the weather held out for us and gave us some awesome waves to play in.

Kaiden finally got to try out his new skim board in the ocean.

And even though it was only his first time out he impressed us with his natural skills!

a big surprise

After a long day of running errands I was looking forward to coming home to a clean house - since that is what Randy claimed he was doing while I was out - pouring myself a glass of wine, and putting my feet up.

Boy was I in for a big surprise!

And I really mean a BIG one.

I know Randy can get a bit carried away and distracted while cleaning up the house but this is ridiculous.

OK, I'll show you a little peek...



(yes, that is an enormous tub of cheese balls)

Randy decided to clean out the attic while I was gone. My camera battery died before I could take more pictures so these don't even show the worst of it. Wasn't that sweet of him?

Its still sitting in the same place this morning.

1 rainy afternoon