August 29

This is what adventure looked like yesterday...

Kaiden wanted to know how to make a "real" bow and arrow so we spent most of the morning researching and collecting supplies. The first bow we made busted from the string not being strong enough and we had a hard time finding the perfect arrows. But after much trial and error we made 3 awesome bows and Kaiden found that old bamboo makes amazing arrows!

I loved their adventurous spirit - exploring in the woods, fighting off dragons and snakes, and of course perfecting their aim!

i spy with my little eye

Kaiden: searching through my purse "Mom, what's a tampon for?"
Mom: "ummmmmmmm..........."
Dad: "It's for absorbing things!"
Kaiden: "Can I use it?"
Mom: "Sure"
Kaiden: puts the tampon down his underwear and walks away
A little while later I walk into his room and see this:

Cute.

Kaiden, Connor, Brian

slowly coming up for air

Another exciting day - Melissa's baby shower! For some strange reason I was having a really hard time taking decent pictures and I didn't get one good one of the little mamma. But she was absoluty gorgeous in her little red dress and glowing from head to toe. My pictures do her no justice.

Tons of relatives came into town to celebrate from as far away as Michighan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania! The boys left us girls to do our typical baby shower type things.

cake and presents,

chatting and baby shower games.

It was wonderful to see everyone and feel all the excitement for our new little family member! We can't wait to meet him!!! If you're interested in seeing more pictures of the family take a trip over to flickr.

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

she turns 13

My little baby sister is a teenager!!!!! Where has the time gone? What happened to the little curly hair princess toddling around calling "SISSAAAAAAAY!!! Where are you SISSAAAAAY?".

Now she's a little woman! I was the same age when she was born - 13 years apart. Hard to imagine.
I can still see the adorable little girl she used to be in the sparkle of her eyes....
What a gorgeous little woman you have become. Happy birthday little sister!

A BIG success!

Randy's art show went really really well! We had quite a turn out! I forgot to bring out my camera to catch the huge crowd that showed up but here are some images of the set up for those of you who were unable to make it...

Here are a couple paintings that now have new homes:

Fighting the Day

Don't Turn from the Delight

Song to My Soul

Its a hard thing to put yourself on display for others to judge and we are so proud of Ran for taking that step. It's given him the confidence to to take the next step to bring his portfolio to galleries around town and to sell his artwork online.

And a HUGE thank you to those of you who came. Your presence and support was appreciated more than you know!!!

ticks

Kaiden, while cuddling durring bedtime, asks:

"Can I check your boobs for ticks?"

Where does this kid get this stuff from?

August 10

Kaiden prepared a tasty tree house picnic dinner last night.

He made all the pb&j sandwiches himself (check out those dirty fingers!), made sure everyone had a drink, and included a full can of whipped cream for desert.....mmmmmm. It's the thought that counts, right?

A cute one of Ran. Kaiden and him bonked heads pretty bad while swinging into the river on the rope swing and the result was a black eye. You can see the yellow in the picture.

We made a trip over to Marina Jacks to meet a friend for lunch today. It was a scorcher but we still had a relaxing time chatting, playing in the fountains, and collecting things from the ocean. Kaiden's biggest find was a big piece of wood, probably off of a pirate ship!

the dreaded question

"How does another person grow inside your belly, Mom?"
After about ten minutes of me trying to give Kaiden the answer he was looking for and failing miserably he finally asks,
"No Mom, how does the baby actually GET INSIDE of your belly?!?!"
I begin to fumble with my words, trying to think of the right way to say it...
"Well Kaiden, a baby is made when a sperm and an egg meet."
"Oh Look!!!! A fire truck!!!!"
WHEW! Saved. I'll have to think of a better answer for the next time the question comes around. We have no problem giving him an educated answer but sometimes you're just caught off guard and don't know what to say! Ha ha ha....any suggestions?

Santa Fe River Trip

What a wonderful trip we had!!! We have so many pictures to share because it is impossible for us to put the beauty of the river into words...

Every morning we were greeted by this magical sunrise.

We spotted this big man hanging out on one of our rafts. Not too glamorous, you might say, but we were excited to see any and all wildlife! His size was very impressive and were were very surpirsed to learn that he wasn't full grown! We found a couple durring our trip that weren't so scared of us and wanted to be friends. they would climb all the way up your arm and didn't want to get off!

Stopping for a break on a walk through the woods.

Checking out a sink hole.


Kaiden was really good at spotting alligators! Can you see him?

Oops! Crystal dropped her glasses in the river filled with alligators - very typical of her. Vee saved the day and climbed down and rescued them. What a valiant gentleman!

While on his rescue mission Vee discovered this beautiful egg.

This is called the river sink. It's where the Santa Fe River disappears underground for 3 miles and then reappears at the river rise.

The local mechanic, grocery, video rental, boat rental, gas station, bait, antique, and medical supply center. Watch out Walmart!

We found this pretty lady on one of our adventures.

1, 2, 3, JUMP!!! Kaiden learned how to jump off of a rope swing and it seemed to be the highlight of his trip!

Kaiden's clay creations.

There are so many other things we want to share!

Like, while we were tubing down the Santa Fe river spotted a pod of manatees and we floated right through the middle of them while they were coming up for air! If the current in the river wasn't so strong Randy would have hopped into the water and swam right along with them and made a new title for himself - The Manatee Whisperer!

And, during all the excitement of trying out the rope swing Vee decided to give it a shot. Wanting to outdo Randy, he became a little overzealous and wound up breaking one of his fingers!!!!! None of us knew where the nearest hospital was and no one seemed to be in a rush - Randy taking a leisurely shower, Jenn blow drying her hair, and Vee standing around waiting for someone to take some action- very politely of course!

Canoeing, snorkeling, spotting deer in the woods, fossil hunting, spiders in bed, painting, lazy day naps, arts and crafts, cookouts, board games, finding hidden treasure, soccor games... good times with great friends!!!