Good "Clean" Fun

Below is a picture of my beautiful 20 month old, H. She is a girly-girl who likes to be clean, wear dresses, paint her nails, and get her hair fixed. You will need to know this as you read on...



The horribly oppressive heat here in the Sunshine State has lately been replaced with slightly less oppressive, less humid weather.

This is a good thing.

Jay and I decided to celebrate our new found ability to breathe by taking the kids to one of the parks in the area, and let them play on the playground... outside. Something we very rarely attempted to do before then, since the heat index never left the 100s.

The playground was very nice.

It had SWINGS...

It had 3 SLIDES...

It had a ROCK CLIMBING WALL...

It had a CLUBHOUSE high in a TOWER...

I was a nice playground. With nice playground equipment.

So what did my children do?

They swung on the swings, slid down the slides, climbed the wall, and looked down from the clubhouse high in a tower.

But were they satisfied?

Nope.

Then, what did they have the most fun doing?

Digging in the DIRT. Not just any dirt. Oh no, of course not. It had to be the dirtiest dirt. The kind that is found around barbecue grills that is a pleasant mixture of sand, dirt, and ash.

Jay and I just sat there and watched. We couldn't spoil it for them. They were having entirely too much fun!

But this is the end result...

This picture does not even do it justice. She was the filthiest little ragamuffin I'd ever seen! The other kids got messy, too. But they limited it to their hands, legs and feet.

Little H apparently thought she needed to bathe in the fun dirt! And that was proven after I got her out of the bath later that night when we got home. The water was pitch black. So gross!

And even worse... she was sneezing out dirty little black boogies for a couple of days after that!

How fun! :o)

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE!

It opens tomorrow! Woo Hoo!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make a point to go and see this movie with your spouses tomorrow!

I assure you, you won't be disappointed!

Making Memories

As I have mentioned in previous posts, we've had to get pretty creative in our attempt to keep everyone entertained while staying within the bounds of our very tight budget.

We cut our own hair. Well, at least the boys do. Me and the girls have to just deal with long hair for a while. Jay is pretty easy to please. He simply shaves his head bald. B's hair is a little more difficult for me. The last time he got his hair cut, he told us he wanted to look just like his daddy. I wrote about how that went, too. Poor guy. :o)

While he is waiting for his hair to grow back, he insists on wearing hats everywhere he goes. Even if we tell him he looks silly in them. He prefers to look silly in his hats than with his bald head. Go figure.

Well, we figured we would entertain the kids while doing a necessary task. B got to shave his daddy's head.

He took his job very seriously at first, not wanting to mess up.


But eventually, we convinced him that there really wasn't any way to mess up "bald". So he started having fun. He even tried to shave designs in his daddy's head. He had a great time and the girls enjoyed watching all the fun, too. :o)



Afterwards, we decided to have a "game" night. The kids helped me bake chocolate chip cookies, and we got out some of those annoying children's games (you know... the ones that are so annoying to you that you promise yourself that you won't play them again for at least a year).

But... at least the kids had a lot of fun. :o)



I just had to put this next picture into the mix, too. I couldn't resist. Little H was so upset that she had eaten all of her cookies and couldn't have any more. She gave me this look shortly afterwards, when I told her I wanted to take her pretty picture.

She can be so sassy at times. But I love my sweet girl and the fact that she is beginning to show the signs of a growing into a little girl, and she is not as much of a baby anymore.



... Making memories with homemade haircuts, warm chocolate chip cookies and Hungry Hungry Hippo. What could be more fun than that? :o)

My Boys

We signed B up for Tee ball this year. He is finally old enough. His first opportunity to play a team sport.

Isn't he cute with his way-too-big hat pushing his ears down?


In the weeks and months leading up to his first day, he battered us with endless questions about what it was going to be like, and how much longer would he have to wait, etc. He was so excited. And we expected him to be excited. It is a normal part of a boy's childhood.



What I did not expect, however, was to see how excited Jay got. He was like a little boy in a candy store! He talked about it almost more than B did! He told me one morning as we were traveling to B's first game, "I am so excited about this. I have waited for it my whole life!"

I guess it has been his lifelong wish to help coach his son's little league team. His dreams were soon fulfilled when the head coach asked him to help the little guys figure out what they were supposed to be doing.



It is actually quite entertaining to watch these 3 and 4 year olds on the field. Not because they are very talented athletes. Nay, on the contrary. They are so young that they get distracted very easily. Many times, they can be found in the extreme outfield either chasing a butterfly, or drawing pictures in the dirt, or throwing and catching their gloves, or just deciding that they want their Mommy and running off the field in the middle of the game to get a little cuddle time. Ha ha. It is very cute!

And, it is a non-competitive league, so there is no unnecessary pressure on these little guys. They get to focus on learning how to play the game, and just have fun!



R & H are always ready to cheer their brother on. They are his biggest fans. :o)



Here is a short video of B getting up to bat. He is quite the slugger! Not that anyone can really hit a home run in tee ball... but he still does a good job nevertheless! Especially considering that he's never played before!

We're proud of you, big boy!

Precious Little Ones

My not-such-a-baby-anymore H singing sweetly to her mama...

My Cutie Pie B and his "magic trick"...

Homeschool Spoof

Tim Hawkins is by far one of our favorite Christian comedians. I don't think there is a single routine he has done that Jay and I did not absolutely love (and buy). :o)

I thought maybe some of my fellow homeschooling families might enjoy watching this... and even some who chose not to homeschool will get a big kick out of the video!

Tim Hawkins - "A Homeschool Family"



Hope you liked it as much as we do! :o)