Sunburst attempt

Last night we were about to eat our homemade pizza (which is one of our favorite meals around here, since the kids get to make their own), and Daddy noticed that our deck was in the evening shade.  I have to say, we often forget to eat out there, because we have gone without a deck for so many years!  We had a nice, quiet evening out there.  I swear I thought Tyler was going to fall asleep mid-bite after so much running at the swimming pool yesterday.  But my favorite image was when Kaitlyn brought out her new rocking chair (I love garage sales!) to join us on the deck.  I've never tried making solar flares in my photography before, but the evening sun as she rocked there was too perfect.

Kaitlyn wasn't sitting quite still enough for me, but Tyler turned to see what I was doing at just the right moment!  I'm not that good at this yet , but it was a fun experiment.

Hooray for summer!

Chopped!

Somehow, ever since we saw Olivia get her hair cut off on the Biggest Loser, I have been stuck on the idea of cutting off my hair.  Christopher talked about how much he loved the cut on her (and I agreed - what an awesome change!)  So this idea has been festering in my mind for a while now.

To give this some context, my hair has been past my shoulder for all of my life, minus high school.  So I have little to no experience maintaining a short haircut.  At that time, I wore a bob.  Like so.

Looking at my senior pictures made me laugh.  First of all, this was the first time in my life that I wore makeup.  And thank heavens for the braces and jaw surgery later, not to mention that I have since learned the value of plucking my eyebrows.

Anyway, my hair has always been long like this.   

So I tried to dismiss the urge to cut it off.  But I kept thinking - what if I didn't have to spend a half an hour drying it, or get a headache from the weight of a wet bun of hair on my head after a shower?  What if I actually looked forward to styling into something cute, instead of just sticking it in a ponytail every single day?  And so I finally did it.

Ta-da!

My brother-in-law finished hair school last year, and I think chopping off that much made him rather giddy.  But he did an awesome job!  Actually, as a random plug, if anyone in the area is looking for a stylist, I swear I'm not just recommending him because I'm related to him.  He is great at helping me figure out what would look good on me, and is quite perfectionist at his cuts.  I've never had a regular stylist before, but it has been great!  He is in the salon next to Cold Stone at University Mall, so ask for Christian if you want an appointment.  I'm going back next week for some highlights, but for now I am just loving how light my head feels!

Dressing up

We have had a fun week!  First of all, last Monday we went to a birthday party for a good friend. 

The theme for the night was 80s, so there was some awesome 80s music playing, and we could all dress up in 80s gear.  My husband got to break out his MC Hammer pants again, and I even whipped up some leg warmers.  It was so fun!

Tyler started up summer school last week, which was a lot of driving.  But he has already converted a whole new group of teachers to his cuteness.  By the second day, they were all excited to tell me how adorable he is.  Apparently, they were encouraging him to draw a heart.  It took a couple of tries, but he eventually made a perfect one.  And when everyone congratulated him on doing such a good job, he got excited about it and drew a big smiley face.  "I am so HAPPY!"

Love that guy.

Anyway, while he was at school one day Kaitlyn and I dashed out to the Princess Festival, since Daddy got a free ticket from work.  They have little girls all come dressed up, and have a lot of Princesses wandering around to visit with.  Kaitlyn loved the carriage at the beginning.

I think the hokey plays went over her head a little bit, but I could tell a lot of effort went into it all.  They all talked about how each Princess should focus, not on her beauty, but on "finding the magic within".  And besides all the money going towards a charity, they also had stations where the girls could draw pictures to thank soldiers or help tie some quilts to donate.

Kaitlyn's shyness came up again, but she did like the idea of the Princesses signing her book.

And then I decided that it might be fun to have my boys match for Father's day.  I saw some ties at a boutique that would have matched, but the two together would have been over $30.  So I had Tyler pick out two ties from Ross and I adjusted one to fit Tyler.  When Daddy opened that present this morning, he said "well, I'll look forward to looking as handsome as Tyler!"

These two have been best buddies for some time now.  I know most people expect boys to be "momma's boys", but this little guy will sometimes run around me and my oustretched hand to hold Daddy's hand.  I would be sad, except I love watching them together.  And of course, I have to toss in a Father's day picture from five years ago.

As for today, we wasted our pre-church time having eggs benedict, so Kaitlyn's hair did not get touched.  But she wanted to have a picture with Daddy anyway.

And then Daddy went back to playing with his buddy.

I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband, and I am so glad that he loves being a Daddy!

And speaking of Daddy, he has run a couple of races these last two weekends, but I don't have good pictures of either one really.  He ran the PGTRI a week ago.  But that day, his left calf siezed up a few feet from the starting line.  The rest of the 5K was pretty miserable for him, but thankfully the biking and swimming were a bit easier on the injury.  After all that, he still got 10th place in the little triathalon!  He was really worried, since he had another race this weekend, but thankfully his leg healed right up and he was able to run RAGNAR.

Swim lessons

So ever since we moved here, we have always loved the sounds of summer.  For us, that means hearing swim lessons next door.  Our neighbors have a nice pool, and have been running swim lessons for years as a summer job for their kids.  She kept apologizing about the noise when we first moved in, but I honestly love hearing the happy shrieks and splashes!  And this year, I finally had a potty-trained kid to send over and join them!  Hooray!

First of all, though, we needed to fix our fence.  There was a tree growing in the fence that divided us from the pool, and the whole fence over there was ready for a good kick to send it over.  Since they need to have the pool securely locked (especially from our wandering toddlers) , it was time for a new fence. 

Ta-da!  Complete with a gate lockable on both sides.

And then, Kaitlyn's first day of lessons- when I only brought my tiny camera.

Honestly, that girl was one big huge grin the entire time.  Her little class was cute - they would huddle on the steps and bounce in glee while Alicia played games with them.  She also took turns taking them out to kick, blow bubbles, and "dig ice cream scoops" out in the pool.  I loved watching that, because most of the kids would only do one or two of those three things at a time.  If they were kicking and swinging their arms, all motions stopped when they blew bubbles.

We're going to pretend I wanted the camera to focus on the water and not on Kaitlyn.  It is a cool effect, even it wasn't what I was going for.

Kaitlyn's favorite game was "red light, green light", because she loved the splashing most of all.  She actually got more frightened of jumping in as the week went on, which was a bummer.  But she sure loved the splashing.

We'll have to work with her a lot more, but it was a fun start to the summer!

The Tyler

I just wanted to compile a few favorite Tyler moments that I want to remember, because he has been really cute lately.

*Often, Christopher and I jokingly call our kids "the boy" and "the girl."  ("Have you seen the girl?  She was just here . . .")  And Christopher especially makes up silly little songs and things about them.  "He is The Tyler . . . who can do anything" (we do love Veggie Tales around here).  But apparently Tyler was picking up on some of that.  One day at school, they were encouraging him to jump down a step with both feet.  And he exclaimed "I will jump down because I am THE TYLER!"

*One of our challenges with Tyler has long been what I call spontaneous combustion.  There have just been random times when he just cries, and he has never put words together to tell us why.  I think we are getting closer - he now tells us when he wants food or other things more often - but we still aren't there.  On Sunday, we were at my in-laws having cake after dinner when we had a spontaneous combustion.  Daddy was joking with Tyler about how Tyler stole Daddy's chair to eat his cake, and then his face just fell . . . and then the bottom lip came out . . . and then he just collapsed in a tragic and pitiful wail. 

Obviously, that's not the favorite part of the moment I want to remember.

What I love about that moment is the reaction to it.  The thing is, Tyler is just the happiest, sweetest, most adorable guy.  And so when he curled in my lap and cuddled to cry in my shoulder, everyone at the family gathering was concerned.  Daddy tried to give him the seat back.  Or the cake.  Grandma got him some fruit snacks.  Aunts and Uncles asked what was wrong, because they had never seen him cry before. 

Meanwhile, one of Tyler's cousins had been throwing a small little tantrum for 40 minutes because she didn't have a kitten like the other cousins.  No one really paid her any mind.  We know manipulation when we see it, I guess.  But if Tyler cries - the world stops.  Because he is just that adorable, and has convinced a lot of family that he is "the best kid ever."  We have often said that he is the spirit of a puppy misplaced, because he is just so sweet.

*This morning, Tyler came to me very excited.  "Look, I made a heart!"

Yes, you did.  And how could any mom resist that?

*Today, he ate his chicken and drank all his water at dinner, and then started to look around.  "Tyler, do you want anything?"  I was trying to prompt him as little as possible to see if he could come up with the rest.  So I watched as he carefully surveyed everything on the table.  "Um, PIZZA!  I want pizza!"

Too bad we didn't have any pizza . . . and haven't for days . . .

*And speaking of food, the other day he was having a lot of fun playing around, and then I gave him some food for lunch.  And he looked at me and said "I am SO happy!"

I'm happy too, little friend.

Catching up

My parents have been in town all last week (hooray!), but that means I am a bit behind on my blog.  First up, the annual Fireman's breakfast!

Every year, our local fire department hosts breakfast on a Saturday morning.  For $5, you get a huge breakfast, and the kids get to check out all the fire trucks!  Our kids love it.

And then we spent the rest of the weekend watching the weather forecast.  With my parents coming into town, we had invited her family up to the cabin for Memorial Day.  Originally the rain was coming over the weekend . . . and then it slipped to rain on Monday . . . and then it snowed.  We woke up to a fair amount of snow covering everything around us, and it still fell until 11am or so.  But we perservered.  My cousin brought their four-wheelers anyway, and by the time we were done with lunch, things had cleared up enough that they headed out anyway.

We had a great time visiting.  And my parents love the cabin, so we stayed there as long as we could.  We sent Christopher off to work the next morning and had him take Tyler into school, and spent a nice day in the now beautiful weather.  Kaitlyn loved helping Grandma "make dishes" . . .

and "go for a walk" (which is in quotes because Kaitlyn was so distracted by the run-off in the ditches that we never made it very far).

Later that week, Tyler had a pizza party on his last day of school.  I am sad to see this school year end, if only because I am nervous that next year won't be as awesome!  When I look back at the difference between last year and this year, it is huge.  Tyler really struggled last year, and instead of learning and growing had actually regressed in some areas by the end of the year.  But this year, his teacher was awesome.  She keeps those kiddos on track, and it really shows.

And this was actually her last class, as well.  Next year she will be in charge of the assessment center, and will be helping out at the three preschool classes, but won't have a class of her own.  I imagine you get pretty attached when you only have ten kiddos each year, so it would be really sad to lose that!  We're going to have to keep in touch with her.

Next, we went to a local shopping area to have fun with Grandma and Grandpa.  The kids are never all that into shopping (though they did like the awesome toy store) but when Kaitlyn saw this little gazebo/house thing she just hopped in and started dancing "like Angelina".  And then she got Tyler to try it too.

I would show you pictures of the kids on the carousel, since that is Kaitlyns favorite thing in the whole world, but it looks like all of those pictures are on my mom's camera.  Huh.  Well, back to the cabin.

Kaitlyn also likes swings.  We were nervous about the creek swing, since the water was gushing down in a hurry, but Kaitlyn pleaded with Grandma until she caved.

And later, we pulled up a random piece of plywood and found a bunch of huge worms.  We told Tyler he could pick one up, so he just grabbed one and grinned like it was no big deal.



Kaitlyn, on the other hand, liked to put little pebbles on them to see them jump away (stinker), and didn't want them in her hand when Grandma offered.  We needed a safe distance, here.

After that, my parents headed onward.  They drove out from Cleveland, and then headed down to Las Vegas from here so they could see my three brothers that live there.  It is a lot of driving, but we all love seeing them!