Out of the Mouth of Babes . . .

Kids are so honest . . . too honest for me! Tonight (after a huge slice of pizza) I was laying on the floor while the kids were playing around me. My shirt had come up a little and Aiden came over and patted my tummy and said, "your tummy feels like pizza dough."

Tomorrow I'll be doing an extra stomach workout.

The "Engine of the Potty"

For a while now, Aiden has had a fascination with the "potty." One night Mike lifted the lid on the back of the toilet and showed him how the "potty" worked. Mike explained that those parts were like the engine that made the toilet work (I'm not sure if Mike used the word toilet or potty). Ever since then Aiden has called it the "engine of the potty." Several times a week he wants to look at it. We even use it as bribery. "Get your jammies on and brush your teeth and you can see the engine of the potty." It works every time. I often wonder, do we have a future plumber on our hands or an engineer.

We were at my mom's house this weekend and Aiden asked Jim to show him the engine of the potty. Jim was sitting in the den at the time watching a football game. He had spent the day working in his yard and then the evening making a bonfire for the grand kids--he was ready for some "down-time." Without a moments hesitation, Jim got up and took Aiden into the bathroom and showed him the "engine." Just like Mike, he patiently explained all of the parts and even let Aiden touch and pull on them. Something as simple as that made Aiden's weekend. He was talking about it Sunday morning . . . how PopPop let him touch the engine of the potty.

Thank you Jim, for loving and teaching my kids like your own.

Camping Run Through . . .

We're taking the kids on their first camping trip in two weeks. I grew up camping--that's what my family did for vacations . . . we even camped at Disney World in the summer--WOW!! I have wonderful memories of camping as a child and I'm so excited to create those memories with Aiden and Rebekah. We are even taking them to the place in the Shenandoah Mountains where my family always camped. We decided today that we should do a run through with our tent. It's a brand new tent so we figured we should practice setting it up. We don't have a flat area in our yard that's big enough for our tent--so we set it up on a hill. I was impressed how easy it was to set up--but the thing that really got us was how BIG this tent it. We had a 4 person tent that we sold because we were afraid it would be a little to tight for us and our bags. This tent . . . lets just say that we can fit our family and all of the other families who read this blog in with us. Want to come camping?

The kids LOVED it--Aiden wanted to play school inside the tent so we spent the morning doing that. Rebekah was quite disappointed when Mike took it down--she thought she was sleeping in it tonight!

"Pre-Fall" Weekend

Anyone who knows Mike and I well, knows that Fall is our absolute favorite time of the year. If we had it our way, we'd keep Aiden out of school and Mike wouldn't work from the middle of September until the middle of November. But for now, we have to get our fall fixes on the weekend. Although this weekend is not officially fall, we've had the most gorgeous fall weather imaginable. Throw in some falling leaves and I might have cried! We started our weekend Friday night with our typical pizza night. This Friday, though, we invited our good friends to share in the fun. We ate pizza and sat around Mike's new fire pit (thanks to his wonderful wife--me--who backed into his old fire pit and smashed it into pieces) and roasted marshmallows. The person who invented s'mores is a genius! The kids were so excited to be out late enough to see the star and even laid down in the driveway and sang a few rounds of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

Saturday morning started bright and early with Aiden's first flag football game. We're thinking the late Friday pizza night may have left him a little tired because we literally had to bribe him to get out on the football field. When the team moved, he stayed right in his spot. But he was a champ and went out there--we're proud of him for giving it a shot. Next Saturday we're going to give him the juice box before the game instead of after.

Saturday ended with an evening of awesome memory making. We took a drive to my mom and Jim's house and spent the evening roasting hot dogs, playing cousins and friends and eating even more s'mores. The kids vary in age from 2 to 10--and they play WONDERFULLY together! Aiden and Rebekah LOVE being with Lindsay, Lauren and Tyler (and so do I). Aiden was fascinated with the fire and was excited to help Jim keep it going all night. I was standing with Jim by the fire watching the kids and he said that watching the kids run and play are his best times, even though the kids won't remember these days. I assured him that they will remember these days more than any other toy they have . . . and so will I. We left at bedtime and the kids were asleep within 15 minutes of the drive home. Thanks FAMILY for great memory making!

It's Sunday morning and we still have a beautiful day ahead of us. Next on the agenda--setting up our tent before our upcoming camping trip in the mountains and making caramel apples. The first day of Fall is tomorrow and we've already created amazing memories--my heart is busting at the thought of what's to come!

Football

GOOOO Jets!

Stuck Inside

"Daaaad, you need to change the weather." This is how Rebekah greeted Mike this morning when he went in her room to get her up (the "Daaad" thing is new--I swear she sounds like she's 16). Unfortunately we couldn't change the weather, or the fact that Aiden ran a 102 fever all day long. We made the best of a rainy weekend though, with make your own pizza, tents, shaving cream fun, and stories to stuffed animal friends. The sun eventually came out, but Aiden's fever never went down, I guess it's our time for the kindergarten cooties. He got the star treatment though--even pretending that the couch was his hospital bed--which of course, he HAD to eat breakfast in.

Hopefully the sun will still be out tomorrow and Aiden's fever will be gone.

Bedtime Questions

Rebekah was the type of baby/child that when put to bed, we said goodnight and never heard a peep from her until we got her out of her crib/bed in the morning. As a baby she would actually reach for her crib as we were rocking her, wanting to get into her crib. I honestly can recall maybe 2 nights that she woke up in the middle of the night or got out of her bed (once she started sleeping through the night) and both of those were due to high fevers. We transitioned her from crib to bed at 2 years old without so much as a peep. I know we were lucky! I use the word "were" because that suddenly changed this past spring. The arrival of spring not only brought beautiful daffodils to our neighborhood, but it also brought "THE WOODPECKER." The residents of B Road were blessed this spring with a woodpecker who decided that pecking on our gutters was much more productive than pecking on TREES!! This woodpecker hit every house on my street, early in the mornings. The first time I heard it (at 6am) I flew out of bed thinking that a jackhammer was digging for signs on water on my gutters. That ended Rebekah's 2 1/2 year sleeping pattern. She also flew out of bed and immediately came out of her room crying. I don't blame her, but from that moment on, the beautiful sleeping arrangement changed. After the woodpecker incident came the 8:00 spring and summer thunderstorms (perfect timing Mother Nature). We didn't have to check the weather channel, we knew what time the summer storms would hit. She also began to notice the trash truck that just so happens to come during nap time every Wednesday and so on and so on. We finally got her back into her bed time routine, but she no longer reaches for the bed, gives a kiss and says good night . . . No, we go through a long list of questions. If these are not asked and answered in perfect order, Rebekah does not go to bed. Listed below is the NIGHTLY bedtime conversation that we have after books, bible, prayers, hugs and kisses:

Rebekah: I want my door opened.
Mom and Dad: No, we close our doors at night.
R: I want my door cracked.
M&D: We close our doors at night.
R: I want my bedroom light on.
M&D: Bedroom light goes off at night.
R: Please leave the hall light on.
M&D: OK, we'll leave the hall light on.
R: No woodpeckers?
M&D: No woodpeckers.
R: No rain?
M&D: No rain.
R: No thunder?
M&D: No thunder. (Hopefully, we pray)
R: No birdies?
M&D: No birdies.
R: No trash trucks?
M&D: No trash trucks. We love you. See you in the morning.
R: I love you.

Door Shuts.
Rebekah: I want you to stay upstairs (thanks to her brother for that one).
M&D: OK (as we are walking downstairs).

Sometimes we throw in an extra animal just to get her--"No whales either, Rebekah" To that Rebekah giggles and says, "What?"


Thanks Woody!

Weather Talk

Below is a conversation that I heard through the bedroom monitor early one morning between Aiden (5) and Rebekah (2):

A: Tornado's are cool.
R: Oh yea!
A: Can you say Tornado?
R: Tomato
A: No! Tornado!
R: TOMATO
A: Say it slow, TOR-NA-DO. TORNADO.
R: TO-NA-DO. TOMATO--I said it!
A: No! TOR-NA-DO. TORNADO!
R: TO-NA-DO. TOMATO. I said it!
Fits of laughter between Aiden and Rebekah!

Fits of giggles coming from me (quietly).

After 3 weeks in school for Aiden, we decided that a 3 day weekend deserved a day trip. We went to the Virginia Safari Park in Natural Bridge, VA. It's something that we've wanted to do with the kids since we moved down here. One of those drive-through-in-your-car parks where you see and feed all of the animals. We knew the kids would love to see all of the animals up close. Once we got there and saw just how big it was, we opted for the guided wagon tour. It was a little more laid back, informative, and worth the extra funds as the minivan would have eaten three times the cost in gas alone (thanks "Big Oil").

The kids loved seeing the kangaroos, giraffes, as well as all of the various breeds of oxen, deer, and large birds. Rebekah watched from a close distance as they animals approached the wagon. She did get to hold an ostrich egg...which she thought was . I would have posted that picture, but the woman sitting next to Rebekah had a Janet Jackson-esque "wardrobe malfunction". Let's keep this G-rated. Aiden had a wonderful time pelting sleeping animals with feed pellets as the wagon passed, inevitably hoping they would just eat. It was like an Old MacDonald drive-by with hamster food.

Next we fed the remaining food to the piggies and baby goats. Yes, lots of hand sanitizer... Then it was off to the bird cage (no, not South Beach). The zoo workers would give you nectar in a cup to feed these, well, I guess they were like miniature parrots. Of course, we were the first in the cage and these birds were apparently pretty hungry. It was like a backwoods (although colorful) re-make of the Alfred Hitchcock movie. I threw my cup of nectar into the air, Aiden and Rebekah took off running in terror, and Mike was inundated by three rabid (although colorful) birds. All that was missing was the phone booth...

The day was a success and the kids had a lot of fun. Of course, there was the customary stop at Cracker Barrel, Target, and Kohl's in Waynesboro on the way home. Ah, to enjoy such amenities that we took for granted in NoVA. Last but not least, we made a quick stop on an Afton Mountain overlook to enjoy a view that we never got in NoVA. I'll take the mountains over Kohl's anyday.