Twinkle Twinkle ABCs

Reese is quite the little singer. She's always been a copy cat, but lately she's taken it to a whole new level. When we sing, she watches our mouthes intently, trying to learn the words as quickly as possible. She catches on and learns new songs insanely fast. And it kind of freaks me out how she recognizes tunes and can sing everything on pitch (now you know she didn't get that from me).

We normally sing in the car and at bedtime, but tonight she put on a little show in the tub while she was playing with her letters.  Okay, so she can't spell... but just wait, she can sing. 

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She must be a musical genius.

Summer is Here...

And so is the heat. It was 93 degrees today. Really? Does it need to be that hot already?  Hopefully it's not a sign of what's to come this summer.  Thank goodness we got to spend some time in the pool this weekend.  We spent the afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's house and then the kids spent the night so Chris and I could have a date night.  They were a little tentative about the water at first but I'm sure they'll be fish by the end of the summer.  We tried floaties and a life jacket... Tucker was pretty sure he was going to drown, so I may have to get a couple of those crazy swimsuits that have the innertube around the waste.

You'll notice that in most of the pictures, Tucker is in the water... and Reese is not.  She didn't want to get her ruffles wet.  Are you surprised?

 

Stupid Sony Camera

Chris took his high school band to Hurricane Harbor today, so the kids and I decided to tag along.  It was their first water park experience, and overall a success.  We spent the day in Pirate's Cove where they could run and splash and play on a few small slides.  Tucker absolutely loved it... we knew he would. He's a fish.  Reese was content to run and play on the water's edge most of the day.  She would barely put her big toe in the water.  In her defense, it was C-O-L-D.  I guess she's going to be a "lay by the pool" kind of gal like her mom.  It pretty much has to feel like bath water for me to venture in. 

We had a few minor injuries which is not at all surprising.  Tucker has spent the last few weeks with some kind of scab on his face.  Just when it starts to heal and go away, he gets another one.  Today, the giant bucket of water that dumps thousands of gallons of water every 15 minutes almost drowned us all.  The bell that normally sounds to warn you that it's about to dump wasn't working so we had no warning at all.  It knocked both the kids over and Tucker came up bleeding... from his face again.  He now has a huge scrape across his chin to go with the one on his cheek. I'm gonna have to get this kid a helmet. 

I took at least 100 pictures of the kids today and when I got home, realized that my camera is done for it.  It's been acting funny since I dropped it and broke the screen.  Instead of adorable images of the kids playing in the water, I have 100 or so blank squares.  I didn't get a single shot.  So sad.  We're going back in a couple weeks though, so I guess I'll try again.  

Until then, I leave you with this...  

A totally unrelated, random picture of Tucker. I just love this boy. 

The Bug Collector

I never thought my daughter would like bugs.  She's afraid of the 4-wheeler, bubbles in the bath tub, and usually the vacuum cleaner, so I just assumed she'd be the kid afraid of flies and grass hoppers.  Surprisingly, she's quite the opposite. 

Tonight she came running in the house saying, "Spahder, Spahder". I naturally assumed there was a spider on the back porch that she wanted to show me... and I was praying it wasn't a brown recluse or something.  But as I walked toward her, I noticed something in her hand.  Instantly my mind went back to the time she brought me a giant dead cockroach (and no, she didn't find it in my house... we were actually in a funeral home. Long Story). Anyway, it ended up being a huge dead bumble bee... probably the biggest bumble bee I've ever seen.  Why is she obsessed with dead bugs? Does this look like the face of a disgusting kid who picks up dead things? 

I guess I should just be glad she's not eating them. Gross. 

High Maintenance but Hilarious

Having two kids the same age makes it next to impossible not to compare. Tucker is agreeable, laid back and pretty easy. Reese, on the other hand, has been labeled the difficult one. She’s temperamental, moody, stubborn… just plain high maintenance sometimes. She is all those things… but stinkin’ hilarious too. When she’s happy… she is really happy. When she’s silly… she’s really silly. She’s constantly making me laugh.

Most of the time, it’s just minutes after making me want to scream.

Couple funny stories:

She’s way into playing mommy right now. She’s bossy (like me) and must be in charge (again, like me) so she makes a great mommy. The other day she was putting her baby to bed in her playpen so she hugged her, gave her kisses, and said, “love you”. She laid her down, looked at me, looked at the baby and yelled “NO” and then spanked her. Then she picked her up, spanked her again, looked at me and said, “Spankin”. Okay, so we may need to reevaluate our discipline methods.

She also must have kisses when she hurts herself right now. She totally milks all her injuries. If she falls down, bumps her head, etc… she comes running, yelling “Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.” It’s amazing how magical a kiss can be. She’s always healed instantly. Anyway, last night she pinched her finger while playing with the faucet in the bathtub. She looked at me with pouty eyes and said “Kiss. Kiss.” Then she smiled and said, “I kiss it” and she kissed her finger. Instantly, she was healed. One less thing she needs me for now. (Sniff Sniff).
Little Miss Personality is constantly keeping us on our toes… we’re either laughing or crying when it comes to this girl. She looks so sweet doesn’t she?

Don’t let her fool you… she’s a mess.

Shiner

It's usually not good when Nana Cheryl calls me at work, so I was nervous right away when she called at lunch time on Friday.  Sure enough, she was calling to report an accident.  Tucker fell, hit the coffee table, and busted his eye open.  She put a steri-strip on it and didn't think he needed stitches but wanted me to come look just in case.  I usually err on the side of "he's okay... no big deal" because he so tough but since he had a 1/2 inch gash on his eyelid, I was a little hesitant to tell him to just rub some dirt on it.  I totally didn't want to sit in the ER for 3 hours just to have them put Neosporin on it and send us on our way either though. 

Luckily, we have a great athletic trainer at my school who was more than willing to take a look at it for me.  We headed out to the field house where he was worked up just like one of our state champion football players.  Coach has seen his share of cuts, breaks, tears, etc. so I was confident he'd know what we'd need to do.  Thank goodness he said a trip to the ER wasn't necessary.  He cleaned it up and put some derma-bond on it... what he said they would if we went to the hospital. 

Yesterday morning, the cut was almost completely closed up... but he did have a pretty nice little shiner.  Poor Tuck...

Home Improvement - Tims Edition

After nine months with a "for sale by owner" sign in the yard, we finally broke down and met with a realtor. She quickly told us what we already knew... it's a total rip-off. The buyer ends up paying more because the seller has to raise their price to cover realtor fees. But that's exactly what we're going to do... raise our price. Sounds crazy to raise the price when we haven't been able to sell it for the lower price that we're asking... but we'll see.

Anyway, in light of the higher price, we decided to do a few home improvement projects in the hopes of selling it quickly for top dollar. So, we spent this weekend installing wood (laminate) floors and I have to say that I'm totally impressed with our "professional" job. And we didn't even argue while doing it... now that's really impressive.

Not too shabby, huh?

I've also been wanting to paint our front door for a while now. It's been looking pretty weathered. After painting it, we realize how terrible the handle looked so we had to replace that. One thing leads to another. I'm really pleased with it though... makes the front porch look much better. Now I just have to put some flowers out (that I'm sure I'll eventually kill) and people will be lining up to buy.

Chris is replacing the vinyl floor in the guest bathroom with tile and that should be the end of our projects for now. Why didn't we do all this earlier? It was super cheap since we did it ourselves and now I won't even get to enjoy it long (hopefully)!