quote of the day

This morning I was sitting on the couch with the kids all around me when, on my kindle, I opened up a video birthday greeting from my sister.  Four candles danced around singing "Happy Birthday".  After we watched it a few times, I asked the kids who's birthday it was.

No one knew, so I told them it was mine.

Silence.  No "Happy Birthday, Mom!".  No birthday hugs.  No racing to the craft drawer to make a homemade card.

And finally, Reggie:  "Mom, are you going to share your cake?"

Thankfully, Daddy came home with an ice cream cake for me to share.

quote of the day

Reggie's breakfast blessing:

"Thank you for hockey and I love hockey.  Thank you for the football team.  Amen."

And another one from Reggie a few days ago:

Our discipline approach always follows the same pattern.  Once the child has served his consequence, I/Bryan say "You got a/lost your [whatever the consequence was] for [whatever the child did].  It is not okay to [whatever the child did].  Do you understand?"

Reggie has received many a consequence and has gone through this same ritual many, many times.  So, it threw me for a loop when he looked at me and asked,

"What does understand mean?"

Oops!

the age of innocence

Today after the kids and I had watched enough football for a beautiful sunny day, we meandered over to the playground in the neighborhood.  The kids quickly joined in playing with some other kids, who were a little older than my kids, and I'm guessing probably siblings.

Odd considering her gene pool, Lydia is always the most eager to get acquainted.  "This is my brother Brett, and I'm Lydia, and this is my other brother Reggie," she proudly announced.

"These your brothers?" responded the boy of 7 or 8 years.

"Yeah, this is my brother Brett, and I'm Lydia, and this is my other brother Reggie," she repeated.

"No, these your brothers?," the boy asked again, not satisfied with her answer.

Again, this time her tone showed slight annoyance, yet complete oblivion to what the boy was really asking, "Yes, this is Brett, and this is Reggie."

And that was that.  The conversation was interrupted by an acrobatic trick from the boy's little sister, and the kids kept playing together until it was time to go.

I liked Lydia's answers.  I hope she will always be so matter-of-fact and to-the-point. 

But I know this age of innocence will not last.  Before long, boys will have cooties, and she won't want to marry Reggie, and when I ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will say something like, "a veterinarian" instead of "a princess".  And she will realize that not everyone believes Jesus fills your heart with love and helps you make right choices.  She will discover that not everyone wants to be her friend.  She will learn that some people will judge her because she wears hand-me-downs, or likes the Packers, or has two brothers who don't look like her.

So, I will enjoy this age of innocence for the season it is and allow her awareness to come as it does.  In the meantime, maybe she can enlightened an 8-year-old or two.

first day of school

The bus arrived as I was racing to get my camera so we got an action shot.  The good news is he got on the bus without (much) hesitation and I didn't get any phone calls.

Last night at supper we challenged Brett that if he could tell us the names of 3 friends, we would all have ice cream cones for desert tonight.  Reggie and Lydia really like ice cream cones, so he was feeling the pressure.  "Riley" was a freebie because she was in his class last year.  "Erik" seemed legit, and I'm pretty sure he made "Emily" up - but the fact that he tried seemed ice cream cone-worthy. Heck, I went whole school years without making 3 friends...and I'm guessing the same is true for Bryan.

august

We crammed a lot of summer and a little fall into August.

Green Bay Vacation

We started out August with our annual vacation in Green Bay.  I already posted pictures of Reggie's birthday, but we also enjoyed hanging out at the "packerhouse" with family, going to the new children's museum, packer's training camp, Chucky Cheese, and Bay Beach.  This was my 9th training camp and my favorite so far.  Why?  Because before kids packer's training camp was all about football and shopping - two things that I don't particularly enjoy.  Now the kids are not babies and we are doing more kid fun - which is fun for me too!

Bay Beach- all the rides the kids want for under ten bucks.

Brett and Lydia are still talking about the farris wheel-and how it made their tummies tickle!  (Mom's, too.)
 





The Children's Museum was something new this year.  It had a Packer's exhibit, naturally.





 

Tour de Parks

 

After we got home from Green Bay, I looked at the calendar and realized we had three weeks left of summer and had not had enough hang-out time.  So I made a goal of visiting every playground in our city that we had not visited before.  There were ten of them, and at each one I took a picture of the kids in front of the sign (but I'm not posting all of them).

 

The kids had a lot of fun visiting new parks, but truthfully, the ones in our city are pretty much all very similar and there were no stand-outs that we were not already aware of.  However, at one of the parks, I met a mom who told me about Teddy Bear park.  She was quite shocked that I lived in the area but had never been there.  It was in a nearby city, so we went the next day.

A unique and fun park, geared towards the 7 and under crowd.



In the same city, we walked down to check out the lift bridge...



And the candy store!





 

Other Summer Fun

 

There is a new splash pad in a city near us, so we had a fun day there.

 

 

I'm not sure what Reggie is doing in this picture...maybe bowing to the sun god?

 

Daddy took the kids on their first fishing experience.

 

 

And it wouldn't be summer without a day at the beach.



All the kids love the beach, but I think Reggie feels just as comfortable in the water as on land.  Having a barely-three-year-old dunk his head under water for several seconds would terrify most parents, but we have come to recognize Reggie's natural ability.

Gardener's Update

 

This is a experimenting and learning season for our garden.  We planted lettuce, broccoli, carrots, beans, snap peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and radishes and had limited success with everything but broccoli.  The rabbits were our biggest obstacle.  Our most success was with the beans - we ate fresh beans at least every other day for 2 months, but unfortunately I didn't plant enough for canning.  We also have more cucumbers than we know what to do with.  We've had 3 varieties of cucumber salad, cucumber salsa, cucumber lemon aid, cucs'n'dip, and I've made over 3 gallons of pickles!  And everyone who comes to the door does not leave without a handful of cucs!  I am going to attempt some fall gardening.  Bryan built a hoop-style "greenhouse" for one of the raised beds (just to test the water).

 

And a Little Fall

 

An early spring means apples are already ready for picking, so last week we made a day trip up to Grandma's and enjoyed the harvest!  Bring on the apple sauce and apple pie!