Squishing water...that's AMAZING!

For lunch today I made the Sunday classic of grilled cheese and tomato soup.  I let Eliza help me flip the sandwiches and once we flipped it over she responded, “That was amazing!”  Apparently I am an impressive flipper.  Although I didn’t even know that “amazing” was a part of her vocabulary. 

While we were eating our Sunday classic, I finished before Eliza and she wanted some help, so she came and sat by me so I could help her.  In between her bites, I took a drink of water and was swishing it around in my mouth to rinse the food out.  I had a lot of water and so my cheeks were full.  Eliza saw my puffed cheeks and couldn’t help but squish them.  She quickly clapped my cheeks and water gushed out onto her.  She thought that was the funniest thing and I was thoroughly entertained also, so I let her keep doing it and Brendan had to get involved also.  They were just continually slapping my face waiting for water to spray, but I was laughing so hard at times I couldn’t keep my cheeks puffed out and they just kept on hitting waiting for something to happen.  It was very hard to not spray water out of my nose also during the laughing spells.  In the end we were all wet, but had some great fun.  Luckily Julia was asleep so we didn’t get into trouble.

Lincoln just keeps on getting into the drawers.  We are going to have to do something about our climber.

I have two weeks left of my summer break.  It has gone by so fast.  The only good thing about starting back up with school is that the sooner I start the sooner I finish.  And the sooner I get to draw a regular paycheck again.
-Neil  

Beanbags and more

Yesterday was a monumentous day in my life...I finally finished Eliza's bean bag that has been mostly done for months! (Brendan's has been done forever.) I won't say that it was an easy task with Eliza being herself all day. She just makes me laugh. I laugh because otherwise I would scream! :) For example: She came over to my sewing machine and said (to the machine), "I don't want you in here because you are making it too shiny in here" and then slapped the machine with the toy that she had in her hand. I guess the little tiny light bulb that is in the machine was too much for her to handle or it was crowding her spotlight. I really don't know about that girl sometimes. She is just such a character! But I hope they enjoy their bean bags. They did a lot of work by cutting up foam to go in them. They are experts at using scissors now becuase of it.Meanwhile...in another neck of our wood...Lincoln is managing to get himself stuck in a lot of places. Although I wouldn't mind getting stuck here:
Oh another funny thing. Lincoln is at that stage where EVERYTHING goes in his mouth. Today as we were pulling a small toy out of his mouth Brendan provided the explanation as to why he is always doing this: "He just wants to smell what it looks like." Hmmm....thanks Brendan!

Girl or Gorilla

Yesterday at dinner time this picture came up on our screen saver on the computer. Dad said, "look at that gorilla!"
Brendan's response-"no that is a boy, dad."
I'm glad that he already knows that girls won't ever look like this! This gorilla is at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. We got to visit there in 2007. Some people might recognize him because he was the gorilla that starred in Return to Me (one of our favorites).

Heaven Help Me

How could these three cute kids be so crazy sometimes?

Yesterday I had to change my shirt 3 times because I got poo from Lincoln all over me that many times...Yuck! Hope things go better in that department today.

Today Neil has to go to Seattle so I offered to clean the pool so that he could get off on time. I was all but done over there and was just putting the pool-tester kit away to turn around and see my children throwing fist fulls of potting soil into the clean pool. Needless to say, the pH will really be off now and they had to sit in time out for the rest of the time that we were at the pool. I probably screamed a little too much at them, but I am just too tired to laugh about it right now...maybe in a couple of days. When I then got out the vacuum to clean, Lincoln started crying because he had had enough with sitting in the stroller already. Sorry, guy. Talk to your brother and sister about it. Eliza walked up to me when we were about to go and without any prompting said "Mom, I'm done being a crazy girl" and then said sorry for throwing dirt in the pool. Thanks Eliza. Maybe all of those promptings to say sorry are finally paying off.

I only hope that I will make it through the day and that my kids will still be alive when it is all over. I have enjoyed having Neil here all of the time this summer. I don't know how we are going to do it when he goes back to school in September!

Binkie Free

Yesterday we decided it was time the Eliza give up her binkie...well give up isn't quite how it went.
I talked with her about being a big girl and not needing a binkie anymore, but she responded with "Big girls need binkies." Then she told me that "Binkies are for girls and not boys." (Neither one of her brothers have them). I can't remember the other excuses she gave for not needing to give up her binkie. I knew that I couldn't really talk her out of needing her binkie (becuase I used it as a security for me,too) so I handed the process over to Dad.
Daddy tried to get her to cut off the end of the binkie, but she wouldn't have anything to do with it. So he did it himself. When she found the binkie without the sucking end on it she was MAD. I asked her what had happened and she told me that Daddy cut it off. (She is a smart kid because he didn't do it in front of her.) She held on to the broken binkie for quite some time. I think she was mourning or something. And then she let it go. I didn't have her lay down for a nap so that she would be really tired at bedtime and go to sleep quickly without her binkie. This seemed to work because although she asked for it at bedtime and even started to cry a little bit, I offered to sing her a few songs and she was out! She only woke up once during the night asking for it. I just said that it was broken and tried to help her get back to sleep. We have banned naps from her for a couple of days so that she can really get used to not having a binkie...so far so good and hopefully we can potty train next!

Catching up...

I haven't posted in so long...and it isn't because we haven't beenn doing anything-quite the opposite. We have been running and doing a lot. Because I really want a record of everything, I am going to back blog and cheat with changing the date of the time that I actually posted...so it might look like I have been posting all along, but I just have been cheating. So don't get worried if you see a post that you may have missed. You probably didn't it, I just didn't really write it on the day that blogger said I did. I love that I found out how to do this! :)