Finished! (Part 1)

The foundation is done! It's so fun to go stand in the space where the room will be. I think it'll be inspected and then we'll get a slab!

The yard is still in wonderful shape, too. (Ha.) Do you see our newest addition? There's a yellow port-a-potty at the corner now.

It's ridiculously hot out today, so after story time at the library we're having a quiet afternoon inside. After we read a bunch of books and played a few different board games, I figured the kids could go ahead and rot their brains for an hour or so.

Playground

While we're waiting for the concrete to cure, things are quiet around the house. We went to the park last night for a game of catch and some quality playground time.

Father's Day Weekend

We snuck off to the beach yesterday afternoon. It was lovely.

 After church today, though, we did nothing. That was also lovely.

Happy Father's Day!

More Walks

It was another hot day, but it cooled off enough for us to enjoy a pre-bedtime walk.

Eric and I walked the whole way, at least.

Summer and Solutions

School is out and summer is in full swing (hooray!). The kids had swimming lessons this morning, we got a bird feed AND some herbs to grow in pots today, and then enjoyed a post-dinner walk.

In other good news, the whole addition thing is going to be fine. Engineers are amazing, and we'll be able to get everything to work without having to spend a ton of money to do it. Yay!

Outside Treat

The kids had ring pops after dinner tonight. Those are an outside treat for bath nights. They were so happy!

We took the ring pops on a walk, and the poor little dude tried sprinting into a sharp turn on a gravel road. Ouch!

In other news, the guys working on our house are amazing:

Our house is feeling pretty small now that we're down to about 1,000 square feet, but we're excited to see the area of our addition mapped out!

Beautiful Evening

It was another beautiful evening tonight. I ran out of flour and trash bags, so we took a nice walk to the grocery store.

I love our neighborhood.

Softball!

The kids and I got to cheer on Eric's team tonight as they rallied, tied the game, and then lost. :-( Poor guys.

The little one has a hard time picking out her daddy on the field. It leads to hilariously embarrassing conversations that I hope nobody overhears.
"Is that my daddy?"
"No."
"Is THAT my daddy?"
"No."
"Hey! Hi daddy!"
(Man who is not her daddy gives a half-hearted wave.)
(I either die from embarrassment or start saying loudly "Your daddy is at third! You know that!")

Hot, hot, hot!

We had a little snafu with the air conditioning today (all sorted out now, thank goodness), so it was 85 degrees inside at dinnertime. I let the kids watch an episode of Dinosaur Train while Eric was on the phone with the heating and air people and also the power company.

It's cooled off inside considerably now. Hooray!

Perfect day for a picnic!

I packed our lunch and we walked it to the playground down the street-- it was a gorgeous day, and it was really fun to eat outside! We even brought Puppy (she sat very nicely on the stroller the entire time).

Because it was such a beautiful evening, we actually went back to the playground after dinner. The kids couldn't believe their luck! We'll have to do this more often through the summer.

Oh Mr. Sun!

It's our responsibility to put sunscreen on the kids before school. The teachers will help them reapply at lunch. Sunscreen-time is, um, quite an adventure with these two because they can do it by themselves!

Brrr...

Eric spent the evening with the kiddos tonight while I (and my colleagues) braved chilly weather and rain to rub shoulders with Nate Silver (!!!). Eric took the kids out to dinner and had them all ready for bed when I got home. The little guy was pretending to be a kitten when I got in, so instead of hugs I got to scratch his nose and rub his ears. *sigh*

It was chilly and rainy all day today, so here's a photo of the little guy and I at the beach. Only 8 months until beach season returns!

Kites!

The little guy got to fly a kite for the first time this weekend. It was REALLY windy, so although most of the time he looked like this...

... he did occasionally get to do this!

Here's one snapshot of the kids and Eric playing on the beach. My camera died early the first morning of our trip (boo), so this is what I have.

Softball!

Eric had another softball game tonight, but since this one was at 6:30 we got the little guy dinner at McD's on the way to the field. He insisted on sitting all by himself while he ate his dinner.

Then he played catch by himself. I'm really glad that he enjoys playing alone. I think it's a nice break for him, actually, after a full day of school.

So, the toy in his happy meal was a smurf. He let the baby play with it for a bit (very sweet of him).

Then he threw it around for a while. Despite my telling him several times to not throw things at the field, he threw the smurf at the fence. Look at what happened!

I left him hanging there (about five feet off the ground) for a while, but we remembered to get him down before heading home.

Best. Parade. Ever.

We went to the annual fire truck parade this weekend. (What can I say? I love parades.) It was entirely, completely, 100-percent fire trucks. I think the parade crowd had the highest concentration of three- to five-year-old boys I've ever seen outside of a preschool . The little guy had a blast.

The baby wasn't nearly as impressed as the little guy, but she wasn't bothered by the sirens. That was a relief.

After the parade, we dropped by the big firefighter convention just to look. I don't know why the little guy is making that face every time we take his picture. It looks terrible!

Even Sir Walter himself got in on the firefighting action...

After all the excitement, we went out for some BBQ. The baby seems to be tolerating me eating dairy, so I got to have coleslaw on my sandwich. DELICIOUS!!!!

Pool Days

We were going to go to the beach today, but went to a city pool instead. It was great-- so much easier than packing the car up for a day at the beach! The little guy had a blast playing in the water.

We stayed in the wading pool and the "sprayground" the whole time. The water varied from 10 to 18 inches deep.

The baby had fun watching all the big kids. She liked being in the water, too.

During the pool breaks, the kids hung out on their beach towel.

They were both sound asleep by the time we got home, and the little guy napped until bedtime!

Life's a Beach!

We played hookey from church today and went to the beach. It was definitely a good decision, especially since we can watch the sermon online tonight before bed (that counts, right?). At the beach, we ate a picnic lunch and then dipped our toes in the water,

the boys played baseball,

the baby played in the sand,

and I caught some rays with the little guy.

It was a wonderful day!

Yikes!

Guess who pushed the stroller for a (very little and closely supervised) bit on our walk tonight?

He's about as responsible with the stroller than he is with those little grocery carts. That boy is a menace.

That's My Girl

For a while I thought the baby didn't like strollers, but I think she actually just doesn't like the cold. It was a gorgeous day, so we took a walk after dinner and she happily hung out in the stroller and fell asleep.

Those are my Florida genes coming through. Yay!

More Swimming!

Sorry for the lack of posting this week... we've been swimming. We took advantage of our free-pool-entry-while-in-swimming-lessons today and (surprise!) went to the pool. The little booger *finally* jumped in the water!

He really enjoyed the 2' section-- he could easily reach the bottom and climb out all by himself.