Do You Know this Song?

Samuel: Mommy, I just remembered a Christmas song! "Over the mountain and through the stream, to Jesus Christ we go . . .!"
(I believe it's the rarely sung second verse to "Over the River and Through the Woods") :)

Fun, Fun!

Jeremy had meetings out of town Tue-Thur last week and then left again for classes Sunday afternoon and just got home last night. The kids and I took the opportunity this week to spend some time at my parents. We saw lots of friends and had a lot of fun, here are some highlights!

Last week we went to a backyard pool party where everyone had a blast.

Julia of course wouldn't consider going in the pool while she had her swimsuit on. She waited until I had her back in regular clothes to decide it looked fun!
On Father's day we gave Jeremy a wheelbarrow (which sadly enough is the best present we've given him in awhile). I even convinced him to let us give him a ride!

Thomas proudly wore his belt just like daddy. (But I've never seen Daddy strike that pose!)

For some reason Jeremy didn't make it into this Father's day picture!

My sister Lynn stayed Sunday night and we took the kids to the pool. Much to my surprise everyone LOVED it. All last year Thomas clung to an adult the whole time, but this time he went in the "deep" water (up to his knees) and played around happily.

I figured Julia would be overwhelmed on our first trip there. Nope, she walked in up to her chin. She splashed and kicked and explored all over. Samuel has always loved the pool and entertained himself jumping in and "swimming" around (his hands are on the bottom of the pool). Maybe Aunt Jen and Uncle Mike will have some time to help him swim for real now that they are close by again. . . :)
Monday we headed to a nearby state park where we melted. My mom and her sisters were having a card stamping party there. It was so hot! We took a ten minute hike and Lynn and I had to shower afterwards! My Aunt Sharon (who's not in this picture), my cousin Michelle, Lynn, the boys and I climbed the tower. Thomas decided we should sing happy birthday to my Aunt Carol down below, she really appreciated that!

Tuesday some friends who will be moving out our way came over to my parents to play and Wednesday afternoon my best friend from high school brought her kids over. One evening Jeremy and my good friend Fr Lee, who is now at my parents' parish, came over to visit. Well, we didn't actually get much visiting done because the kids were in rare, overexcited, rambunctious form, but I'm sure we gave him good reason to go home and thank God for His wisdom that priests are not allowed to be married and have kids!

Wednesday morning we needed to get out of the house. Since it was still hot we headed over to the indoor playground where the kids had a ball.

She really was smiling when I put her in there, I just missed it!

We were quite the social butterflies and had a lot of fun! Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us stay, thanks Lynn and Beth for helping to reign in the chaos and thanks to everyone who came over to play!

How Cool is This?

I've discovered Picasa, a picture program offered by Google. As if I needed anything else to keep me busy! (You can click on it to make it bigger.)

Finally Hot Enough to Get Out the Swimsuits!

Samuel has been itching to try out his new swimsuit but it just hasn't been hot enough- until today. It was actually mostly humid and not so much hot, but it was close enough.


So for our
"project" this afternoon we got out the sprinkler.

No one really ran through it except for Samuel a couple of times, but they had a blast collecting the water in buckets using sponge balls and trying not to get too wet.

Julia enjoyed a little container of warmish water that I brought out much more than the sprinkler.

But she ended up dumping it out and just playing with the container!

They look so cute all wrapped up and warm!

Mmmmm, Fudgesicles

After the kids ran through the sprinkler I let them have fudgesicles. I thought Julia and I would share one, but as you can see, she hijacked mine. When I went to give her the first bite she grabbed it with both hands and wouldn't give it back. She quickly got the hang of using the stick and enjoyed the whole thing, only sharing three bites with me (and she definitely didn't initiate the sharing!) The boys thoroughly enjoyed theirs as well. I only had to put Julia in the tub and the swimsuits cleaned up just fine.

But let's just say they won't be having any fudgesicles in their Church clothes!

Brotherly Love

In Training!

Cousins watch out! We're preparing for the 4th of July!! (Doesn't everyone have some strange family fun like shoe flinging?)

A Secret Adventure

We took the kids to the zoo yesterday. Jeremy meant it to be a surprise for all of us. He was just going to come home from work Monday at 8 and say "We're going to the zoo!" but on Saturday for some reason I cornered him about picking a day to go so he just told me. Anyway we had a lot of fun and the kids did REALLY well. It was a little chilly but that's better than sweating the whole day! We were there from 9 to almost 5. I think we saw almost everything. I'm going to borrow an idea from my friend Megan and have the boys help narrate the trip. Samuel is in ORANGE and Thomas is in GREEN.
Julia loved the butterflies. When they told us not to touch the butterflies I thought "Who could catch one anyway?" but these butterflies are used to people and Julia really did almost grab one in her fat little fist.
We remembered to bring quarters so we could feed the fish. That's not me in the red shirt! Yes, it is. Oh, I throwed the food at the fish, there were too many to count and I put Mommy in a big pile of dirt! (that can be like a joke!). The mommy in the dirt part is the joke I guess.

Me and Thomas were sitting on the rhino back and it got shiny because so many people had sat on it. I climbed on the ledge to get up there. I liked rhinoceros.

Julia loved all the birds. Here she is spying a parrot with Jeremy.
Me and Thomas are near the giraffes. They were cool and they were tall, very tall. The penguins wanted to get fed. They were all looking at the door so we thought maybe they were waiting for the zookeeper. This is a group of animals you'd definitely find together in the wild right? Giraffes, ostrich and penguins!

I'm standing by a gorilla. It was nap time. We went to the gorilla house after lunch. All the gorillas were napping except a little one who was climbing around and knocking on the glass like "I'm so bored! All these grown ups are sleeping!"
This gorilla was not napping at nap time. I think he was saying his midday prayers. He was eating! I can remember! I don't remember that but whatever.

We're in the birds' area! We're standing like a flamingo. We're standing on one foot like a flamino with Daddy! Thomas loved the aviary, he's always liked birds.

That's Aquinas's uncle! His Grandma was there too. Aquinas stayed at the zoo to visit his family. He's not at the zoo anymore, he came back home today. What a coincidence that we should run into Aquinas's family!

We're all in the caboose! It was fun to climb in this caboose.

We're on the train! We rode to the elephants and some gate. It went sort of fast and sort of slow. I liked it. The train drove on the track for ten hours (more like ten minutes!) I don't know why Jeremy is making a kissy face.

Julia liked the train ride too. She started saying "toot, toot!"

We're in the aquarium! We're close to done by now aren't we? I think it's the third to last thing we did. Thomas was freaked out by the aquarium (actually he freaked out in the rain forest and Desert Dome a little too. He didn't like how it was semi-darkness) but you have to admit walking through the aquarium tunnel is a little intimidating. Jeremy carried him and got him calmed down enough to enjoy it a little. Samuel loved it. We sat in the tunnel and watched everything swim by for quite a while. This is the best picture I took.

Julia slept through one place which was the aquarium. Julia slept in it for twenty hours! Well it wasn't twenty hours but a least she got a little nap in. As soon as we went outside in the chilly air she woke up again though.We're looking around in the Desert Dome. Yes we are! Neither Jeremy nor I had been in the Creatures of the Night display and we really enjoyed it. Samuel liked it a lot too. Thomas insisted that Jeremy carry him through the whole thing but he then he was okay with being in there.

Thomas slept on the way home. . .

Samuel slept on the way home. . .I'm fake sleeping, I just closed my eyes. See, I like to fake sleep a lot. He was not "fake sleeping," he was OUT!

But not Julia! Unfortunately she was not as happy as this picture shows for a lot of the ride but we made it.

It was a great family outing. I love my husband!

Bad Parents

Yesterday Samuel was exhausted. He had four shots Friday because we did his kindergarten check up. I ignored my instinct to do two Friday and go back for two more a different day and maybe I shouldn't have. He didn't feel good all day Saturday. Julia also had two shots Friday for her 15 month check up so she was crabby Saturday too. Anyway at 7:45 we were saying our prayer downstairs in front of the traveling Mary because she moves on today and Samuel looked at the clock and said, "Wow, it's past 8:30 we have to go to bed." So (here comes the bad part) Jeremy distracted him and I jetted upstairs and put the digital clock in the boys' room ahead an hour so he wouldn't complain when he realized it was only 7:45. It worked, he was zonked out by 8, Thomas took a bit longer but he was pretty tired too so he was out not much later. The good news is everyone feels better and is happier today. By the way, Samuel has been known to read the blog over my shoulder (since he reads everything in sight) so I'm making sure to get this done while he's outside with Jeremy. Don't give our secret away!!!

Julia's Favorite Accessories

Julia's been walking around the house all week with this lovely yellow construction hat and the small black purse on her arm. (In fact I just saw her walk by with the purse on her arm again.) I'm sure all the babies will be wearing similar ensembles soon.

Samuel's Favorite Project

Samuel says this project is his favorite so far. They got to help plan and make dinner. I made them sheets with the dinner choices and they circled what they wanted. (I admit I stacked the choices a little so that they would mostly choose the same things.) They chose hamburgers with cherries, corn (Sam), green beans (Thomas), blueberry muffins and Butterfinger dessert. I haven't made Butterfinger dessert since my Newman days and I'd forgotten how good it is! I don't remember exactly how we made it at Newman but I found a recipe in one of my church cookbooks. You make a graham cracker crust in a 9x13 pan (about 2 c of crumbs and 6 T of butter). Mix a package of instant vanilla and a pkg of instant butterscotch pudding with 2 c of milk until it thickens up and then add a quart of ice cream. Pour that on top the crust and then put it in the freezer to harden up. Maybe an hour or so. Then spread a tub of whipped cream on top and if you remember to buy a Butterfinger bar or two you crumble that on top. I forgot so we used mini chocolate chips and they were good too. Yum-o!

Julia wanted to help with the hamburgers too. This is her mad face because I wouldn't let her play with raw meat. She usually does a great mad dance as well, stomping her feet up and down, but luckily she refrained from that on the stool!

If you're wondering Thomas' favorite project so far was planting the flower garden. It mostly consisted of him running around the yard, watering with the watering can for about 30 seconds and spilling a whole packet of daisy seeds in the grass. Just his style!