So much fun, so little time

We're enjoying the last warm days as much as possible. The kids play with Daddy in the evenings, and on weekends, and they're soaking in all their "outside recesses" at school, too.

Yesterday they did some trampoline jumping, as usual.







Today, they're playing in the mud while Art does a little amateur terraforming.







And then there's the swingset. Mim has recently discovered that there are quite a few things she can do without Mommy's help now. It's very freeing for both of us.

Art - The Recessive Gene

The kids and I played pictionary this evening. Let me just say that it is surprisingly difficult to guess what a five and six year old have drawn when they were the ones coming up with the ideas in the first place. (We don't have the official Pictionary game, so we just think up something, and then draw it.)

Here are the things Zaya thought up.
A cold virus
A sand dollar
Muddy Water
A virus, bacteria and amoeba
A Bird's eye view of a pyramid in the desert
And a vertical division sign.
Oh, and also a microscopic view of denim jeans.

How many of those do you think we guessed?

Yeah, that's right. Not very many.

Mim drew:

A computer screen with a radar image on it
Our house, with the three of us drawing
A tree being blown around in a T-storm

These kids are nuts.

Just to give you an idea of how difficult this was for Mommy, here are three of the pictures. You tell me what you think they are.

ABC - 123

The kids started kindergarten and 1st grade on August 12th, and so far, so good. Mim and Zaya are both enjoying their classes and teachers, and Mim is tear-free, and staying all day, every day. Here they are on the first day of school.



I miss them during the day, but it's also wonderful to have so much time to be productive. Of course, that means I have no excuses now for not getting the house clean, cooking good meals, writing, exercising, blogging and, most importantly, having a quiet time. Guess I'll have to work on that "self-discipline" thing this year.

The kids' only disappointment so far are that they have only learned one cursive letter (Mim) and they're still just counting and adding ones (Zaya). I'd say those are minor complaints, given all the possibilities.

Generational

Mim and I at five years old. Obviously, my mother was a lot more patient with long hair than I am. I'd love for Mim to have long hair, but I'm not ready to face all that brushing. Oh, and the bangs thing, well, it was 1985. What can I say?




Here I am as a flowergirl at Auntie M's wedding.



Here's Mim as the flower girl at Auntie M's daughter's wedding. I forgot how young I was at the time. Mim has a good year and a half on me.

Part 1 of Too Many

So much has happened this last month, that I've had very little time or energy to chronicle all of it like a good mommy/blogger would. Here are some pictures to begin a quick run-through.

My cousin got married on Aug. 7th, and the kids were flower girl and ring bearer. There were two other flower girls also. The three of them looked a bit like a Clairol commercial. (To quote an observer).







I have a picture that is very similar to this last one of Mim eating her pre-wedding snack. It's from my own stint as flower girl at my aunt's wedding. That would be the mother of the bride of this wedding. Coincidence? I certainly didn't plan it, but it worked out well. (If you have that picture, Mom, it would be very nice of you to scan and upload it. Hint hint.)

My eyes are already starting to hurt, so I'll have to finish the rest of the month's activities later. That's another reason I haven't posted much. The computer makes my eyes/head hurt. =(

Sousa Rolls Over

There are three little girls (3,4,and 5) marching around my house right now to Stars and Stripes Forever. They're all playing percussion instruments, too. "A perfect picture opportunity," you might exclaim. Well, yes, it would be, except that they're all in their panties.

See, I would've blogged a lot more this summer if my children wore more clothes.

My nieces, Jaida and Addy, are playing here this morning, and it's just been one big adventure after another.

Thank goodness for iTunes. I don't know when I picked up this "Great American Marches" CD, but it's going to help fill up this last hour.

Zaya, on the other hand, has mostly just been reading and wandering around looking at his fish and avoiding all the women in the house. He's "not in the mood for parade." Can't blame him. I'm not either. I'm more in the mood for Excedrin right now.

"Fish?" you say. Yes, we are now the proud owners of three fish. The kids bought them last week, and are completely in love. I'll introduce the fish soon in their own special post. The fish aren't wearing any clothes either, but I think we can risk a picture or two.

Weekend Craziness

Well, it happened. My brother is actually married. The wedding was this last Saturday, and we had a wonderful time. Lots of family came to visit, and it was great to get to see everyone again.

I got pitifully few pictures of the festivities, but here are a couple.



Here are the kids with my new sister-in-law "Marie". She was a beautiful bride, and she's a sweet girl, too. I look forward to getting to know her through the years. Mim and Zaya were the flower girl and ring bearer, as you can probably tell.

Here are my brother and sister (Elisha and Claye) with my cousin Moose. My sister is on the right.



This is my father's family, minus one cousin and his family that couldn't make the trip from Arkansas. I don't know why I didn't get a picture of my mother's family. It is much, much bigger as she had five siblings to my father's one. Hopefully I'll get one from the professional photos that were taken.



The kids had the camera for a while, so we have several pictures of people from the perspective of their kneecaps. I thought this one turned out well, though. Art looked very handsome in his tux. (He was the best man.)



We also had some sad news this weekend. A man in my parent's church passed away after a very brief battle with cancer. He was a wonderful man, and left behind many children and grandchildren as well as a wife and countless friends. For more about him see my mother's heart-wrenching post.

Then My husband's uncle passed away two days later after a very extended battle with cancer. He left a wife and four children (all in their twenties). We've known this was coming for a long time, but that doesn't mean we aren't all grieving for him.

Needless to say, we've been through the emotional ringer this week. And with the funeral for Art's uncle this Saturday, and my dear cousin's wedding next weekend (in which the kids are RB and FG again) it doesn't look like that status will be changing for a little while.

Vacation: The Reprise

I suppose I should be a good girl and post about our vacation before I forget all the details. I've been dreading it, but not because we didn't have a great time or I don't have any pictures. It's because we had too much fun, and there's too much I want to say, and we have too many pictures!

I'll try to be kind to my reading public, all three of you.

Today will just be a basic overview of what we did and where we went. Maybe I'll have the mental and emotional fortitude to go into more detail or funny stories as the week progresses.

The first day, we went to see the Alabaster Caverns. They weren't as great as I remember from my own childhood, but the kids seemed suitably impressed. They were disappointed that we didn't see any bats. Here they are when hope was still alive.



We headed to the Great Salt Plains Lake, and checked into our cute little cabin. Air conditioning, and clean bathroom with shower, and a kitchen with refrigerator, stove and microwave are my idea of camping.




We all swam and made sandcastles and hunted for fossils up on the dam. Great fun! (The water was warm and perfect that first day, but by the next it was quite a bit colder and had risen a good deal because of flooding in the region.)



This lake is very shallow. Art went all the way out to the limit of the swimming area, and it was only up to his chest. It's supposed to be that way through most all of the lake.



The next morning we dug for selenite crystals at the nearby Salt Plains. Here's Art with his excavation. Because of the heavy rains the week before, we were able to find most of our crystals in the washed out piles left by previous diggers. The kids did a good deal of scavenging.





We played board games in our cabin each evening. The kids were also introduced to the American traditions of Battleship and Uno.






On Thursday we went to Leonardo's Discovery Warehouse in Enid. They loved the huge treehouse/play area, but were stung by wasps from the firehouse in the background of this picture. They had completely recovered by the time we went back inside. It was a wonderful little place for kids.







We went to eat at IHOP, a first for the kids, and a lady who was passing our table on her way back from the bathroom offered to take our picture.



Then we went to the mall in Enid, which is a sort of sad and pathetic shell of what it used to be. Or so we heard. The most impressive thing we found was the three pound lollipop at Candyopolis. The lady had us take it out so the kids could get a picture with it. I think she was just so excited to have a customer she didn't know what to do with herself. She was offering the kids free candy and helping us with our picture and telling us that we looked like a military family. (Yeah, I was confused too.) I love living in Oklahoma. The people are great! (OK, most of them)




Anyway, that evening we went on a (ostensibly) four mile hike. The map was wrong, and we did a good deal of circling, so I think it must been more than that.



There are all sorts of funny little things that happened, but that's your basic overview. Here we all are standing by the spillway, saying howdy to our families back home.

Drip Drop

Well, we asked for it, and we got it. Rain, rain, rain. Luckily we were on vacation for most of it, so we had sunny skies and swimming a few hours away while our little home town got soaked.

The morning of July fourth was wet, but it didn't damper anyone's enthusiasm. Here are the kids ready for church.




Art and the kids and I went out walking the morning before we left on our little vacation and we got pictures of the creek here in our little town. It was flooding out of its banks and almost touching the top of the bridge.




I'll post vacation pictures soon. We had a wonderful time, but the house hasn't fully recovered yet from our return. We had a fund-raiser golf tournament and two wedding showers in the two days following our return, so there hasn't really been time to process it all.

Summer Sloth and Citadels

This has been a strange day in our home, in that we're still here and have been since we woke up. That has only happened once or twice since summer started. We'll be going in to Grandma Lilibeth's church tonight for VBS, so we won't be home all day, but we have been so far. I've been a very bad girl and spent an unspecified amount of time reading a fairly depressing Alistair MacLean book. The kids have eaten, however, and are tolerably happy and healthy, so all is not lost.

As soon as I came out of my literary stupor, Mim talked me into helping with a fort. It kept expanding and now encompasses three dining room chairs, two small Poangs, a coffee table, a piano bench and two play tents. Oh, and two blankets and two sheets and a bunch of clothes pins.



Here Mim is beckoning her brother over to join in her fun. (He's busy reading a Foxtrot book. Like mother like son.)



And here's a shot of the inside. You can't tell from the picture, but it tunnels quite a way. That big red bowl there is "the caterpillar bowl". You might say, "But Carina, that looks like one of your nice mixing bowls!" And you would be right. As of this morning, however, it became a home for three caterpillars. Mim promises that they will be released by morning, but I'm going to try to talk her into letting them go before we leave this evening.

Oh, and if you're wondering, this is a Poang. In deference to my Grandpa P and all his hyper-literal progeny, I will also add that this is a Poang even if you are not wondering.

Not Quite the Olympics

Gymnastics is officially over, and although we didn't exactly uncover any hidden gymnastics talents, the kids did well. They enjoyed it, but were also glad to be done.

Zaya particularly didn't like the stretching. He said it made his knees hurt. Probably an indication that he should do more of it.





I have to admit, I was hoping they would really love it. Gymnastics was my obsession as a child. They are their own little people, though, with their own personalities and talents and interests. I'm not going to be pushy, but I do want to make sure they have the opportunity to find where they can shine.

Maybe I should've found an entomology class instead.

Princess and the Pea

This is what a girl who is much too big for a nap looks like when she's had a busy afternoon of swimming, and then sits down with Mommy to read books.

Oklahoma Excitement

Like true Okies, we went to check out a field fire on our way home from the City. It was dusk, so the fire was all the more impressive.



I also wrote a little free verse about it on my other blog, if you're into that kind of thing.

It Is To Laugh

Here are some Zaya jokes. He's been making up his own this year. Be prepared.

Q: What do Oysters eat at Arby's?

A: Pearl-y fries. Get it mom? Curl-y fries - Pearl-y fries? Get it?

Q: Why are English people like fruit?

A: They live in Grape Britain.

(Actually that originally involved Arabs and A-Grape-ia.)

Q: What is a t-shirt's favorite food:

A: Roast Button. (Get it Mom? Roast Button - Roast Mutton? I got it from the Hobbit, chapter 2. Get it?)

Q: Why is a plant like a camera?

A: It uses photo-synthesis.

Q: Why do people in Mongolia (or China, depending on his mood) kick a lot?

A: Because they're Boot-ist.

There are others that I can't remember just off the top of my head. The conversation that takes place after the answers to Jokes #1 and 3 also takes place after every answer. If you don't break into absolute hysterics, he assumes you didn't get it.

He's also now the proud owner of a large trophy that says that his Junior High gymnastics team got first place. Actually, it's a trophy for "First Place in Asking if He Could Have an Old Trophy" while his gymnastics coach was cleaning out the old gym. He's as proud of that thing as he would be if he'd actually achieved something to win it.

Here the kids are trying to have serious faces. Why? Not a clue.

Outings

Last Friday, we took an impromptu trip to the East Place, one of the family farms nearby. We walked in the creek, made a campfire and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. All activities being very dirty and exhausting. It made for a great night's sleep though, so it's all worth it.





Mim is dodging as bug.



While gathering firewood, we came across this tree. It must have some kind of fungus. It was rather nasty looking, and the mulberries were overly large and deformed. It reminded me of corn smut. Gross.





Art is holding up some of the zombieberries.

The next night we had a birthday party at Addy's house, and the next day we went to Canton Lake for a surprise birthday party for my mother-in-law. It was a fun weekend, but very tiring and sun-intensive. Also, we may not eat hot dogs again for a few months. Three days in a row was quite enough.