Monkey Boy, Dance, Smushtash, Hair Helper, Headaches, Etc.

It appears summer is off to a busy start!  The first few days we kind of had free days where there was no schedule, but after that I saw we needed some kind of structure to our days.  I then told the boys that they had to shower, get dressed, pick up downstairs, clean out the dishwasher, put a load in the laundry and practice the piano, and have breakfast before they could turn on the TV in the mornings.  Josh, always the early bird, woke up the next morning at the crack of dawn and finished all his chores while everyone else was sleeping.  He then thought it was a wonderful time to start practicing the piano at 6:30 am.  Seriously?!  Everyone else was asleep before that, but Josh woke them all up.  I came out and told Josh he did great completing his chores, but he can't practice the piano before 7:30 in the mornings EVER again--I like my sleep and everyone else's sleep too much! 

We did enjoy the first week of summer.  Matthew has started a 5 day a week 9 am-3 pm autism program that he loves.  Josh has started a basketball and theater camp.  Daniel has started a basketball camp and will start a soccer camp at the end of the month so we are keeping busy.  I was worried about this summer being boring because of the city not doing Kids in the Park this year, but it hasn't been bad.  We have found plenty of things to do to stay active and out of trouble.  Last week as we were driving around in the car Sarah likes to talk.  She was telling me about seeing the American Eagle.  I said, "Oh you mean the Bald Eagle?" to try and correct her.  She just looked at me like I was a dork and and didn't know what I was talking about.  She then told me back to correct me, "No, Mom, it's the American Eagle."  Now in my vast 12+ years experience of parenting I decided not to argue because who really wins and argument with a 5 year old anyway?  So in our household it is the American Eagle not the Bald Eagle--haha.

My family LOVES watermelon (except Matthew).  The other day for lunch I carved up a huge watermelon and it was gone by the time Aaron got home from work three hours later.  This is why:

 Every time I turned around one kid or another was perched on the counter eating pieces of watermelon out of the bowl.  Aaron was a little miffed there wasn't any for him, but we have another watermelon just waiting to be cut up.  I just need to wait for when Aaron gets home from work to cut it up.

Some kid won a prize from somewhere that Noah has laid claim to.  It is a plastic mustache that he thinks is hilarious to wear.  It just clips inside your nose.  Noah puts in on and tells everyone to look at his smushstash.

 The other day Josh suggested that we make ice cream in a bag.  Now of course it can't be that easy for us because I had to find Daniel friendly ingredients to make the ice cream base first.  I started looking at all the dairy free creamers, however, even though all of them say dairy free they really aren't.  I finally found one that was completely soy based and was only located at a specialty store and so that's what we used.  Here's Josh mixing all the ingredients up with Sarah supervising:

 Next we had to bring in the bag of rock salt which appears to be a four person job.

 Mixing up the ice cream in our sandwich bags surrounded by another gallon size bag full of ice and rock salt.  It got so cold it was hard to hold on to after a while.

 However, it worked after about 5 minutes of mixing.  It was really yummy, too:

 Last week was Sarah's dance recital.  She LOVES them because she gets to be fancy with makeup, glitter spray and fingernail polish.  I may be biased but I think she is a pretty little girl!

 Their hair design was a little intricate this time around.  Here's the back view:

 Here's the top view with the glitter spray on it:

Because it was a little intricate my neighbor asked if I would do her little girl's hair, too.  I was more than happy to help.  I don't get too much experience with only one girl in my house :).  Here's the cute twinner girls:

It was fun to be able to help a few of my neighbors the past few weeks with their little girls' hair.  I didn't expect anything for it, and was surprised to get a treat and a thank you card from them.  That made my day.  I am more than happy to help anytime (and no you don't have to give me anything for it either ;))

While we were waiting for the recital to start Noah was being a stinker and I told him, "NO!"  He doesn't hear that word very much so it made him pretty sad.  Yes he is a little spoiled!

 Here's Sarah on stage.  She had just heard us yell her name and was laughing about it.

Here's both of her cute dances:

Of course she needed her post performance flowers!!  I love having a girl!

 Occasionally I can get a pretty bad headache.  When these happen I usually take a megadose of ibuprofen and get me a huge Coke usually from Sonic because it is close to my house, it's yummy, they have a drive thru so I don't have to get children in and out of my car, and I have a cheap window sticker for it.  This happens more often than I like to admit and Sarah has picked up on that.  The other day as soon as I pulled into Sonic's drive thru she looked at me, dramatically put her hand to her head and said in her most sad, pathetic voice, "I have a really bad headache, Mom."  Haha nice try french fry!!  She did put in an amazing Oscar worthy performance, though.  Amazingly enough as soon as we pulled away from Sonic her headache was magically gone never to be talked about again until the next time I pull into the drive thru.  What a funny girl!  Now she has started doing this every time I pull into Sonic's drive thru hoping that I will get her a drink for her 'headache', too.

 It was National Donut Day last week.  Of course we all had to go down to Krispie Kreme Donut's to get our free donut.  The kids liked watching the glazed donuts being made:

 There were too many choices--it took forever for all the kids to choose what donut they wanted.

Noah is quite the sneaky kid.  I am glad my fridge beeps at me if you leave the door open for too long.  That's usually the only way I know Noah is trying to sneak food out of it--the little stinker!!  Maybe I should start calling him Monkey Boy because he really does have some sweet climbing and mischief making skills! 

For example (other than the fridge) the other night Aaron woke up around 1 am and though he heard the water on.  Sure enough Noah had gone out into the backyard earlier that evening without anyone knowing.  Noah had decided that the plants needed to be watered and left the hose on.  Noah had gone to bed about 7 pm so we know the hose was left on for at least 6+ hours without anyone knowing about it (except Noah).  We are just glad it didn't flood the basement because it was pretty close to the house.  Oh this little boy can be a stinker sometimes.  This isn't the first time we have caught the hose being left on by Noah with no one knowing about it.  Aaron has priced out some faucet locks and we have ordered some.  Hopefully, he doesn't flood our house before they come in!!

 Saturday was National Trails Day.  This is something my kids look forward to every year.  In the three previous years we have just walked along the trail, but this year we decided to ride our bikes.  It was awesome.  Sarah was able to ride her own bike much to Aaron's relief because that made the bike trailer that much lighter to haul on the back of his bike.

 Each city we passed through had their own prize station where you got to spin the wheel.  We won a few ring pops, a swimming pass and a huge picture of the Jazz players.  The prize stations kept the kids motivated to keep pedaling for 8 miles round trip, too.  We didn't hear any complaints except from Matthew at the end because he has outgrown his bike and is in desperate need of an adult mountain bike.  He was complaining because his legs were tired and it was because his bike was too small.  He did have fun most of the ride, though.  It was only toward the last mile he really started struggling--poor kid.  I guess I will keep my eyes peeled for a good deal on an adult mountain bike.  When did he get so tall and his legs get so long?!

 Noah loved hanging out in the bike trailer.  After each stop we would pick up the treats and load them in the backpack and then start pedaling again.  That's when Noah went to town and ate all the treats while the rest of us were riding.  No wonder he LOVED riding in the trailer--I would have loved it, too--being pulled along and having as many treats as you want with no one telling you no because they have no idea what you're even doing.  Good thing I love that little boy!

 Parts of the trail were nice and shady.  Sarah and I loved those parts the best!

 Last week Matthew was able to start an autism program (more info coming about that on a later post).  He loves it.  They meet at a park by our house that is right next to some railroad tracks which Matthew LOVES!!  Every time a train would go by Matthew would flip out and scream with excitement.  One morning there was a dad and his little girls at the park.  When the dad saw Matthew reaction to the trains he walked over and found one of Matthew's leaders and asked if his family would like a custom train table that he had made.  The leader passed that info on to me and the next morning the dad was there at the park when I dropped Matthew off so he came over to talk to me about it.  He said that he couldn't help but notice Matthew's love for trains and he would like to give me this train table he had made.  He had put over $500+ in constructing it, but he didn't want to sell it.  He wanted to give it to someone who would enjoy it at much as he and his family had.  He wasn't kidding when he said it was big, either!  Aaron and I picked it up Saturday and brought it home.  He had to muscle it up the stairs, but the kids love it!!  They played with it the rest of the afternoon and all the next morning.  I am amazed by the generosity of others especially when it comes to Matthew.  We have had so many awesome encounters with such kind and loving people.  I am really grateful for that, too.

Noah had been wearing his sandals from last year and more he wore them the more stinky they were getting. It finally got to the point that no one wanted to be around him because his sandals stunk so much.  I finally broke down and bought him a new pair.  He was so happy with them.  He kept running around the house telling me how much fast he could run with his new sandals.  What a funny kid!  I also think it is funny that he has the same exact all over body involvement run that Daniel has, too.  You can definitely tell these two are brothers--haha!!