This afternoon I found Gracie up on Jared's top bunk wearing her Easter bonnet and "reading" the Bible that was given to her at her baby dedication. The Bible was actually in a little box in her closet. She must have figured out what it was on her own, because I don't remember showing it to her.
Anyone thirsty? You should have stopped by our Lemonade Stand this afternoon! We charged only 10 cents per cup. Jared was disappointed that we didn't charge $1.00 per cup. The kids decided to use the proceeds from the sale to send Daddy healthy food. We probably only made enough to send him one granola bar! I might have to contribute a little to their fund.
My mom watched the kids for me tonight so I could do some much-needed grocery shopping in town. When I returned, I stuffed my frozen food (which included Popsicles) into her freezer, and then I walked across the street to the library with the boys. The girls enjoyed Popsicles on Nana's back porch, and the boys and I found great books at the library. They always seem to want to check out the same books over and over again, but this week I managed to distract them, and we browsed the New Books section. Caleb was excited to find a brand new Max and Ruby book sitting on the shelf. Jared checked out several Beatrix Potter books.
**Michele, make sure you read Phil's response to your "bus" comment in the Seattle post.
I'm in desperate need of a nap right now, but I'm waiting for Caleb to fall asleep. While I wait, I thought I'd post something about our whirlwind-weekend. Corinne and I took the kids up to Seattle this past weekend to see Phil. We had a wonderful time visiting with him. On Saturday we stopped by the Van Der Meersches and the kids went swimming in their pool. We stayed at my friend Emily's house on Saturday night, and then spent Sunday afternoon walking around Seattle Center. I couldn't find a picture of everyone smiling, but the kids really did enjoy themselves! We found a great water fountain for them to play in. Caleb was so brave! He didn't mind getting completely soaked. All of my blog readers who are experienced moms will notice that I made the mistake of letting my children eat cotton candy after playing in the fountain.
The girls were eager to help Aunt Corinne disassemble their cribs.
I didn't realize that I hadn't posted in awhile. I lost a day travelling, another day doing laundry, etc. Now it's already Thursday. Well, I did want the days to go by quickly this summer!
What's been going on this week...hmmm. Caleb is potty trained now. He also gave up his pacifier recently--what a big boy! We disassembled the girls' cribs yesterday, so now they have toddler beds. Last night was a bit of a challenge. They fell asleep after 9:30! That was 2 1/2 hours of "helping" them to obey. As of today, Jared is out of his car seat and into a booster seat. So now I only have 2 in diapers and 3 in carseats, but no more cribs!
I had to post again. If you haven't read my post Like Father, Like Son from July 7, do so, and you might find this as funny as I did. I walked Phil to his 10:00 lecture this morning and came back to his dorm to put his laundry away. As I was straightening up his room, I noticed a tube of orange-mango toothpaste on his dresser that looks very similar to something that I threw away a year ago! I bought it for $0.99 at the Grocery Outlet. The first time I tried it, I realized why it was at the Grocery Outlet and why it was only $0.99. No reason to keep something you're not going to use, right? Well, maybe Phil bought that same kind of toothpaste up here in Seattle. He's in class, so I can't ask him. I'm not the betting kind, but I'm pretty sure this is the same tube!
My friend Emily picked me up from the airport yesterday. As we approached Seattle, she suggested that I call Phil to see where he was. We thought it would be nice to pick him up and go have lunch. I called Phil, and it just so happened that he was on the bus in front of us coming back from church! Seattle is a big city! The "chances" of this happening are very small, I'm sure! He got off at the nearest bus stop, and we picked him up.
This morning I made him eggs and toast before he went to class, and now I'm just sitting around waiting for the dryer to finish--he talked me into doing 2 loads of laundry for him. Usually he has class until 4:30, but today the MEDEX students have appointments for immunizations, so classes end at noon! We'll probably do a little sight seeing this afternoon, and then it's back to the books for him.
Last night I typed a very long email to a friend. We're trying to plan a baby shower together, and I wanted to email her all of my ideas for the shower. I typed for an hour and then accidentally hit the backspace key. I lost every word! I was so frustrated! We spoke on the phone this afternoon, instead. As we spoke, our conversation turned to Phil up in Seattle.
To make a long story short, their company is sending a plane up to the Seattle area tomorrow morning and they invited me to fly along free of charge! I was so put out last night after I hit the backspace key, but the truth is, if Shery would have received my email last night, we wouldn't have spoken on the phone this afternoon. My type-o was a blessing in disguise!
With Daddy gone, who's going to take out the trash? Caleb volunteered this morning! This is actually a follow-up post to yesterday's post entitled Like Mother, Like Daughter. Phil retrieves several items that I toss into the trash on a regular basis, and sure enough, as Caleb drove off with the trash this morning, he said, "Hey!"--which could only mean one thing--"Why are you throwing this away?"
Before I married Phil, I "cleaned" out his house. I gathered up several items that were insignificant to me and threw them away in the trash. A week later, I found a few of those items sitting on his dad's kitchen counter waiting to be washed. So you see, Caleb comes by it honestly!
Here I am at age 2 and Lily at age 1. I just cut her hair the other day. Do you like it?
Hard days come, but thankfully, there are only 24 hours in a day! Yesterday was one of those days for me. The kids were very fussy. I suppose the heat, potty training, teething and having Daddy gone had a lot to do with it. Nevertheless, we survived! Throughout the day, I kept repeating Psalm 16:5-6 to myself.
"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance."
The words pleasant and delightful are not words I would have chosen to describe yesterday, but it is comforting to know that the day was assigned to me by my loving Heavenly Father.
We were up watching fireworks until after 10:00 last night, so the kids slept in until 8:30--very nice for this tired mommy! This is how I found Lily when I peeked into the girls' room this morning. The picture's a little dark, but I didn't want to turn on a light or use the flash for obvious reasons. Lily poked her head up after she heard us scurrying around in the hall. 
We watched a fireworks show from our driveway tonight. Grampa bought milkshakes for all of us. It was so fun to see the excitement on the kids' faces as they watched the show. Caleb called out each color to us, reminding us that yellow is his favorite color whenever he saw it in the sky.
And now, for the GRAND FINALE....
Yes, that's right, a fire! The fireworks started this fire! I had to take this one for Phil.
