Look! A truck!

Anyone who knows my Jack will remember his obsession with John Deere, excavators, garbage trucks, backhoes, bulldozers, dump trucks any and all things with wheels.

(Jack, spring 2007)

and how he loved making "parking lots".
Yes, that a parking lot designed to look like a house.
When you make about 5 million parking lots a day, you need to spice it up a little.

Obviously my attempts to keep the obsession from infecting Charlie have failed.
Yesterday, I caught him in this position.

His favorite word used to be "no". Now it's "truck".
I'm not sure which is better.



Oh well. At least I have one little princess who's more concerned with whether or not the trucks are pretty than how many wheels they have!

PSF and Nine

On August 25, 2001, I married the most wonderful man in the world.

I loved him then and I love him even more now.



And now, 9 years and 3 beautiful children later,



I still think he's the most wonderful man on earth.

Even though he forgot our anniversary.

(Yes, I'm sure he'll make it up to me!)

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Another first...

We had another first day of school here today.

Melody started 3-year-preschool (aka the Giraffe class) today.

Believe me, she's been waiting for this moment ever since Jack stepped out of the car on his first day of school.

Here she is showing off her cute bag my friend Courtney (aka Ella's mom) made for her.

She has not stopped talking about school and I think my ear drums are about to burst I'm thrilled she had a wonderful first day!

PSF and tired

I fully expected to jump right back in to regular, frequent blogging once school got started. After all, I neglected my blog all summer, spending my time with all three children, swimming, playing with friends, and thought that surely the onset of school would bring me some much needed free time.

I was wrong.

Between Jack's school and extracurricular activities, preparing Melody to start preschool, my volunteer activities, and simply the effort it takes getting back into the swing of things, I've just been too tired.

But not this tired.

Poor thing...she didn't even make it all the way to the bed.



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Treasure Mountain

A few weeks ago, Uncle Ben flew in from Denver for a visit.

The kids had a blast. Especially when he taught them "Treasure Mountain".

Remember that from camp days?

Treasure mountain, treasure mountain
Four big boulders, a circle and a dot

Spiders crawling up your back, spiders crawling down your back

One here, one there, now they're crawling in your hair.

Egg splat, water falling down your back
Tight squeeze, cool breeze,
now you've got the shiveries!

PSF and haircuts

Charlie had his first haircut (courtesy of his Granddaddy) a few weeks ago.

Those who know us, know this is a big milestone for our family.

Charlie, however, was relatively unenthusiastic and took his accomplishment in stride. Although he did have a celebratory cookie.

I know for some of you Charlie's hair doesn't seem long...but he was starting to sport the mullet look. And it's not the 80s any more nor do we live in West Virginia, so it was really time to get a trim.

The haircut commences with the "why-are-you-grabbing-my-head" look.

Followed by the "whatever-I-have-a-cookie" response

Next comes "I-don't-mind-this-too-much-as-long-as-I-don't-drop-this-cookie."



"Hey! You almost made my drop my cookie!"

And finally the finished product.

Handsome little guy, dontcha think?

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The first day...

of 1st grade!!

Someone else wanted to be in the picture too. (The third one was having breakfast and if you've ever seen him, you know that meals are very important!)

Here's to a great year!

PSF and daring

After a summer full of all kinds of fun trips, we finally make it to Resort Mitchell for a few days.

It's so relaxing there.

And the kids have fun too.

Especially in the swimming pool.

This year they both dared to do something they hadn't done before.

They jumped off the jumping wall, a.k.a. a 5-6 foot drop from a brick wall into the pool.

I've actually only done it once because I think it's scary!

But this year, Jack and Melody both dared to do it.



My mom's very encouraging, in case you can't tell.

Did you notice Melody's feet? They never stop moving. And for the record, when I recorded this, Jack had been going off the jumping wall for a day at that point but this was Melody's first jumping wall attempt. Pretty darn brave for a 3-year-old!

What have you dared to do this summer??


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