frozen yumminess

Sometimes my kids are weird. That's just a fact. I'm sure all kids have their weird quirks and one of Scott's quirkiest is that he will only eat frozen vegetables while still frozen and prefers his fruit frozen as well. We've gotten many the strange look from babysitters when we suggest that they don't heat up the peas before serving them. Andrew has definitely jumped on the frozen bandwagon as well. Just yesterday, he "graduated" from having slightly defrosted and cut up frozen fruit to being able to eat it directly from the freezer bag.

Well, I have to admit that pregnancy in this soon-to-be-July heat has driven me to desperate measures. For breakfast this morning, the three of us finished our meal with some frozen fruit. Lunch was PB&J (a little heavy for me) and a frozen peas, carrots, corn, green bean mixture. The icy vegetables taste so good sliding down my throat and certainly are better for me than ice cream or Popsicles. I think I'll serve some of our frozen strawberries for dinner that we picked at the farm a few weeks ago. And, I'm just dreaming of the day (really soon, I hear) that blueberries are ripe and ready to be picked.

swimming with and without Daddy

As if VBS wasn't enough excitement for last week, we also began evening swimming lessons for Scott. Those have continued this week with the last lesson being tonight. We had really hoped that he would be able to swim alone at the end of two weeks, but he just isn't quite ready for that yet. However, we have seen great improvement in his skills and he does great swimming with a noodle, kickboard or swim bubble on his back. I think all he needs is just a little more confidence and some more strength in his arms and legs. After all, the child has almost no fat to "help" with buoyancy.





Andrew has also enjoyed the benefits of Scott's lessons. He has had a great time playing in the water with us while we wait for Scott to finish.


I took these pictures on Tuesday evening because that was the last day that Derrick was going to be able to attend lessons. I decided I would not attempt to take pictures solo for fear the camera would end up in the water.

You may ask, "where is Derrick?" He is helping friends of ours move from Kentucky to North Carolina. While I'm certainly not envious of them having to lift heavy furniture in this heat, I'm jealous for the good, quality time that they are able to spend in the car renewing their friendship and catching up. The kids and I are faring well on this end. It just seems like several consecutive days of Derrick having PTO meetings and not getting home until after bedtime. We all look forward to Daddy arriving home on Saturday night.

VBS Loot

You may wonder, as I did early in the week, what in the world you do with toddlers for three hours while Mommy is helping teach VBS. At our church, VBS is only offered to kids who have finished Pre-K through 5th grade. But, they have nursery for the little children of the volunteers. Both of our boys fall into the latter category.

Well, I'll tell you what they do...they have lots of fun, sing songs, play with beach balls, eat snacks and do loads of crafts. Each boy came home today with a bag full of crafts. I spread them out on the table to get a good look.



Now I have the great task of figuring out what to do with everything. Some, like the photo magnets and footprints, are definite keepers. Some, like Andrew's coloring pages, will certainly end up in the recycling bin. Actually, it is easy to weed through Andrew's things. He will never notice whether they are missing or not.

Scott is a different story. Can you see the "lovely" sand and shell Kleenex box cover? What about the red cup that is upside down? Evidently, that is an octopus, but it only has two crepe paper "legs" hanging from it. What happened to the other six legs? Scott said he accidentally tore off two legs in class, so we only have to account for four. Hmmm, maybe Nana and Pop will inherit some of these treasures...After all, they are out of the country and can't control what we leave at their house this weekend when we visit.

In all, we've had a great week at VBS. I taught science for the little kids. The best day by far was one where we presented the gospel with this really nifty presentation. All of the kids (and the teachers) were impressed. I highly recommend this as a great visual of how Jesus washes away our sins and makes us pure.

Vacation Bible School

This week is VBS at church. Ours runs Tuesday-Friday, so today was the first day. The kids and I all came home happy and exhausted. I'm teaching the Science rotation to the little kids (ages 3, 4, 5, & 6). Today we made wave bottles and hung fish on the wall. Tomorrow we are playing with sand and water. Thursday is magnets and Friday will be making and tasting "sea water."

I think the funniest part of the day for me was when I was eavesdropping into Andrew's class. The kids were all sitting on the floor, except Andrew. His teacher was trying to convince him to climb down from a climbing toy and join the group and he was saying "No." I just chuckled to myself as I walked away and thought, "Good luck. He's a climber."

At home, he climbs everything. When I was on the phone with a friend yesterday, he wheeled the car to the back of Derrick's recliner chair, climbed onto the roof of the car and did a flip down the back of the chair. Then, he got right up and attempted to try it again. Later in the evening, he wanted to climb the glass panes on the back door. We want to nickname him "Monkey," but whenever we call him "Monkey" he exclaims, "I not MONKEY! I Andrew James."

Happy Father's Day!

In honor of the father in this household, I've posted some pictures of him "at work" with the kids. These were taken during our Mother's Day photo outing. When I reviewed the pictures, it was clear that he did most of the "work" entertaining the kids and keeping them happy all morning. We are so blessed to have such a great, active Dad.

Since Derrick rarely reads the blog, it is safe to post his present for tomorrow. We decorated and framed the bottom two photos for his classroom.


We had an exciting day yesterday, spending all day running errands around town. Andrew slept through Big Lots and The Home Depot (yes...with two transfers to and from his car seat.) With all of the Father's Day sales throughout town, it seemed the perfect time to spend the money President Bush so generously gave us - buying a new riding lawnmower. Derrick has been researching what to get since April.

Our old mower was purchased from a friend and we affectionately called it our FIAT (Fix it Again Tony.) With its 36 inch blade, a mow job should have taken 1.5 - 2 hours. Typically, Derrick would spend an additional 30 minutes filling the tires, adding gas/oil, and yanking the cord prior to mowing and almost always would have to pull out his toolbox and spend another hour or so fixing some part that was causing it not to work in the middle of the mow job.

With our new mower today it only took a total of one hour, and that included filling the gas tank and giving each boy a ride around the yard (without the blade spinning, of course.) I think it is funny that our mower not only has a cup holder, but also a small compartment that we can only imagine is for an ipod. I guess it could be for a cell phone, but what's the point of having one out there? You could never hear it ring while driving the lawnmower. Too bad we don't even own an ipod.

I think the boys are going to be disappointed that we are no longer shopping for lawnmowers. For the past few months, they have loved climbing all over all of the mowers in the stores as we have shopped around.

a new car!

Well, not a new car for us, but a new car for the kids. Derrick's parents sent us a "cozy coupe" car for a "have a great summer" gift. The boys were thrilled with it and even played in it for a few days before we put it together. Saturday morning, all four of us helped to assemble it. You can imagine that it sparked quite spirited discussions between the boys as to who was going to be able to drive it. At one point in the morning, Derrick and I escaped to the office to discuss summer plans, etc. and left the boys to figure out the car. First, there was silence. Then, about two minutes later, Scott came wheeling into the office with Andrew riding on the roof!

Derrick and I just sat there stunned...how did he get up there? I looked to Derrick for a response - rather than reprimanding him to get off for safety reasons, Derrick suggested that he get his "crash helmet" and wear it while riding on top. They went outside and retrieved both bicycle helmets and spent the rest of the day taking turns driving and riding on top. Here are some pictures. As you can see...Farley is never far away when there is action in the house.

Photo updates

Here are some samples of what has been occupying our time the past few weeks:


Summer Reading at the Library! I realize that Scott is far from reading in this picture, but the best part about Summer Reading at the Library is the activities that they bring to the library. The first activity of the year was a traveling exotic animal zoo. Here Scott pets the big turtle that they brought. They also had a ferret, some foxes and other smaller animals.

Last week we went to a fantastic magician show that was entertaining for both adults and children. And, every time we go, the boys get stamps and prizes for the books they read.


I took a whole series of pictures of Andrew running around in his "froggy" diaper. I think that there is nothing cuter than a kid in a cloth diaper and that, plus a t-shirt, is the outfit of choice for hanging around the house during summer months.

The only thing better would be Andrew running around in big boy underware - a sign that he would be potty trained. That's still a few months off, but I sure am ready for that.

We spent last weekend in Atlanta at Nana and Pop's house. The highlight of the visit was swimming in their neighborhood pool. Scott loved being in the water, although he is still nervous about swimming without his float suit. We start swim lessons at the Y next week and hope that he really gets the hang of swimming alone.

Andrew spent the first day sitting in the gutter on the side of the pool, but by the end of the second day, our little dare-devil was jumping off the side of the pool into Daddy's arms.

You know it has been a while when...

...when you open the cover to the sand box and you have many little oak trees growing in the sand. Yes, that is what happened today when I suggested to the boys that they play in the sandbox. I think they were just waiting for the suggestion because they were so excited to play. It's not that they don't want to play in the sandbox. In fact, it is probably Andrew's favorite place to play. But, the gold in the sand makes such a mess that I'm not always willing to let them get so dirty.

Summer vacation is just around the corner for us. Today was our last day with Noah and tomorrow is Derrick's last day of school. He has post-planning next week, but the end is near. Looking at the above picture, I realize how much all three boys have grown and changed this year. Below are some highlights of our year with Noah. I noticed as I was looking through my pictures that we did more activities in the fall and took more pictures. I think that the first trimester of pregnancy really slowed me down!

Carving the pumpkin for Halloween:
Playing in the rain:
Wrapped up as "presents":
Playing with a bunch of friends in the sandbox:
Just last week, we made clay and played with it for a while before letting our creations harden:


I was really glad when I opened my blogger account and there weren't "oak trees" growing here also. It's been a while since I've posted, but I already have so many pictures from the end of May and June to post. Check back later in the week for the pictures and stories that have been keeping us so busy.