Crazy Cute Kids

Okay, so every mom has the right to think that they have the cutest kid(s) ever. And, I'm certainly not exempt from this rule. Before church this morning my little ones were visited by the neighbors beautiful white cat. They were so impressed with this white kitty that they followed it outside and spent a good 10 minutes trying to decide what they could call it. Despite the fact that I told them the kitty wasn't ours, names suggested were: Marshmallow, Sarafina, Mr. Giggles (?), Puffy, and Robot or Nemo (Both Brogan's contributions). There were several others but my mind struggles to recall them all. One would have thought that my children had never seen a cat before. When they asked for their own kitty (it was inevitable) I had to tell tem that we couldn't have a kitty now because kitty's don't like to share space and if we got a kitty, the neighbors kitty and our kitty would fight. Remarkably my kids accepted this explanation without argument or debate. Anyway, the cat, as I mentioned, was all white. Of course the kids were all dressed in dark blue. I was pulling little white hairs off their clothes the rest of the day. That was enough to convince me...no cats. No shedding pets for that matter. I know...a cruel thing to determine. I've heard the arguments that are "pro-pet" but I'm not gonna buy it. The kids will grow up well adjusted even if they DON'T have a furry animal to call their own. Besides, we can simply adopt the neighbors cat and all the local wild life. The girls think they have several pet squirrels and chipmunks already. The neighbors cat can visit anytime, especially if it goes home after each visit. The best of both worlds. Anyway, I snapped a couple of pictures. Sadly, the white cat isn't in any of them. And I do think I have the cutest kids ever.

calling all mermaids and pirates....

We've made a discovery. Birthday parties are WAY easier if someone else is worrying about the clean-up, the entertainment, and the food. With these things in mind we decided to rent one of the local hotel pools. 13 swimmers, 4 pizzas, 2 liters of soda and one very happy Birthday girl later, we are pretty sure we made the right choice. All the craziness was worth all the smiles...and even the headache that refused to budge despite medication. Cassidy had a wonderful time. We hope all her friends did too. And, we hope the parents benefited from some sleepy little ones that evening. We sure did. Happy Birthday CASSIDY!

Finally....it came too soon.

Today was the first day of school for Cass and KK. Both girls are SO excited. (As are we.) Cass just walked right into her classroom. This transition is made easy for her by the fact that she has been with the same group of kids since Kindergarten (they go to a very small school with only 1 class per grade) and that her teacher is actually a member of the primary presidency (!!!). She didn't even blink when Kayla and I walked away to check her into her classroom. Kayla hopped down the hallway (seriously excited) and right into her class room announcing to everyone that she was here. We put her backpack away, lunch in the class basket and then I escorted her to the playground. She was thrilled and went to run away...I was so proud of her (and myself as the tears seemed to be absent)....and then she stopped running away, turned around and came rushing back to me with her arms open wide. She gave me a big hug and a kiss (my eyes started to well up) and then she put her little hands on my cheeks and said, "Don't worry mommy. I'm going to be fine and I'll tell you all about it when I come home." Then a quick pat-pat on my cheeks and she was gone. Those tears that welled began to shamelessly fall as I stood there watching my tiny little one acting SO BIG. I looked around and found myself in good company as several other moms were experiencing this right of passage with their own little ones.


I came home with a few minutes to spare before heading into my office. I had left Brogan home with Brian (faculty meetings start Sept 2nd and students arrive Sept 8th) who was "babysitting" the boy. Here is what I found:

We think Brogan will have the hardest time adjusting to not having his sisters around all day. He spent the entire day stuck to Brian's side wanting to be held and snuggled. He walked around the house calling for his sisters and anxiously awaited their return. Which was a very happy reunion....for a few minutes.

Cass turns 7!

We wanted to take a moment to recognize our Queen for the Day. Cassidy turned 7 today. There was one fleeting moment when I sat back and looked at her and could still see the bald little round headed baby looking back at me. But she's certainly not our baby anymore. She is growing into an amazing little individual with interests that are all her own. Specifically she loves horses and astronomy/science related things. Neither Brian or I excelled in the science department so we can only conclude that this is not genetic (although her grandfather and aunt ARE both in the medical field, so who knows?). For her birthday this year we went Candle Pin bowling and then out to eat at the restaurant of her choice "T.G.I. Friday's". (We think it is because we went there LAST year and she remembers them singing to her and bringing her a sundae with a candle.)

Her big gift this year was her very own telescope, a solar system mobile, sticker glow-in-the-dark stars and a checker board (she LOVES checkers right now and is asking to learn to play chess). We look forward to future late nights of star gazing, playing checkers (and eventually chess) and listening to her educate Kayla on planets and stars when they should be sleeping. Cass, we LOVE you so very much and are so grateful that you are a princess in our family. Happy Birthday pretty girl! (Note: her birthday party with friends will be on Saturday, so there will be more to post then.)

Happy Birthday BZR!

It's 1:00am on August 14, 2009. Today, Brian turns 35...and still looks like he is 18 (maybe, he might still pass for 17). We want him to know that we think he is the best dad EVER, and the most amazing husband. We are so lucky. Happy Birthday Brian! WE LOVE YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!

Just look at this little face!

SOOOO CUTE! This is his "CHEESE" face.

Tooth Fairy, where are you?

KK has lost her first 2 teeth (the bottom ones) within weeks of each other. Just like Cass, her first one fell out at church during primary. I was cheated BOTH times and missed the experience all together. Her second one fell out EARLY this morning...she had to wake me up to tell me about it. Looks like the tooth fairy will be visiting our little one tonight. Our tooth fairy is magic and manages to turn the teeth into gold Susan B. Anthony dollar coins. The girls were skeptical of the tooth fairy's ability to carry around all those gold coins. They reasoned out that it would be too heavy and collecting all the teeth would make it even more heavy. So the obvious answer was that the tooth fairy uses her magic wand to turn the tooth into a coin. Clever.

Do Your Chores Boy!

Brogan loves to help out.

Oh, what do you do in the Summer Time?

We swim in the lake, ride in the tube, and water ski all day (see Cass in yellow, KK in blue life jackets)...eat smores, swim some more, enjoy the camp fire, visit with family (see Uncle Jack?) and just generally relax and hang out. Lots of reading, playing games, singing karaoke, working on our Wii bowling game (the purchase of the Resort Games has now added sword fighting, jousting, arrow shooting and "fancy" bowling to the list), play pool, build with legos (entire cities of legos, that are rapidly and thoroughly destroyed by The Boy Wonder who we lovingly refer to as "crasher" now), watch TV, ride in the boat, jet ski, and make daily trips over to our Lake House to watch the Oh-S0-Slow progress and see just how much work really was done. Enjoy the images thus far of just a few of these activities....














Where the MAGIC all happens....

A rare Adirondack find...

So Lori is crazy about Loons. She is always seeing them on the lake. Well, after going over to check out the progress on our place, we were driving back and suddenly she squeals...."A Loon! NO, wait....TWO LOONS! You NEVER see that!". Of course we had to creep around them (difficult to do in a power boat with 3 children) to try and get some good pictures. We couldn't get too very close, and this is the best we could come up with. You probably can't tell they are Loons, but, trust us...and Lori...they are!
So, this one's for you Lori. P.S. This is our 150th post!