Curtis and Jane Lillie

Jane and Curtis have been in town visiting family this week (they live in Cal.), and they came over last night to visit and learn to play our new favorite game, Settlers of Catan. It's always good to see you guys! Thanks for coming over.

(Greg really isn't that much bigger than the rest of us. It's just that Kari took the photo and was standing too close to Greg.)

Playing Catan. It really is the best game. I think we got 'em hooked. Anyone else want to play?

Pool Time

Yesterday we had our first swim of the season at G&G Moffat's pool. It sure was nice! Kari pretty much picked up where she left off with her swimming skills last year. By the end of the evening she was swimming all over the pool with her water wings. Joel took a little longer to warm up to the pool, and after about a half hour, he was done. He played outside the pool for most of the evening.

Helping Mom

While I was unloading groceries and talking on the phone today, I wasn't paying attention to what was going on in this corner of the kitchen. I got off the phone and saw that Joel cleaned out the bottom shelf of the pantry for me.

Going back in for more

Enjoying a choice morsel from the very back of the cupboard. (I really did need to clean that shelf.)

Do you love me?

A frequent exchange with Kari lately:

Kari: "Mommy, do you love me?"
Me: "Yes, Kari Lynn, I love you very much."
Kari: "I love you, too. That's a nice thing to say."

Backyard Splash Park

I highly recommend this sprinkler beach ball. It's great for little kids and bigger kids, and just like any sprinkler, you can adjust the intensity of the water spray.

For some reason we didn't put Joel in his swim trucks (laziness, I guess?), so we took his clothing off piece by piece as it got soaked. I couldn't post the birthday suit photos, but some of them were awfully cute. Kari and Joel had a lot of fun playing in the water together and with Daddy. I can see many summer days of sprinkler ball fun ahead of us.

Water Fun

Yesterday we met up with a bunch of other moms at Blue Lake to play at the Splash Park.

At first they weren't sure what to do with all this water spraying in their faces. After a short adjustment period, they got the hang of it.

I got in on the fun, too.
(and no, I'm not pregnant in this photo--just had some bad posture)

Joel probably had the most fun out of all of us. Aren't his shorts great? :) Joel and Aidan, the little friend next to him, were out there the longest.

It was a little chilly once you got wet, so Kari and Kenneth ended up on the side in their towels for quite a while. They'd get warm, go back in, and then go wrap up in the towels again.

Aidan and Joel still at it.

Happy 1/2 Birthday!

Yesterday we celebrated Kari and Joel's half-birthdays. I've always wanted to do this for my kids, and since they both have winter birthdays a month apart, I decided we'd have a summer party. Don't worry, we didn't invite anyone else. :) It was just our little family of four. We got to sing Joel's favorite song ("happy birthday") many times, which he was excited about, and Kari was absolutely ecstatic about everything. I may try to post some video later. She was pretty funny.

Opening presents--outside summer toys.

Joel's holding pieces to their soccer net ($2.50 at Target--we didn't break the bank on this 1/2 birthday).

Testing out the new toys.

Messy house--Not so bad

I've been talking with some other moms of small children, and we all seem to be fighting the same housecleaning battles and the guilt that goes along with it. We have a book study group here at our house on Wednesday nights, and that's when this subject came up. Our house gets clean on Wednesdays (one of the reasons I really like hosting), but I thought I'd post a photo of what our house usually looks like. This is the reality. When we have people over, our house doesn't look like this, but it's because we pick up and clean before they come. If you just stopped by our house on any given day, this is what you'd most likely see.

As I was taking the previous two pictures (during nap time), I wondered how long it would actually take me to clean up this mess, so I timed myself--9 minutes. Nine minutes! That's not so bad! Of course, after nap time it will revert to it's messy state, but it made me feel good knowing it could be clean again in nine minutes.

That toy box from IKEA was one of the best household purchases we've ever made. (Thanks for hauling it down here for us, Eric and Leah!) Just throw it all in and cart the big things to the kids' rooms. It's great.

Nearly Impossible Task

For all of you gardeners--how do you stay on top of the weeds in your garden? Is there a special trick or secret method? Last week I successfully weeded half of my garden, and I was very proud of my efforts and the results. Unfortunately, I have the other half still to go, and today I saw more weeds creeping up on the weeded side. Kari inspired this post. She got a hold of the camera, and as I was downloading other pictures I took, I saw these.

The unweeded side

The beautiful weed-free side

Photo of a flower Kari helped me plant along the walkway

Another photo of a flower Kari helped me plant along the walkway. We planted 12 of them, and she took a picture of every single one. Aunt Emily painted her toenails for her two weeks ago, and Kari is still very excited about her pink toenails.

Sticky Sibling Love

The kids were cracking me up at breakfast this morning. They're interacting a more and more each day, and they can be so silly together.
Top row: "wild-girl" Kari, Just eating pancakes together, Gleeful Joel.
Middle Row: Sticky syrup hands--"Help, please!", "All-done!", whispering sweet nothings
Bottom Row: my favorite one of the morning--happy siblings having fun, "Hold still while I'm whispering to you, Joel!", OK, Joel's had enough fun

Fence Weekend

This last weekend was pretty much devoted to working on the back fence. A huge section of our rotting fence blew down during the first storm last fall, so we had to tear it all down, dig out the fence posts which were in concrete, and put up the new fence. It's a project we've been dreading, but with the help of brothers and Dad M., we are now 2/3 of the way done. Thanks everyone for your hard work!

Kari ran around the backyard expending lots of energy while Daddy and Grandpa worked yesterday afternoon.

She's "freezing" for the camera.

The right side of the fence is the new section. They actually got more of it up after I took this picture. The left side is the part we still have to tear down. It's a different neighbor (our back fence spans two neighbors' properties), with a dog who likes to run away, so we're saving that section for next weekend. It's going to be so nice to be able to let the kids run around in the back yard again without worrying about them getting out or others getting in.

So many words

For the last couple weeks, Kari has been helping me create a list of words that Joel can say and that we can recognize. We have to add words to our list every day now.

Here's what we've got so far:

Joel's 16 Month Word List

1. happy birthday (his first phrase)
2. bird
3. please
4. thank you
5. truck
6. Nana (Kari’s doll)
7. mama
8. dadda
9. grandma
10. grandpa
11. apple
12. juice
13. milk
14. outside
15. shoes
16. b-bye
17. hi
18. hello
19. bless you
20. no
21. yes
22. socks
23. ball
24. all done
25. binky
26. up
27. down
28. hot
29. cracker
30. hat
31. bubbles
32. nigh-night
33. yuck
34. bath
35. bounce
36. ouch!
37. arm
38. poop
39. blocks
40. ears
41. cheese
42. oops

Not Again!

Guess who cut her hair AGAIN? Yes, that would be Kari Lynn. It's not nearly as bad this time, only one chunk in the front and not all the way to her scalp, but ooooooh, she's in trouble.

She's only had access to the scissors for one day. Didn't take long. Bye-bye, scissors.

We had a fun weekend at our all-church retreat. I didn't take any pictures, but it was great--tiring with two small children, but great. We're all recuperating today.