Getting the Mail

Lately, Abby has been asking to get the mail.  So, we let her go get it on her own.  Today, she wanted to go through it with me.  I told her it looked like mostly junk mail.  I put two pieces of mail aside, and told her those were "bills."

We went through the rest of it, and she asked if it was all junk.  I said, "yeah, it's mostly just junk mail."  She replied, "except for those dollar bills!" (pointing to the pile of bills).

She then looked through them looking for dollar bills.  She was very unimpressed.

Mom, It's the little rock not the big rock, right?

A few months ago I decided the kids need to visit Little Rock, Arkansas to see my grandparents Jim and Pat. Back in college I spent a summer living with them and I wanted the kids to see their home. When we were talking about the trip, Noah kept asking me if we were going to the little rock or the big rock.

We made the six hour drive down on a Tuesday. When we got in it was late, almost 8pm which for my kids is like midnight but they were very excited to play with their great-grandparents.

It was chilly the first day there, but Jim really wanted to take us to a nearby park where he had helped design a memorial for those that had served and are serving. I love this picture of the three of them in the woods.

This is the memorial.

That afternoon Pat wanted to take the kids to this indoor bounce house, the kids had a blast. My cousin, Jessica, came with her boyfriend and her two boys Parker and Noah. Parker is just 2 years old but he kept up with the big kids.

They did make it through that tiny opening.

The three amegios.

The next morning we took the kids to the Little Rock Children's Museum. The kids had a great time trying out all sorts of different exhibits - one of their favorite characters Sid the Science Kid was there so they got a picture with him as well.

Noah didn't want to get too close. He was very nervous about how large he was. He was squeezing Abby's hand the whole time.

I'm sure Abby was figuring out how the tornado was formed and all Noah wanted to do was destroy it.

While we were there, the local PBS station was looking for volunteers to read the Gettysburg address on camera to promote an upcoming documentary from Ken Burns. I volunteered Jim and he went for it. It was pretty cool.

So by Thursday night Abby was pretty sick, her asthma was flaring up and her allergies were really bad. We stayed in Thursday night and left early Friday so I could get Abby home to the doctor. Thankfully I had packed her neubulizer so we did have some treatments to give her before she saw the doctor. Despite her illness we had a great trip.

Our Baby is turning 3

I can't believe our baby boy is going to be 3 next week. This little man is a ham bone through and through. He is always "sending us to Walmart." He's got the potty done pat these days and he's writing his name, also writing Mom, Dad and the start of Abby.
He is asking that we skip singing "Happy Birthday" at his upcoming party and that we don't take any pictures.
The party started earlier this week when his present from Grams arrived, he was so excited.

 He's first Ninja Turtle book and there are little action figures inside that he carries around in his pockets.

 Grams also made him a new fullsize Robot quilt. It's awesome you can tell he is one happy kiddo.

Olympic Training

We've been letting the kids watch a lot of olympics and they've decided they are going to be Olympians not really sure what event this is so let's just call it training.

Pain in the Butt

Last night while jumping on the trampoline Abby got an attitude with Noah. Abby is very much the oldest sibling i.e. she's bossy. And last night she was laying it on thick with Noah. Telling him where to stand, how to bounce, when to bounce - the list goes on. Anyway I told her to stop, she didn't so I sent her upstairs. She was mad and Noah had to add his two cents as she was walking up the stairs.
"Mama, Abby is a pain in the butt"
Oh how hard it was not to laugh. He's just calling it like he sees it. I reminded him it's not nice to use those words and he said "ok, what about goodness gracious."
I told him that was better.

The Dirt Pile

We got 6 tandem dump truck loads of dirt delivered from a local pool installer.  We're putting it in the back of the yard to build it up a little bit.  This will insulate us a bit from the road noise and make the backyard more usable.  The only problem is that we couldn't get the truck back there to dump it.  Therefore we had to have them dump it in the side yard and I have to move it back by wheelbarrow.  It's probably about 60-70 yards worth.

The kids love the dirt:

You can only see two of the six loads in this picture:

The dirt pile has kept them (especially Abby) entertained for more than a few hours.

It's hard to get an idea of scale, but this pile is BIG.

And the work begins.

First wheelbarrow of many.  I have estimated it will take around 450-500 wheelbarrow loads.  Each wheelbarrow has an average of 34 shovels of dirt.  Yes, I have done all the math....a man has a lot of time to think shoveling that much dirt.  That's about 16,000 shovel-fulls of dirt.

I'm currently about 2/3 finished.  I've basically cut a huge path through the middle and one side.  There's only about 1.5 of the original piles left.  I'm waiting for warmer weather to finish.  Here's what it looks like today:

Abby the superhero!