The First Day of School

Here is a picture of Drew on her first day of first grade. She's so big. Things are going good so far. She seems to have adjusted just fine, and she's really excited that she has a science book this year. Apparently it has some pretty neat pictures. These are also some pictures that she's drawn recently. She made the rainbow all by herself without having to ask what order the colors go in. I was impressed with that. Evan and Alli will be starting in less than a month at their pre-school, which I have mixed feelings about. I have some things I have to get done with my school, like observations and student teaching, so it'll be nice to have an automatic babysitter, but it kills me to think about how old they are. They're excited, though. It took us forever to convince Evan that he was going to school this year. He kept insisting that girls go to school and boys go to work. I guess that's what he sees at home with me in school. Now he says he's going to Alli's school, though. Maybe he'll get it when he sees other boys in his class.

Gatlinburg Trip

This past weekend we went to Gatlinburg with the entire Clark family for Andy's grandmother's 80th birthday. We all stayed in one big house together. These are some pictures from the trip. We walked around and looked at things and rode some rides. Me and Andy and Andy's dad all subjected ourselves to bumper boats so the kids could ride and we got absolutely soaked. At one point I finally had to scream that I was losing my contact so people would quit squirting me in the face, but I found it rolling around in my eye. That ended up being about the funnest thing we did. I laughed so hard. The kids heard about this haunted house that was there, so we had to go check it out. It ended up being a real haunted house. Not real as in real ghosts or anything, but quite a bit scarier than the Haunted Mansion at Disney World. Evan and Alli wouldn't even walk in the driveway, so I sat at the end of the driveway with them. Drew made it up to the hurse sitting in the driveway with Andy before she started crying, and then one of the other little cousins made it to the porch with Andy's dad before she changed her mind. This picture of Evan crying is actually him trying his best to smile while we were waiting for the rest of them to chicken out. I have to admit I was a little scared myself. And, the picture placement on this is kind of out of order because the Blogger website keeps flipping out when I try to move them around, so I give up.

Drew's Birthday

When we asked Drew what she wanted to do for her birthday, she said that she wanted to go to a restaurant where they would sing Happy Birthday to her and then go to the movies to see Monster House, so that's what we did. We had a great time. These are some pictures of her with the birthday cake that we got for the actual day of her birthday. We couldn't do the other stuff until the following Friday when the movie came out. The movie was a bit scarey, though. It was funny to watch it with them. Alli jumped several times, but Drew likes that kind of scarey stuff.

Side Walk Painting

Here's another neat-o gift from Aunt Cindy.  She brought the kids sidewalk paint, which is way better than the chalk.  I mean, you can't smush chalk between your fingers and toes and smear it on the ground.  The kids had so much fun, though.  In order start from top to bottom.

Drew the Master Chef

My Aunt Cindy is here this weekend visiting, and she brought some pretty nifty gifts for the kids. She brought Drew this really neat Emeril cooking set, which has little tiny kid size cooking untensils that you can actually cook with. So, as soon as we got home Drew had her heart set on cooking something for her daddy. We pulled out the muffin mix and she baked her own little tiny muffins. She was so proud, and absolutely adorable in her outfit!

The 4th of July

Here are our pictures of the 4th of July...finally! I took all kinds of great video with my other camera, but all I had in it was the disc and no memory stick. So, today all we have is pictures. Anyways, we got together with my side of the family, the husbands, boyfriends, and other friends. We had a pretty big group. We took the kids bikes and let them ride around while we cooked and sat around and talked waiting for the fireworks. The kids loved the fireworks. Most of the afternoon, Evan was expecting fire trucks. Andy took his little grill and we had hamburgers and hotdogs. It rained for a while, so a lot of our time was spent under the awning we brought, which Andy tied a tarp to and then put the other end in Erin's car door. We didn't have anything to stake it down with. You can see Evan under the tarp and the places where it's sagging from being full of water. We also did sparklers at the end, which was great, until it starting pouring again. I think the cosmic forces had the rain stop just long enough for the fireworks. It was a pretty fun afternoon and evening, though.

Today we went to the spray park. We try to go about once a week just to get out of the house. I love it as much as the kids. It's fenced in, and there's not much chance of anyone drowning, so I can pretty much relax while the kids run around like crazy and get all their energy out. We usually take lunch and hang out for a couple of hours. You can tell from the videos that it gets much more exciting as more kids arrive. By the time we left, I think there were 2 bus-loads of camp kids from the YMCA. By that point I was having a hard time keeping an eye on everyone. In the crowd of kids, Drew and Alli are in pink swim suits and Evan's in red shorts.

Here's more of the playroom.  I guess these need to be read in reverse order to make sense.  Anyways, more of the kids playing and showing off toys.  Evan left out Spiderman in the last one.

By the time I got done videoing Drew, things started going down hill.  Everyone started getting really tired and cranky, so my swimming pool footage is limited.  I videoed the kids in the playroom after some good, long naps, though.  This is Evan showing off all of his scarey toys.  King Kong is his absolute favorite.  His leg broke a long time ago, so we had it put back on with lots and lots of electrical tape, which worked great because the black blended perfectly. The tape wore out soon after, though, so it's now drilled into the body.  It doesn't bend any more, but it doesn't fall off, which is the important thing. 

Sorry it's been soooo long since my last post.  You know how life is.  Today we went swimming with Andy's mom and Drew got to show off some of her skills.  She swims really well under water.  She's still learning to master the above-water dog paddle, though, so that keeps her trapped in the shallow end unless she's willing to break down and wear the arm swimmies. 

For some reason Evan is somewhat obsessed with bugs, even though he's scared to death of most of them.  He loves to interrupt a peaceful ant pile, but then freaks out when they're suddenly after him, and he acts like he doesn't understand what their problem is.  He's developing a respect for them, though, as you'll see in this video when he thinks the centipede (or maybe millipede) is going to bite him.

I tried to take some videos of Drew riding her bike, but she really has a hard time in our driveway.  There's too much of a slope, so when she's headed down she picks up so much momentum that it scares her, and then she isn't quite strong enough to pedal back up the hill.  She does great at Andy's dad's house where their driveway is really big and mostly flat, but it's such a battle for her at our house. 

Alli specifically asked me to video her dancing, so I had to.  Apparently, though, she's been taking lessons at the Elaine Bennis (from Seinfeld) school of dance.  She sure is proud of her abilities!

Today we went down to my mom's to swim at her neighborhood pool. The kids were so excited. Evan kept saying we were going to the beach. Drew, as usual, was a little fish. She's always loved swimming. Evan and Alli were much more cautious. Evan spent most of the day throwing things in the pool and then whining because they were in the pool and he couldn't get them. Alli really wanted to be in the pool, but she was just so nervous. When I was in there with her she squeezed me to death, but I eventually got her to only hold my hands and float. Evan wouldn't stay in long enough to get used to it. There were too many things laying around to throw.