Quote of the day...

Sam- "Mom, my body has a problem!"

"What's up?"

Sam- "My eyelashes are too long for my body!!"

Wish I had your problems, girl...

Double Diaper...

I'll bet you thought this post was about Ethan... It's not.

 "Hey, Mom!  We made a double diaper!!!"

They're creative, if nothing else...

It's On!

Our annual 4th of July party always starts with a water fight...  

 Somehow we ended up on "teams"... Here a few of us are advancing toward the enemy...

 And here we are being repelled by the enemy!

 All the wet folk.  (Thank goodness for other adults that are willing to have fun!)

 In past years we've done a silly string fight.  This year we tried something new...

A SHAVING CREAM fight.  It was spectacular!  It's cheaper than silly string and the fight lasted way longer.  Absolutely part of the tradition from now on!

It started a little small - not all the kids were sure about it...

It only took a few minutes to get all of them involved...

 And not too much longer than that to get most of the bystanders at least a little shaving creamy...

 After the fight, we had a little beauty salon...

The tricky part was getting everyone clean again...  It's a really cold shower in the hose...  But not one child (or adult) cried...  We also filled water balloons with shaving cream.  Awesome.  Such a fun time!  I'm probably going to do another one later in the summer...

Proud to be an American...

This will have to be split into 2 posts... I'm missing pictures from our party, so these are from our pre-party fun. :)

All protected to tie-dye our annual Independence Day shirts.  The Aurich family joined us this year...

 Our ward did a breakfast and it was only a mile and a half away, so rather than hauling the bikes for the parade - we rode them there

 And kind of made our own parade.  We had 7 kids and 2 adults all stretched out down the street.  And my bike had a huge flag flying from the baby carrier so we got lots of honks and waves.  It was a fun ride. 

 Gotta paint faces!

 Alix and Erin and their friend McKenna in the middle

 My 2 handsome fellas.  We spray painted Ethan's mow-hawk red, but it doesn't really show in the picture.

 Brooke's awesome helmet deserves it's own picture

 bike parade fun...  Erin

 Brooke and Izzie

Tom riding Ethan around the parade on my bike

 Alix

 Sam

God bless America!  Land that I love!!

Curb Tubs...

We live in Washington.  It drizzles.  A lot.  But sometimes we get lucky and it RAINS.  Hard.  This sends my family running out the door.  Pretty much regardless of whatever else we were doing.  We have a system for what happens next...

- grab all the towels you can find in a really, really big hurry...

- grab the custom cut, plastic drain covers your dad made for you...

- cover both drains in our little circle with the plastic...

- hold plastic sheeting down with now sopping wet towels...

- proceed to play in your new "curb tub"...

Early in the storm - enough water for splashing

 and bathing... 

 Later on in the storm?  We got enough rain captured to skim board!

Who needs the beach?

3 bath kind of day...

Jawbreaker for breakfast

 Sand...

 and snot for lunch

and an Oreo for a snack....

It's A Sister Thing

Ethan is going to be a patient, patient man.  Or he's going to snap.  It really could go either way...

The girls dress him up in their running clothes.  

 They make him a soccer player...

 Alix steals his pajamas...

Alix shares her pajamas...

Brooke does his hair...

 Sam lugs him all around...

They make him play mad scientist...

Even early on - they accessorized him in pink fur...

But on the other hand...

Sam helps him in the shopping cart.

 He gets awesome snuggles.

 Erin plays with him

 Brooke lets him hang out

The twins play with him

 And Sam teaches him to dance.

He is a well-loved, well-tortured little boy...