Flying South

Today's been wild. We're leaving for Alabama tomorrow morning, and I''ve had a jillion last minute errands to run.

One of those errands involved buying Isaac new shoes. And because I put this off to the last minute, I had to go to the local village shoe store. This is kind of like going to Disney World for a hamburger. I should have 4 pair of shoes for the price I paid for one. And I don't even like the ones I had to get, but they were the only ones left in his size.

I didn't actually put it off to the last minute. I had gone to a department store two weeks ago. But it was the weekend, and I wasn't the only one there. After I waited on service for what seemed liked forever, my impatience got the best of me. I left in a huff, determined that I was not going to beg for someone to take my money. (For what it's worth, the guy at the village shoe store gave me his full attention, gave treats to the kids, memorized Isaac's name, and had a big smile on his face as he took my money. I think he was a used car salesman before, but he discovered that he could make more on commission from selling these shoes.)

Anyway, we're excited about our trip. I'll post some pictures when we get back!

On the Sidelines

Should I jump in?


They look like they might be having fun.


Hmmm....


Nope. Not on your life.

Hoppy Times

The excitement around here this weekend was when the girls rescued this little baby bunny from the cats and returned it to it's mama.

Isaac was still sleepy from his nap and didn't know what to make of it. He was surprisingly gentle.

School's Out, Summer's Here!

It's funny that the girls' last day of school was also the first official day of summer.

I can't believe that the school year is really over! It seems like just yesterday that I had to watch them ride away from me after they both insisted on riding their buses on the very first day. They were both so calm, and I was a nervous wreck.

Looking back, I'm so proud of them. They left a small private school where everybody knew them, and they knew everybody, to start over where everything and everybody was new. (They had never been on a school bus, never walked through a lunch line, never made their way through big, sprawling buildings, never had an unfamiliar teacher greet them on the first day.) But they jumped right in and adapted immediately.

Now, here we are with the whole year behind us.

Katherine is reading chapter books and writing stories. She has her "autograph book" filled with names and phone numbers of about 20 of her "best" friends. She has had a great teacher who made learning fun, and she is really excited about 2nd grade.

Dylan's cursive writing is better than mine. She knows all of her multiplication facts and has made lots of friends throughout the school and on the bus. She has had the sweetest 3rd grade teacher we could have hoped for, and she is looking forward to 4th grade, where she'll learn to play the clarinet and sing in the chorus.

I'm glad to have them home, and I'm going to try to enjoy every minute with them. I know it won't be long before we're running around stocking up on school supplies again!

Daddy's Day

Scott had the kind of Father's Day you have when your kids are young.

The girls, excited about the gift they'd gotten, woke him up at the crack of dawn. And when Isaac followed them downstairs to retrieve the gift, he found the car keys and pushed the alarm button. By the time we located him hiding in a corner with a big smile on his face, all the other neighbors were awake as well.

So much for sleeping in. Or sleeping out, for that matter. Scott's gift just happened to be a camping tent. If you know Scott, you know how much he enjoys camping, right? I'm sure the only action that tent will see will be in our backyard. For the moment, I'm loving the fact that I have Isaac to tend to. A toddler who must sleep inside the house. Under the roof. In a comfortable bed. Near his mother. I'll be waving happily to them from my perch inside my air conditioned home.

It could've been worse. They wanted to get him a dog.

Brrrrr....continued

It never got over 63 degrees here today.

Brrrrrrr!!!!

I heard that it reached 100 degrees in Mobile a couple of days ago. I can't believe it! We had to put on jackets to go to the bus stop this morning. It's breezy and in the 50's. And the high today is predicted to be 67 degrees! In mid-June! That's not right. I remember Christmases in Alabama that were warmer than that.

I guess Katherine had a point when she said, "Mama, you shouldn't be so cold-blooded."

Elmo's World

We spent a sunny day chasing the clouds away at Sesame Place.

Isaac rode his very first amusement park ride and played with giant blocks.

Katherine rode her first roller coaster and got Grover's autograph.

Dylan climbed a ball tower and found Oscar's trash can.

And Scott got hugged by Burt.

The Ultimate Betrayal

I'm not sure why we pay admission to go to the zoo. I can sit in my own home and look around. And it's free.

Yesterday, Isaac was in rare form. He ripped the curtains, rod and all, off the windows in the family room. When I rushed to see what the loud commotion was, he was crawling out from under the whole mess. He looked up at me, laughing, and said his own word for mess. "Miss!"

But what he did to me later was unforgivable.

I was weeding the front flower bed, happy that Isaac was entertaining himself with an earthworm. (When he helps me pull weeds, he pulls up everything in sight.) I went to take a drink of my Diet Pepsi, and felt a lump in my mouth.

Yep. He had been dropping worms into the can.

Everyday Tasks

I don't usually take the girls with me when I go grocery shopping. They hate it with a passion. But I did have to drag them along one day last week to grab a few quick items, and it didn't take me long to remember why I don't usually have them with me.

Not only did I I end up buying twice as much as I needed because they were sneaking things into the cart, but I got my heel crushed at least 10 times by Dylan.

But the worst part was when Katherine took Isaac over to the seafood counter to show him the lobster tank. When I heard him say, "Mmmm!", I turned to watch, in horror, as Katherine was scooping up that ice that holds all the dead fish parts and shoving it into her mouth. A whole handful. Isaac, of course, was already crunching his.

With the last day of school edging nearer, I'm starting to think that a few of those summer camps may not be a bad idea after all.

Welcome Summer!

Memorial Day weekend was a great kickoff to summer.

We ate watermelon, grilled out, and took a day trip to the Philadelphia Zoo.